You may have to think hard
to remember
boredom,
that lay on the couch,
curl up with a good book
lapse into nothingness
way of existing.

Ahhh...

Drink cocoa
slow.
Lick marshmallowy foam
off your lips.
Expect nothing
more than the turn
of another page.

Ahhh…

Let quietness seep
in with breaths
deep and warming,
a hot mug to your cheek.

Linger.
Let only decadent words
pour from your mouth
when silent reading
can not be done.

Ahhh…

I will admit
to overdosing them
with sweet beguiling
slippery softener
‘till dead at my feet
they can rise
no more.

Yet they cling to me
as they can
with a ghastly
screaming need
for me to pull
them up.

Yes, once
I had a pair of normal socks.

My grandmother is old.

This was not always the case. When I was small, she would pack up my things for me and take me to Canada, to Georgia and to the beach. She only ever smacked my hand one time and she never yelled at me. And in the morning, she made me breakfast just how I liked it.

Now she can’t lift a saucepan without trouble.

I find myself wondering strange things about her now: How does she fold her fitted sheets so perfectly?  What does she do to make her sweet potatoes so large?  How did she get so many blooms on her rosebush? Why do her eggs taste so much better than mine?

I don’t ask her these questions. It feels wrong to.

Instead, when I wake in the morning, I will walk to her room across the hall and stoop low enough to hug her with my head resting on her shoulder. Her skin will smell like Lever soap and some jasmine based perfume. I will ask her if she would make the eggs since her’s taste so much better than mine.

She’ll ask if I want her to show me how to make them.

I will say no.

My mouth waters at the thought of you.
Like some ***** in heat,
I am common and lewd.
I long to taste the shell of your ear
And bruise you in your most intimate places.

I remember when I slipped in,
Like a hazy shadow in the evening’s glow
Of a darkened hall and your bedroom’s light.

You looked of some unearthly perfection to me.

Like some lounging pagan god
On a throne of down pillows
And cotton blue blankets.

And how your eyes looked at me that night!

It was as if you saw something other than
The flawed coffee colored flesh
And awkward hanging of nervous limbs.

Like I was beautiful.

And I remember I could feel it.
Everywhere your eyes rested,
I could feel heat and something pushing beneath my skin-
My body transforming into the splendor you believed me to possess.

And when your eyes traveled to my face-
(Up, past my dipping navel
Through a valley of soft, heavy *******,
Meandering in the hollow of my collar bone until
Rushing up the column of my neck)
- All I could see in you was love;
Heavy and warm and sweet,
Like humid summer air after a rainstorm.

I remember that suddenly,
I wanted nothing but to be naked before you.

I wanted to strip myself bare,
Show you all the hidden parts of me.
Let your eyes rove over the ugly blood and meat of me,
And watch your face as you discovered some piece of beauty visible only to you.

I have never wanted to be loved as much as I did in that moment.

And so,
When you looked at me that night,
And mouthed your prayers and devotion across my shoulder blades,
I gave myself up to you wholly.

And I marveled at the way I ripened to your touch;
I felt myself swell almost to bursting,
And my kisses were slow and heavy and sweet.

Love,
That night I took off my skin for you,
Thick and tough as orange peels.

Did the layer underneath, taste of citrus to you?

Hard to love you these days.
Hard to swallow ‘round the jagged edges of rejection, lead heavy and burning in throat and belly.
Hard to give and give into the hollow spaces of you where only simple affection lives.
Harder still, to not give at all.

I packed up my childhood
In a heavy wooden trunk
And hid it where no one could find it.

I thought that I could save it,
Take it out later,
And wear it again like my favorite coat.

But When they were taking me in the police car,
Packed in so tightly against the others-
Like sardines or slaves on a ship-
I lost my key as they dragged me from my mother’s home.

I am older now
And I still cannot find it.
And the trunk is too heavy to break.

I think of my childhood,
Alone in the stifling dark,
I hear it scuttling about sometimes.
And I want to cry.