this doctor, this surgeon
and left me on the table
to wipe the sweat from
his brow. He wasn't able to

remove the tumor now. He jumped
at the size. Rumor is his body
paralyzed. His legs Jello, far from
the mellow man walking in dockers,

sporting a tan. His hands trembling
as the ground in an earthquake,
far from the bloke kayaking
on Swan Lake. And I bled out red,

a trout prepped for the meal,
with a sprig of thyme and
a slice of lemon in her mouth
left on a table of steel.

like him to suffer,
ride a colliding train
without a buffer.
I'd like him to roast

as a pig
over a firepit,
revolving til charred,
pierced with a spit. I'd like

his bed as a wooden rack. And
his limbs pulled tight with
a rope till they detach. Whip
his back like whites of

an egg till he screams
and he begs. Pull his eyes
out of the sockets. Dump scorpions
in both his shirt pockets. And even so

after all of this
it doesn’t come close
to all that he did.

a rounded pebble stuck in
the groove of your red Nike
sneakers. You can't shake
off. You walk with it rolling

in your socks. Stabbing into
your sole, leaving a hole.
She's sound pounding in your
head from two hundred watt

speakers. The flammable,
bubbling liquid poured inside the
beakers of your lab. She's the gin and
tonics you drank and the tab! She's ricotta

cheese in the ravioli. You can't see
her till you break into her slowly.
She's burning you like indigestion.
Something you accept and do not question.

just a face
of crimson cheeks
and painted lips
that seldom speak
wearing thick spider lashes
that flashes a smile?
And when it's washed off
it hangs on cloth
the painted guile.

Am I
just a body
of bouncing *******
pressed in a tight sweater
with legs dressed in black leather
wearing red stilettos
like white trash from the ghetto?

Am I
just a child
underneath my clothes
that strikes a pose for men
and weeps with paper and pen
in lines I rhyme and send?

on paper like a painter
with his brush. He crushed out
the lines till they were fine chestnut
powder that he sprinkled on me
like chocolate shavings on whipped cream.

He talked
on air like a dewdrop
on a blade of grass. It just rolled
off his lips in drips that pooled
in puddle on the floor. And he slipped
on it heading out the door.

He talked
over me like a breeze blowing
a **** on a weathervane. I swirled
in colored circles on the plane. And he
dipped like a chip in the salsa, as I floated
on it like a piece of balsa.

He talked
on and on like a recorder
as I flung like a fugitive over
the border to a quiet land to hear
the butterflies. And I skipped in fields
of dandelions.

wet and newly hatched
after scratching to break out of the blue-
green shell can't go back once it's cracked
into the walls she felt safe and well. Pushed out

of the twigs and grass of nest
before her little wings can fly. We're all
born to die. This world is big and scary with
creatures sharp and hairy waiting to gobble her

skin, bones and all. And spit her out
in pellets like overzealous zealots. She can't
crawl back inside the shell. It fell from
the tree and broke into pieces. Just like feces

it stinks in the air and light. And beady-eyed
clawed feet roam the grounds at night
searching for a spotted bobbing robin with
wings held down so tight.

He was supposed to help me,
not help himself to me.
Supposed to show me
how to help myself,
not help myself to his body.
He was supposed to listen to me,
not the sound of his gaudy voice.

I was supposed to leave healed,
not broken pieces sealed in an envelope,
after pushing the bounds down the slippery *****.
It was supposed to last a few months,
not sixteen years.
It was supposed to cost me in dollars -
not a life spent in squalor and tears.