"curveless" poems
Flesh is heretic.
My body is a witch.
I am burning it.
Yes I am torching
ber curves and paps and wiles.
They scorch in my self denials.
How she meshed my head
in the half-truths
of her fevers
till I renounced
milk and honey
and the taste of lunch.
I vomited
her hungers.
Now the ***** is burning.
I am starved and curveless.
I am skin and bone.
She has learned her lesson.
Thin as a rib
I turn in sleep.
My dreams probe
a claustrophobia
a sensuous enclosure.
How warm it was and wide
once by a warm drum,
once by the song of his breath
and in his sleeping side.
Only a little more,
only a few more days
sinless, foodless,
I will slip
back into him again
as if I had never been away.
Caged so
I will grow
angular and holy
past pain,
keeping his heart
such company
as will make me forget
in a small space
the fall
into forked dark,
into python needs
heaving to hips and *******
and lips and heat
and sweat and fat and greed.
17.2k
there was a vase.
it was nothing special.
not very pretty
to look at.
it sat on a shelf
in a window.
it was behind
another vase, though.
the vase in front was
dustless and beautiful.
the vase in front had
flowers in it.
the ugly vase
sat for years
behind the lovely
vase.
the lovely vase had
everything and more.
elegant curves,
tasteful colors.
it was so beautiful
no one looked at
the curveless,
off white vase
behind it.
one day a child
ran through the
store.
the table by the window
was bumped
and the ugly vase
fell.
it shattered into
needle thin shards
and eventually swept
away.
the lovely vase
was bought that
day.
Aug 23, 2012
Aug 23, 2012 at 12:37 AM UTC
When they look at my body,
they giggle between their teeth that are crooked but they call them curved. They perceive how curveless I look
and tell me to perform yoga
so that my curves can be defined,
so that I can shape my convexes and concaves.
I smile as bright as I can because probably those are my only visible curves.
I tell them how every time I sit to write
my pen curves on the pages
that are thumbed on the corners
so they seem curved too.
I begin by writing the first letter of the English language
and make slopes and valleys of this alphabet.
I form serpentines and swirling cyclones of my words,
I curve my 'S' to form into an infinity
so that I can hold on to him for as long.
I stretch my 'K' until the end of the earth
and make it look like a single leg shoulder stand.
And as I take all my alphabets,
I turn them from staff position to the plough position.
I make my words turn into Paschimotasna,
and my noun tries to perform Kundali.
My pronouns sit in vajrasana.
My similies stress themselves and flex,
while my metaphors curl into themselves and hide as Marichyasana.
When I am done,
my poems form themselves into Pindasana.
However,
I remain coverless,
as straight and sharp as the pen I use.
I remain 'Arjuna's' bow
so he directs me into my own self,
my own heritage
and I end up killing my Bhishma,
my self-respect.
Hence while my words perform yogasana,
I stand still in tadasana.
Jun 21, 2020
Jun 21, 2020 at 1:24 AM UTC
Real life isn't always perfection
Often it's nervously bitten digits and cracked nail polish.
Real life isn't always photogenic
Mostly it's oily faces and adolescent outbreaks.
Real life isn't perfumed or pretty
Sometimes it's pit stains and bad hair days.
Real life isn't a page in a glossy magazine
Airbrushed and edited to curveless perfection.
Real life isn't about salads and diet coke
It's more like ice cream and pizza at 3 am and fat days spent in yoga pants feeling sorry for yourself.
Real life isn't always smooth sailing
Rather it's more like "I hate you" one minute then "I love you" the next then "shut up, go away" right after that.
Real life isn't fantasy
It's the 9-5 grind and knowing you'll never make enough to afford all the things you want.
Real life is never how you expect it to be
So when you tell me that I'm beyond perfect and that you don't deserve me . . .
What do you expect me to do . . . degrade myself so I'm imperfect for you?
Jul 8, 2014
Jul 8, 2014 at 12:44 PM UTC
I think I'm lucky
Sometimes
Not that I am a woman
But that I can pass as a man
I'm tall enough
Curveless enough
With a flattened chest
And short gelled hair
I'm the closest thing to safe
In the streets
As a woman can be
I wish I could say the same for my friends
Dec 17, 2019
Dec 17, 2019 at 12:22 AM UTC