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Marie-Niege Nov 2014
I kept on telling him
that my lips were made
of pillows as if he
couldn't feel them
with his charcoal tips
as his lips broke across
my shea skin. We are
globs of jojoba oil
set above a fire.
We melt. Together.
Marie-Niege Aug 2014
he used to hate coming over
after I had just come home
from work with the brunt of a
long day torn between the
flesh of my hands because
I  would do nothing after
cleaning up but lather my
hands in tea tree oil and my
face in organic honey and let
them marinade into my pores
and cleanse whatever filth
had snuck between my
vulnerable skin. He hated
the strong stench of tea
tree oil, earthy mixed with
a peppermint incense that
seemed to linger long after
I'd wash my hands and
lotion them with Jojoba oil.
He disliked the honey on
my face because when he
pecked my cheek hello
his lips tasted for me so
surely that he'd crawl back
to, just for another taste.
him
Joy Oct 2018
Should my body be a temple
I do not want it to be
a high cathedral in Rome.
I do not want its walls.
I do not want it to be
a protestant church.
I want my body
as a temple
hidden in the deep Amazon forests.
Because my body is... Wow.
My body is magic.
My body is tangled tree tops,
hair-you-can-wash-with-just-water.
My body is waxy walls,
skin shining from jojoba oil.
My body is vines tangling,
limbs which swing freely from
any place.
My body is sacred
on my own terms.
Ink is not to touch the surface.
Ink is not to cover the walls.
I want them
plain
and brown
and muddy
like reviving clay
mixed with rosewater and honey.
My temple is only to be marked by
tornadoes
and rains
and catastrophies.
Should my body be a temple
it will be honest and rough and brutal.
Like the rainforest it will be
damp
with the dark ghosts
running freely.
I do not wish for my body immortality.
Let my temple fall apart
under uncaring skies,
set ablazed by the sun,
blown away by the wind.
Let it waste away under
the violence of nature
for should my body be a temple
let it be at peace with the earth and the cosmos.
That is the only way I know
my body would be effortless and wise.
Not behind stone and marble.
Not inhabited by a choir of angels.
Not decorated in gold and silver.
Should my body be a temple
let it be a wild animal scream
in the middle of the night.
Let it be texture,
sound,
pulse,
life,
then death.
Marie-Niege Aug 2014
I write three times a day
so that my mind stays
leveled.

I squat a hundred times
every morning so that my
thighs stay taut.

I base my face every night
with Jojoba oil to help
maintain the oiliness
of my skin and every morning
with organic honey
to help bring balance
and newness to my face.

I dance every night
just to feel my heart
beat beating.

And still, they ask
what do I do for my
soul?
I am obsessed with balance.
I think it stems from my inability to insure. What with this mind I have.
everly Feb 2018
mk
i opened the door of the bathroom
because of all the steam that was fogging the glass.
took a towel and dried up,
curls were dripping on the hardwood floor
left to be soaked by some warm socks in an
hour or two..

parents went out
siblings went out..
what to do what to
doo..
i texted you
lathered myself in jojoba oil
and asked if you want to come over
and play for a little


and you said
k.
lol daydreamsss
stimulated courtesy follicles,
where Coconut, Olive, Grapeseed,
Jojoba, Amla and Vitamin E oils
allowed, enabled,
and provided head start
germinating peach fuzz into brown strands
after Flaxseeds, Pumpkin seeds and Fenugreek
being sprinkled on my scalp
yielded a bumper crop of hirsute weeds
occasionally tripping me up

analogous to hallucinogen
causing a public health hazard
warranting, necessitating, and goading me
to give shout out for stylist
to tender mine lovely brunette locks,
which might be repurposed into a wig
for patients undergoing chemotherapy,
or afflicted with alopecia,
(the partial or complete absence
of hair from areas of the body
where it normally grows; baldness).

As a knobby kneed, puny,
scrawny, wimpy kid whose,
(back in the nineteen sixties),
his parents decreed their singular
(painfully shy dorky, geeky and nerdy)
old school boy who sported a buzz cut,
which found him reacting and responding
(in short order rebelling)
passive aggressively by
refusing to bathe

until mommy dearest demanded
(well nigh upon
the bewitching hour of midnight)
to witness her son soaked
and essentially marinated
(until my skin shriveled like a prune)
in the (clawfoot) tub
lest he stink to high heavens,
and given a serious dressing down
by the timely principal Mister Clock.

Far back as I can remember,
the significance of hair
assumed an outsize role,
whether enviously eying other lads
their thick straight hank,
or nowadays bristling
with self reproach
cursed with thinning
greasy limp strands
(interspersed with gray)

experiencing shame being seen in public,
a disgrace to our family name of Wagstaff
and an embarrassment
to the human race
ofttimes associating
myself with Samson,
whereat emotional, physical,
and spiritual strength
rooted (pun intended)
within each hair shaft

(the visible part of the hair
that sticks out of the skin),
and rooted in the skin and extends
down to the deeper layers of the skin
surrounded by the hair follicle
(a sheath of skin
and connective tissue),
which is also connected
to a sebaceous gland.

— The End —