A sea of nettles and nails that scream their injustice at you
People who seem like they've shaken off their prickly outsides and their hatred
Turning to congratulate them
Embrace them
Before you find the truth beneath their pillowy covering
Nails can be blunted and nettles can be softened but they remain below your surface,
Waiting for the right moment to be sharpened and grow back their stings

I see your injustice and I raise you my peace
It hurts to tear out your nails and to burn off those nettles
But oh god does it hurt more to walk your tender, soft body through that forest of pain

           Your past, your romantic past, is a shadow. Like all towns, Port Angeles was a combination of rain and clouds, sun and mist, with a chamber of commerce, barrooms and boards of directors, the known and unknown. No one of course is completely unknown. I was known for my tragic love life. She had found another man, a backwoods man, living on the land but not above a night on the town, who according to her would wipe snot on his pants, a statement of poverty or thrift or anger against the niceties of society. All of us heated our hovels with wood but only the rich burned hardwoods, me and probably this guy were softwood gatherers.

            There were few aspects to my life. First, I can remember a nook in the kitchen of the house I shared with a beautiful faceless woman who wore a ring in her nose where I wrote and watched flocks of unidentified birds comb a tree for seeds. This particular day the sky was blue with clean pillowy cumulus clouds floating toward Puget Sound. I believe all the poems written in that nook have been forgotten by their author.

            Nights, for entertainment, I would wander the aisles of the supermarket, admiring everything and buying nothing. I had no money. The fluorescent lighting, clean straight neat shelving and floors, warmth and the fact I could identify nobody attracted me. I lived on cream cheese and honey sandwiches eating them leaning against the kitchen sink. Thinking go back to New York City which is what I ultimately did. Drove cross country nonstop three days and three nights seeing and feeling nothing.

           I populated P.A. during the Reagan recession inherited from Carter. I'm unclear how presidents affect your life but good or bad, democrat or whig, alive or dead you've got to get a job, which I did. I supervised the living arrangements of developmentally disabled adults in what I thought were humorous contexts that gave no offense. They were beautiful and incorrigible having regular *** without protection. Normally harmless they'd sometimes have altercations with their neighbors. I balanced the checkbooks, paid the bills. Supposedly teaching living skills, I had few of my own as evidenced by my sleeping on the floor, I had no bed. One mature woman colleague judged me a short-timer living a useless fantasy about big cities. Still lost in my own history, still didn't know the calculus.

            I had a dog, Shade, black lab, leftover from my near-marriage until she realized I had no economic prospects, no interest in further *** or her logger boyfriend, and a complete inability to translate or imagine nesting and gestation. My homework comes to me in daily disconnected increments. Shade lived in my gray van, a Dodge slant six, which I could never afford to fix. Once the driveshaft disconnected from the rear axle and I tied it on with rope. Drove 60 miles on a knot. Shade was hyper and sad, both. He smelled bad but was a good dog with a lonely heart. When my wife who wasn't a wife finally found a boyfriend who wouldn't wipe snot on his pant leg they took Shade to British Columbia where I believe he runs free on a vast estate by the sea. I once beat Shade like a slave because he attacked a small dog out of frustration and loneliness and until I had kids and started saying and doing things just as bad to humans it was the lowest meanest moment of my life. The farmer who saw it will never forget or forgive it.

            Having confessed all this there's just one last fact to tell. The mountains were cold, the waters clear, deep snow and shadows.

I.
Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel!
Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye!
They could not in the self-same mansion dwell
Without some stir of heart, some malady;
They could not sit at meals but feel how well
It soothed each to be the other by;
They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep
But to each other dream, and nightly weep.

II.
With every morn their love grew tenderer,
With every eve deeper and tenderer still;
He might not in house, field, or garden stir,
But her full shape would all his seeing fill;
And his continual voice was pleasanter
To her, than noise of trees or hidden rill;
Her lute-string gave an echo of his name,
She spoilt her half-done broidery with the same.

III.
He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch,
Before the door had given her to his eyes;
And from her chamber-window he would catch
Her beauty farther than the falcon spies;
And constant as her vespers would he watch,
Because her face was turn'd to the same skies;
And with sick longing all the night outwear,
To hear her morning-step upon the stair.

IV.
A whole long month of May in this sad plight
Made their cheeks paler by the break of June:
"To morrow will I bow to my delight,
"To-morrow will I ask my lady's boon."--
"O may I never see another night,
"Lorenzo, if thy lips breathe not love's tune."--
So spake they to their pillows; but, alas,
Honeyless days and days did he let pass;

V.
Until sweet Isabella's untouch'd cheek
Fell sick within the rose's just domain,
Fell thin as a young mother's, who doth seek
By every lull to cool her infant's pain:
"How ill she is," said he, "I may not speak,
"And yet I will, and tell my love all plain:
"If looks speak love-laws, I will drink her tears,
"And at the least 'twill startle off her cares."

VI.
So said he one fair morning, and all day
His heart beat awfully against his side;
And to his heart he inwardly did pray
For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide
Stifled his voice, and puls'd resolve away--
Fever'd his high conceit of such a bride,
Yet brought him to the meekness of a child:
Alas! when passion is both meek and wild!

VII.
So once more he had wak'd and anguished
A dreary night of love and misery,
If Isabel's quick eye had not been wed
To every symbol on his forehead high;
She saw it waxing very pale and dead,
And straight all flush'd; so, lisped tenderly,
"Lorenzo!"--here she ceas'd her timid quest,
But in her tone and look he read the rest.

VIII.
"O Isabella, I can half perceive
"That I may speak my grief into thine ear;
"If thou didst ever any thing believe,
"Believe how I love thee, believe how near
"My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve
"Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear
"Thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live
"Another night, and not my passion shrive.

IX.
"Love! thou art leading me from wintry cold,
"Lady! thou leadest me to summer clime,
"And I must taste the blossoms that unfold
"In its ripe warmth this gracious morning time."
So said, his erewhile timid lips grew bold,
And poesied with hers in dewy rhyme:
Great bliss was with them, and great happiness
Grew, like a ***** flower in June's caress.

X.
Parting they seem'd to tread upon the air,
Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart
Only to meet again more close, and share
The inward fragrance of each other's heart.
She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair
Sang, of delicious love and honey'd dart;
He with light steps went up a western hill,
And bade the sun farewell, and joy'd his fill.

XI.
All close they met again, before the dusk
Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
All close they met, all eves, before the dusk
Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,
Unknown of any, free from whispering tale.
Ah! better had it been for ever so,
Than idle ears should pleasure in their woe.

XII.
Were they unhappy then?--It cannot be--
Too many tears for lovers have been shed,
Too many sighs give we to them in fee,
Too much of pity after they are dead,
Too many doleful stories do we see,
Whose matter in bright gold were best be read;
Except in such a page where Theseus' spouse
Over the pathless waves towards him bows.

XIII.
But, for the general award of love,
The little sweet doth **** much bitterness;
Though Dido silent is in under-grove,
And Isabella's was a great distress,
Though young Lorenzo in warm Indian clove
Was not embalm'd, this truth is not the less--
Even bees, the little almsmen of spring-bowers,
Know there is richest juice in poison-flowers.

XIV.
With her two brothers this fair lady dwelt,
Enriched from ancestral merchandize,
And for them many a weary hand did swelt
In torched mines and noisy factories,
And many once proud-quiver'd ***** did melt
In blood from stinging whip;--with hollow eyes
Many all day in dazzling river stood,
To take the rich-ored driftings of the flood.

XV.
For them the Ceylon diver held his breath,
And went all naked to the hungry shark;
For them his ears gush'd blood; for them in death
The seal on the cold ice with piteous bark
Lay full of darts; for them alone did seethe
A thousand men in troubles wide and dark:
Half-ignorant, they turn'd an easy wheel,
That set sharp racks at work, to pinch and peel.

XVI.
Why were they proud? Because their marble founts
Gush'd with more pride than do a wretch's tears?--
Why were they proud? Because fair orange-mounts
Were of more soft ascent than lazar stairs?--
Why were they proud? Because red-lin'd accounts
Were richer than the songs of Grecian years?--
Why were they proud? again we ask aloud,
Why in the name of Glory were they proud?

XVII.
Yet were these Florentines as self-retired
In hungry pride and gainful cowardice,
As two close Hebrews in that land inspired,
Paled in and vineyarded from beggar-spies,
The hawks of ship-mast forests--the untired
And pannier'd mules for ducats and old lies--
Quick cat's-paws on the generous stray-away,--
Great wits in Spanish, Tuscan, and Malay.

XVIII.
How was it these same ledger-men could spy
Fair Isabella in her downy nest?
How could they find out in Lorenzo's eye
A straying from his toil? Hot Egypt's pest
Into their vision covetous and sly!
How could these money-bags see east and west?--
Yet so they did--and every dealer fair
Must see behind, as doth the hunted hare.

XIX.
O eloquent and famed Boccaccio!
Of thee we now should ask forgiving boon,
And of thy spicy myrtles as they blow,
And of thy roses amorous of the moon,
And of thy lilies, that do paler grow
Now they can no more hear thy ghittern's tune,
For venturing syllables that ill beseem
The quiet glooms of such a piteous theme.

**.
Grant thou a pardon here, and then the tale
Shall move on soberly, as it is meet;
There is no other crime, no mad assail
To make old prose in modern rhyme more sweet:
But it is done--succeed the verse or fail--
To honour thee, and thy gone spirit greet;
To stead thee as a verse in English tongue,
An echo of thee in the north-wind sung.

XXI.
These brethren having found by many signs
What love Lorenzo for their sister had,
And how she lov'd him too, each unconfines
His bitter thoughts to other, well nigh mad
That he, the servant of their trade designs,
Should in their sister's love be blithe and glad,
When 'twas their plan to coax her by degrees
To some high noble and his olive-trees.

XXII.
And many a jealous conference had they,
And many times they bit their lips alone,
Before they fix'd upon a surest way
To make the youngster for his crime atone;
And at the last, these men of cruel clay
Cut Mercy with a sharp knife to the bone;
For they resolved in some forest dim
To **** Lorenzo, and there bury him.

XXIII.
So on a pleasant morning, as he leant
Into the sun-rise, o'er the balustrade
Of the garden-terrace, towards him they bent
Their footing through the dews; and to him said,
"You seem there in the quiet of content,
"Lorenzo, and we are most loth to invade
"Calm speculation; but if you are wise,
"Bestride your steed while cold is in the skies.

XXIV.
"To-day we purpose, ay, this hour we mount
"To spur three leagues towards the Apennine;
"Come down, we pray thee, ere the hot sun count
"His dewy rosary on the eglantine."
Lorenzo, courteously as he was wont,
Bow'd a fair greeting to these serpents' whine;
And went in haste, to get in readiness,
With belt, and spur, and bracing huntsman's dress.

XXV.
And as he to the court-yard pass'd along,
Each third step did he pause, and listen'd oft
If he could hear his lady's matin-song,
Or the light whisper of her footstep soft;
And as he thus over his passion hung,
He heard a laugh full musical aloft;
When, looking up, he saw her features bright
Smile through an in-door lattice, all delight.

XXVI.
"Love, Isabel!" said he, "I was in pain
"Lest I should miss to bid thee a good morrow:
"Ah! what if I should lose thee, when so fain
"I am to stifle all the heavy sorrow
"Of a poor three hours' absence? but we'll gain
"Out of the amorous dark what day doth borrow.
"Good bye! I'll soon be back."--"Good bye!" said she:--
And as he went she chanted merrily.

XXVII.
So the two brothers and their ******'d man
Rode past fair Florence, to where Arno's stream
Gurgles through straiten'd banks, and still doth fan
Itself with dancing bulrush, and the bream
Keeps head against the freshets. Sick and wan
The brothers' faces in the ford did seem,
Lorenzo's flush with love.--They pass'd the water
Into a forest quiet for the slaughter.

XXVIII.
There was Lorenzo slain and buried in,
There in that forest did his great love cease;
Ah! when a soul doth thus its freedom win,
It aches in loneliness--is ill at peace
As the break-covert blood-hounds of such sin:
They dipp'd their swords in the water, and did tease
Their horses homeward, with convulsed spur,
Each richer by his being a murderer.

XXIX.
They told their sister how, with sudden speed,
Lorenzo had ta'en ship for foreign lands,
Because of some great urgency and need
In their affairs, requiring trusty hands.
Poor Girl! put on thy stifling widow's ****,
And 'scape at once from Hope's accursed bands;
To-day thou wilt not see him, nor to-morrow,
And the next day will be a day of sorrow.

***.
She weeps alone for pleasures not to be;
Sorely she wept until the night came on,
And then, instead of love, O misery!
She brooded o'er the luxury alone:
His image in the dusk she seem'd to see,
And to the silence made a gentle moan,
Spreading her perfect arms upon the air,
And on her couch low murmuring, "Where? O where?"

XXXI.
But Selfishness, Love's cousin, held not long
Its fiery vigil in her single breast;
She fretted for the golden hour, and hung
Upon the time with feverish unrest--
Not long--for soon into her heart a throng
Of higher occupants, a richer zest,
Came tragic; passion not to be subdued,
And sorrow for her love in travels rude.

XXXII.
In the mid days of autumn, on their eves
The breath of Winter comes from far away,
And the sick west continually bereaves
Of some gold tinge, and plays a roundelay
Of death among the bushes and the leaves,
To make all bare before he dares to stray
From his north cavern. So sweet Isabel
By gradual decay from beauty fell,

XXXIII.
Because Lorenzo came not. Oftentimes
She ask'd her brothers, with an eye all pale,
Striving to be itself, what dungeon climes
Could keep him off so long? They spake a tale
Time after time, to quiet her. Their crimes
Came on them, like a smoke from Hinnom's vale;
And every night in dreams they groan'd aloud,
To see their sister in her snowy shroud.

XXXIV.
And she had died in drowsy ignorance,
But for a thing more deadly dark than all;
It came like a fierce potion, drunk by chance,
Which saves a sick man from the feather'd pall
For some few gasping moments; like a lance,
Waking an Indian from his cloudy hall
With cruel pierce, and bringing him again
Sense of the gnawing fire at heart and brain.

XXXV.
It was a vision.--In the drowsy gloom,
The dull of midnight, at her couch's foot
Lorenzo stood, and wept: the forest tomb
Had marr'd his glossy hair which once could shoot
Lustre into the sun, and put cold doom
Upon his lips, and taken the soft lute
From his lorn voice, and past his loamed ears
Had made a miry channel for his tears.

XXXVI.
Strange sound it was, when the pale shadow spake;
For there was striving, in its piteous tongue,
To speak as when on earth it was awake,
And Isabella on its music hung:
Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake,
As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung;
And through it moan'd a ghostly under-song,
Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral briars among.

XXXVII.
Its eyes, though wild, were still all dewy bright
With love, and kept all phantom fear aloof
From the poor girl by magic of their light,
The while it did unthread the horrid woof
Of the late darken'd time,--the murderous spite
Of pride and avarice,--the dark pine roof
In the forest,--and the sodden turfed dell,
Where, without any word, from stabs he fell.

XXXVIII.
Saying moreover, "Isabel, my sweet!
"Red whortle-berries droop above my head,
"And a large flint-stone weighs upon my feet;
"Around me beeches and high chestnuts shed
"Their leaves and prickly nuts; a sheep-fold bleat
"Comes from beyond the river to my bed:
"Go, shed one tear upon my heather-bloom,
"And it shall comfort me within the tomb.

XXXIX.
"I am a shadow now, alas! alas!
"Upon the skirts of human-nature dwelling
"Alone: I chant alone the holy mass,
"While little sounds of life are round me knelling,
"And glossy bees at noon do fieldward pass,
"And many a chapel bell the hour is telling,
"Paining me through: those sounds grow strange to me,
"And thou art distant in Humanity.

XL.
"I know what was, I feel full well what is,
"And I should rage, if spirits could go mad;
"Though I forget the taste of earthly bliss,
"That paleness warms my grave, as though I had
"A Seraph chosen from the bright abyss
"To be my spouse: thy paleness makes me glad;
"Thy beauty grows upon me, and I feel
"A greater love through all my essence steal."

XLI.
The Spirit mourn'd "Adieu!"--dissolv'd, and left
The atom darkness in a slow turmoil;
As when of healthful midnight sleep bereft,
Thinking on rugged hours and fruitless toil,
We put our eyes into a pillowy cleft,
And see the spangly gloom froth up and boil:
It made sad Isabella's eyelids ache,
And in the dawn she started up awake;

XLII.
"Ha! ha!" said she, "I knew not this hard life,
"I thought the worst was simple misery;
"I thought some Fate with pleasure or with strife
"Portion'd us--happy days, or else to die;
"But there is crime--a brother's ****** knife!
"Sweet Spirit, thou hast school'd my infancy:
"I'll visit thee for this, and kiss thine eyes,
"And greet thee morn and even in the skies."

XLIII.
When the full morning came, she had devised
How she might secret to the forest hie;
How she might find the clay, so dearly prized,
And sing to it one latest lullaby;
How her short absence might be unsurmised,
While she the inmost of the dream would try.
Resolv'd, she took with her an aged nurse,
And went into that dismal forest-hearse.

XLIV.
See, as they creep along the river side,
How she doth whisper to that aged Dame,
And, after looking round the champaign wide,
Shows her a knife.--"What feverous hectic flame
"Burns in thee, child?--What good can thee betide,
"That thou should'st smile again?"--The evening came,
And they had found Lorenzo's earthy bed;
The flint was there, the berries at his head.

XLV.
Who hath not loiter'd in a green church-yard,
And let his spirit, like a demon-mole,
Work through the clayey soil and gravel hard,
To see skull, coffin'd bones, and funeral stole;
Pitying each form that hungry Death hath marr'd,
And filling it once more with human soul?
Ah! this is holiday to what was felt
When Isabella by Lorenzo knelt.

XLVI.
She gaz'd into the fresh-thrown mould, as though
One glance did fully all its secrets tell;
Clearly she saw, as other eyes would know
Pale limbs at bottom of a crystal well;
Upon the murderous spot she seem'd to grow,
Like to a native lily of the dell:
Then with her knife, all sudden, she began
To dig more fervently than misers can.

XLVII.
Soon she turn'd up a soiled glove, whereon
Her silk had play'd in purple phantasies,
She kiss'd it with a lip more chill than stone,
And put it in her *****, where it dries
And freezes utterly unto the bone
Those dainties made to still an infant's cries:
Then 'gan she work again; nor stay'd her care,
But to throw back at times her vei

I'm jealous of your pen.
Jealous of the way your hands will never caress my skin like you hold it.
Jealous of the way you won't ever twirl me on a wooden dance floor like you spin it.

I'm jealous of your tie.
Jealous of the way it wraps around your neck, a place my arms will never be.
Jealous of how nothing separates it from your skin except a shirt, but I have red tape cuffing my hands behind my back when I want nothing more than to let them roam beneath the collar of your blue-striped button down.

I'm jealous of your ears.
Jealous of the words they get to hear when mine aren't around to listen.
Jealous of the way they get to hear i love you spill over and over again from your pillowy lips, the same lips that form into a smirk after you tell a joke and make me feel like the most important person in the world.

I'm jealous of the way you make me feel.
Jealous, because, I'll never make you feel that way, too.

Pillowy clouds sheet the sidewalk
And sew the hue of rain. In patches
A beautiful blanket - transparent and grey.
All wrapt round, her ruffled bleached flax
All over her lambent crossed legs.

In her hand is an open bag
Of Classic, Potato Chip, Lays.
They taste so sweet,
The sharp salty flakes,
As she breaks them tongue and teeth.

She sits with glossy sunflower lips.
Swaying her hair with a turn and a twist.
Letting the breeze direct cerulean eyes.
Following linear passersby.
And taking a chip from her bag,
Into her mouth,
She feels the time drag.

don’t worry about decisions anymore.
I can think for you. Here,
buy this brand of tampons.
Watch me now. It’s more absorbent. Here, stick them in your ears. You’ll have
s   o  f   t  e  r
t   h  o  u  g  h  t  s.

Pillowy white fluuuufffyyythoughts.
    
You don’t need your brain anyway.
no more thinking,
I can think for you.
here, watch me now.
Look at these happy plastic
assless women
wearing delicate bras,
so beautiful.
Why don’t you buy one?

they’re uncomfortable

well you’re ugly,
unwanted,
but you wear what
you
want.
Wear this bra.
Maybe it will keep your heart from aching.

You don’t need your heart; I can feel.

I can feel for you.




So watch me. Hey, look here.
Buy these shoes. They make your legs look like celery stalks, but your husband will “do it” with you again. That’s what you want, right?

right.

Put them on. Please your man, make the food, wear the shoes. Don’t think.
Please your man, feed the kids, do the work. Wear the shoes. Don’t you dare think.

I can
Think For You.


Aptitude is overrated. Your biggest asset is
your body, bereft of a brain. Don’t think. I can think for you.
Wear this. Buy that.
Spend your husband’s money, make him happy.
Please your man,
make the food,
wear the shoes.
Now, for your anxiety,
take these pills.
Three little blue pills, one big orange pill, one little white pill.
This one makes you skinny.
This one makes your teeth white.
This one makes you dumb, this one makes you numb.
Don’t think. Don’t worry about where your husband is.
He’ll probably come home tonight.
There is no divorce on TV, so it must not exist.
Don’t think. Oh, you poor little ****** woman.
Tiny, powerless drone robot. Don’t think.
Robots don’t have brains.
Dolls don’t have brains.
****,
***,
*******,
legs,
don’t have brains.




Close your mouth.
Don’t speak.
I can speak for you.

That bra is uncomfortable?
Shut up.
You want me to wear a ******?
Shut up.

You want to be yourself, with the brain, with the ******, with the
*******, with the child. You can’t have all and be free. Choose.
Don’t choose. I will choose for you.


Please      your     man

Make      the      food

wear      the      shoes

There will be no discussion.
There will be no negotiation.
There is no **** on TV, so it must not exist.

No thinking
no thoughts
no brain,

just ****, ***, *****, legs.
wear the shoes, please your man, make the food.

Eat. Sleep. Breathe. Work.
Die.

Recognize the regulations,
recognize your place.
Your /place/ is in the shoes,

those   d e v i l      traps

eating your sweet feet.

all the time--wear them
They are
comfortable. They are ****.
don’t think
don’t cry
don’t moan
whisper
whimper
Shut up. Don’t speak.
I will
speak for you.
Clocks, computers, ****, ***.

You
Are
Nothing

Just Like A Woman

You focus on the act,
The ridiculous derring-do,
Laughing at me
Cause I chased away
In my rumpled ******,
The woodpecker that **convulsed
Our house at 5:00 AM,
With a decorative pillow.

Focus on the results, says the
Results-oriented man.

Has Woody ever returned?
No and his fate is still unknown,
He may fly forever neath our trees,
But now he knows to stay away
From me and the risk of my pillowy pillory!

P.S. I may (or may not)
Choose to disclose
That upon my return
The house still shook,
From someone's uproarious, convulsed
Laughing at a city boys country heroics.


10:30am
June29 2013

Hush, Baby, Hush.
Soothing and Pillowy, Lush is Love.
Waters Rush, Rain Pour, Tears Fall.
Sleep, My Baby, Sleep.
For Dreams, Life's Balm, Soothes.

Since you guessed the Password on her Chat
And realised your Smooth Ring was the Key
Past Admin's notice the Prince on the Bat
Made promised Pretzels and let her Love be
Happily, miraculous Spheres you own
Which you found real Logins are just as base
Place it closer to you. And it was shown
Just how pillowy was her lone disgrace
Try to be yourself. These Guys on the fringe
Act on tattled theatres they do not know
Ever thinking they live Life on the binge
When all this time it was just for ****** show.
Continue your Chat. She deserves to talk
But make sure then you take her for a walk.

For one brief golden moment rare like wine,
The gracious city swept across the line;
Oblivious of the color of my skin,
Forgetting that I was an alien guest,
She bent to me, my hostile heart to win,
Caught me in passion to her pillowy breast;
The great, proud city, seized with a strange love,
Bowed down for one flame hour my pride to prove.

Grace chose the poise of your
neck, what spring learned from
winter in white homage.
You longingly capture, and look
back at fate...your delicate head
sent slowly down upon its
pillowy body.
White, whited out...water clear
as invisible.
I dearly depart, I dearly arrive at
what dream settles upon you.
I loved you so much as you slept,
O swan, O Saraswati~

All the leaves have gone,
Naked trees shivering in wind,
Snow blankets cover.

loose gravel crunching loudly beneath me transposes
into the soft thudding of my feet against the soil.
the meadow, my old friend, greets me
with a whispering wind. we are both happy.

the sun dips just below the horizon,
watercoloring the sky in lilacs and siennas.
cicadas converse around me, as I am
but a guest at their lovely hillside home.

the cotton-swab clouds part, and the moon debuts.
she is pure, unsullied radiance. with the stars as backup,
and the sky as her stage, she pirouettes, beginning
her nightly routine. tears glide down my cheeks.

rich plums of dusk fade into the dark navies of night,
and my head sinks into pillowy grass.
my eyelids become lead, and the sandman arrives.
everything is quiet, and this peace is eternal.

I contemplate my choices - up into the soft, pillowy dunes covered in seagrass, into the rough brush beyond, down to the slippery water rocks. I walk along it all, past the rocks pock-marked like skulls, that I place precariously on the spindly end of a gnarled, whitewashed log that I foot. I pass pieces of wood petrified in the sand like emerging snakes, spiny, drowning spiders. The sand is chalked clay, clumps creating mini Stone Henges where deer prints have broken it. In the distance are fragile lines of birds that sound like howling wolves. I look out over the water, the sea that wiggles between my toes and spans the horizon all at once. The water laps at my thoughts and in between breathes I hear my cousin calling me. I turn towards her hungover dreamless nap, but still I hear the sea, refreshing my mind and the sun cleansing and lifting me up into the very sky. My feet break the salt-cracked sand back. The path I took before breaks out and unfolds before me like a red carpet on tracing paper and I avoid every step like it would break my mother's back.

As long as it doesn't affect me;
as long as it's not immediately relevant
and something I have to immediately worry about;
as long as it doesn't **** up
my credit score
or my
shiny
new
house
then,
**** it.

And
*******,
for bringing it to my attention.

how dare you.

this was promised to me,
it's predestined,
my two-story, three bedroom, two bath; the foreign workmanship and american artifice; the creamy halo of vinyl in the sun; the wrath of windexed windows and their hard missiles of bright, reflected sunlight; the soft lips of my children; my wife's pillowy, warm stomach and scratchy *****; our retriever that eats his own ****, picking apart tiny specks of feces from the sun-pricked tips of our rug of fescue; these are the works of God, this is the land of God. You are marring this flat earth

Smoke fills my lungs, while serenity fills my mind.
I cruise by yellow green fields speckled with horses and cows.
The way the sun hits my eyes makes me want to dive head-first
into the billowy, pillowy clouds swimming in the sea of sky.

Lining the road are a million green hands
linked to thousands of branches that wave hello.
I let my thoughts wander, but they never get very far,
so when memories of you start flooding my car,
I roll my windows down to let you float away.
It’s easier being happy when there’s nothing to say.

I let my hand surf the wind, effortlessly shooting up and down,
yet always safely secured to my body.
Feeling, maybe, how a baby feels when she’s tossed through the air
thrilled, but well aware, of the adult standing there,
but - that’s as if a hand could feel these things.

I know the things my hands can feel,
and for now they are floating, flying, free
past the horses and cows and yellow green fields.

Your name fits in my mouth like an extra
large marshmallow;
It fills it entirely. All the while combatting the sliminess of my gums with its pillowy chalk,
trying to escape any chance it can.

The morning came without promise,
A heaviness weighing on my heart
As the minutes lengthened upon the bed.
Motivation lost, frustration returned
At full strength from the day before.
The sigh of seasons escaping my lips
As I resigned myself to the pillows.
But then a soft sound tickled my ear,
A gentle bedside mewing sort of trill…
And looking over saw the green globes
Of the patient and insistent feline
That shares the shelter of my home.
For a second, my woes forgot to linger
And the beginnings of a smile unwound
The stubborn knots inside my chest.
Then looking away, annoyed by the
Sweetness of the interruption,
I willingly returned to my brooding.
But the feline trilled again, stretching
His white-gloved paw to my face,
Tugging the pillowy bedcovers with
Such benign insistence as a parent.
Refusing the request I hid beneath the layers,
Shutting out Aurora and her chirping fellows.
But the feline trilled again and,
Abandoning my sheets, leapt upon the desk.
I listened as he shuffled about,
Sliding keys and cards and books around.
My voice called out in warning
And he paused in his task, waiting.
But when I continued to hide in bed
He started again, working fervently now.
Again I called a warning.
His response silence… and then…
A pile of books hit the carpeted floor.
My hand reached the pillow
And launched it at the good feline
Who watched as it sailed right past him.
He mewed again, and I returned
To the covers… pillow-less.
One more time he tugged at the sheets,
Before choosing another possession of mine.
A set of keys this time, then a cup of coins.
The annoyance increased until finally,
He chose the harshest persuasion of all.
Carefully, he crept along the tabletop
placing a delicate white paw on
Matching shutters, pushing lightly.
The sun! Oh the wonderful, wretched sun!
Light! Not even the covers can save me now.
At last I rise, flying at the troublesome cat
Whose swift, practiced feet escape me.
He speeds through to the far end of home,
And crouches near the hearth,
His eyes bright with amusement and victory.
I'm laughing now as he takes off again,
Me following his progress until I have him.
His sweet voice trills playfully as he rolls,
Exposing the wide, gray-speckled belly,
And I attack!
My hand descends, fingers like claws,
And a noise escapes my throat.
Fur and fingers mesh as I madly rub his belly,
As some would with a beloved canine,
Playfully chastising him for drawing me from bed.
He purrs as I laugh and take him in my arms,
Burying my face in the warm, soft fur.
We sit like that for a while before he squirms away
And leads me to his empty food bowl,
Eyes joyful and expectant now.
As the pellets hit ceramic, I find myself at ease.
Whatever lingering self-pity is now gone,
And as I leave for daily duties,
He's there by the door, awaiting the
Routine stroke of the fur on his head.
Then when I return to home, tired
and deflated from the day, he is there to greet me,
weaving about my legs and mewing sweetly.
And in the evening, when phone calls are done
And dinner has been had, he settles upon
My small lap… his mass solid, warm and reassuring
Easing me to sleep with his deep purring…
Until morning comes once more
And it starts all over again.

It’s weird how much
I love times new roman and
how the sight of Jordan Maron playing
below Zero Subnautica makes me clap and grin.

I’m the nonbinary watching youtube to sleep
and to feel comfort. I find the sound of the Misfits Podcast
soothing. The first degree black belt resting on my shelf
means I worked seven years, but when I learn Jiu-Jitsu
I’m up against the wall, stuck in another corner.

My closest friend group full of a bunch of LGBTQ+ and
mentally ill kids, from transgender to bisexual, from depression
to panic attack disorder to separation anxiety. We’re all just trying to survive.
Living comes later.

I’m writing a poem to express who I am, is
this enough? To the heart of me, the soul,
or whatever you want to call it.

Does the horse tattoo I got three weeks ago,
on my left shoulder blade or the way I fold my clothes
in my suitcase tell you? How about the green of my eyes,
that my best friend describes as a soft jade with small streaks of gold,
the outer rim a pillowy chocolate blue?

I love the sound of acoustic guitar and the powerful choruses
thrumming through the air. Editing is always done on paper and
grammar is a learning experience. I go horseback riding every Sunday
with my campus horse club.

But this tells you nothing of my times, when I found myself
Alone, utterly without hope and trust. Or I could say,
I trusted that I was not enough and that I could never amount to anything.
But it’s taken me a long time to take back what was always mine,
and I’m fighting for those rights yet.

I need to wash my water bottle more,
I need to say I love you to my best friend more,
I need to… to…
Love Myself.

And maybe that’s what this poem is for.

You were special from the start.
I felt your hands when I met you.
I felt not just skin, but something different.
Something very soft, almost pillowy.
They were feathers. You were born with wings.
You soared in skies no human could ever reach
You heard secrets the wind told no one else.
But when the jealous world mocked you
You hid under the bed.
And when you could bear no longer
You cut off your wings
And tossed them away.
You could have
Just flown away
Leaving the
Undeserving world
To itself.

Uninvited ridges appearing almost instantly on the surface of my skin
My body shy to the feeling they bring
Each one, a dream swelling in a desperate hope to become a reality

        To caress your moonlit skin
        For your lips to pay homage my tingling nape
        To stroke your crescent lips
        For you to cradle my timid being
        To rub your pillowy girth

And as these sensations consummate, each yearning speck will settle back into my heart
Until the next time comes when something small like your touch or your voice summons them back to the semblance of my freckled flesh once again

Real questions I've been asked by the 3 year old I care for
Dia do you have a mancave
Dia did you get new toilet paper
Dia are those antlers for the cheese
My answers respectively are fairly straightforward
No I don't but I sure wish I did
Yeah I got the really soft pillowy kind thanks for noticing
I have no idea if those antlers are for the cheese but I don't see why not.

I am generally confident with the answers I provide
However once in awhile she asks me
Dia do you have a ***** today
And I'm stumped because the answer Josie
is so much more complicated than no
Because I want to say someday you will learn how that no matters every single day in more ways than I can tell you
That no has everything to do with the way I take up space
That no is my mother's refusal to buy me bow ties in favor of silver necklaces
That no is the cringe in my heartbeat when people call me a lesbian
That no is the source of fear I carry as a shield when I *** in public restrooms
That no is what I use to bind this chest to prove something I can't prove with a yes to that question
A no is the answer that sales person gives when I ask for those shoes in my size
That suit in my size
That body in my size
The mirror in my eyes
I've had a home in the lies I've told instead of no

The world asks that question every single day and I never have the right answer
It would be so much easier if the world asked if those antlers are for the cheese.

The egg decends from the pillowy sky and sinks to the blue-green ocean to be rolled a-shore by fish. It is swaddled in seaweed and remnants of aquatic flowers. The doves come to hatch the egg. From out of the cracked shell comes She, The Queen of Heaven. The swaddles are now like garments. The rabbit becomes her sumbol, for She is the Great Mother who brings with her the season of fertility.

i.

impressions
shapes
and sounds,
the shady-lane
trees,

the yellow
balloons
of the skies
icy arctics,
the pink
feathers of
the soil.

ii.

surreal as the
shifting day,
turquoise and
angular, bright
sky drowned
in the cold, brisk
air, language
of love and air,
base note of love.

iii.

love, impressions of
light and dark,
soft brush stroke
of sea-blue, air
the colour of
lips.

iv.

witching night,
darkling clouds
pressed to the sky,

love, settling like
a mist.

v.

sweet lips
sipped,
incredible
sky of our
dreams,
drawn close
like the
pillowy clouds.

gently interrupted by velvet mountains
burnt sienna soil stretches through olive trees
that lift their limbs toward blue expanse
where pillowy clouds drift with ease

shadows lengthen as the sun spreads
a warmth perceptible to the view
energy and life pouring into ripening fruit
soon harvest gathering will be due

tracks of vehicles between the rows
show signs of tending that's been done
through summer's growing season
and years before when they were begun

saplings planted there with care
by tanned, robust yet gentle hands
have grown taller year by year
where now a stately orchard stands

In the years to come,
you will learn you weren't a part of the five year plan
beautiful you, left me with a random roommate
but you were the farthest thing from random
my first witnessed miracle
know this,
you may have been an accident
but you were never a mistake
You may not see it that way,
so in simpler terms
You are the most gorgeous train wreck I have ever been stunned to see
You are an unpredicted storm that cleans your car the day before you were planning to get it washed
You are the pillowy sand after the tide has been swept away
You are the stomach flu that saves you from the test you didn't study for
You made everything out of nothing
with your first 2 am diaper change
came meaning
April 10th is always a beautiful day to be born
I thought so
Even when I thought I was the tragedy,
I knew this day would be the days stars are born

Under the rug
where it's darker than light
rumbles & tumbles
a beast born of the night.
What is it you ask?
Well, to know that
one must be brave
and one must also crave
to place a face to all fears looming.
So, go on, lift up the mat's edge...
Sneak a peek at
darkness booming.

Close the cupboard doors
for from far in the back
lurches & lumbers forth
the most frightful roars.
Your ears can follow your fear
to the space just farther than
the longest arm's reach,
past the jar of pickles,
and through the forest of forgotten spices,
even beyond the lost boxes
of instant mashed potatoes
which don't grow old for eternity.

It is this lightless den
that's home to scores of tiny T-rex
looking creatures called
Boomasaurs.
They spend their time
noshing & munching
gobbling & gurgling
snacks of all kinds;
including grazing fingers.
You don't need to know too much more about them,
of this I'm sure,
just go close the cupboard door.

Do you trust your boomerang?

There's nothing under your bed,
as sure as there aren't bats in my head,
and I write this in a room
where laces can't be in shoes,
so, you better check under your bed.

For beneath your pillowy paradise
on which you wish to float in a dream of candies 'n cream
shuffles a shadowy blob; dark, as though made of demons' truffles.
And being a black mass of a mess
it moves beneath your boxspring
in a roll-flop manner.
The sound of which when heard lulls the tired & weak,
meek, children & adults alike
into a nightmare's pleasures.
shha-boom   shha-boom
shha-boom   shha-boom
shha-boom   shha-boom
shha-boom   shha-boom
shha-boom   shha-boom
shha-boom   *shha-boom

Break open
Soft shell echoes
Terrorized
Capatulted darkness
Pillowy landing
You break my fall
Caged eyes
Beckon
Home

in the warm pleasure
of a pillowy plushness
as we settle in 4 bed

dozens of candles
dimly (dancing)
lighting the room

two silouettes
curvaceous, crazy
calling out names

frantic, feverish
moving melodic
rhythmic, rhapsodic

mmmnnn...
(it's getting warm in here)

rapidly warming
degrees of desire
sweating, squirming
melting into u...

Quickly sketching paths in fresh snow when there was no smooth path etched in stone
Sickly I'm sliding with wet shoes on a slippery *****
Whiskey is my only lullaby
Let go of hope the ashen past
You cannot escape your lonely fate
In my fist clenched a ****** t shirt inscribed my aspirations and my apathy
My sullen sleep ridden dreams echoing with such painful screams
I sit feverishly take a dram just one last sip before I slip
Still quietly curdling in the corner when the sun came out
When the flowers did bloom blossoming a sweetened sappy odor
Where can you say lays the man who's hand beholds the golden cup
In the dark forgotten plains
Tending to lambs and pillowy sheep
All the while the wind withered a beast whom the world denied him sleep

It was nearing the end of the rainy season. Steady downpours muted all other sounds of the village, the time when everyone slept soundly through the night. The rain had not stopped for weeks, until today. Khadisa woke up before sunrise again, to the smell of cool fresh air, no humid chaleur. She remembered the dream, a girl standing behind a waterfall. She said she could hear her voice, but not make out the words. And the water turned into doves, their flapping wings like beating drums. She started dancing to their music, and blood trickled down her arms and legs in the moonlight.
She uncocooned herself from the medley of blankets, warm tangled sheets still playing hushed reruns of her dreams like seashells reciting ocean lullabies long after the tide. She untucked the mosquito net from under her mattress and silently pulled on her sandals and coat as to not wake her roommate. Mariama was still asleep. Khadisa looked over her shoulder to see her friend nestled into the warm pool of the missing body under covers from where she laid, burrowing unconsciously into her ghost. The amber light of the hallway spilled into the dark room like cream rendering black coffee lucid as the sunrise still hours away. She preferred nights like these, when her husband was away.

“Come back and sleep?” inquired a small voice from a pillowy soft, dream-like haze.
“I’ll be back. En bimbi, Mariama.”

Mariama’s birthmark was just visible from under the covers on her petite frame, an angel on her shoulder flying towards the heavens, to her curly bronze sun-kissed hair and constellation freckles. A memento mori of Icarus before the fall. She was not her blood, but she treated Mariama as a sister, a missing half of herself that had been long forgotten.

XXXXX

I wake as if underwater, neon light and sound blurry like I’m underneath a murky lake. My head throbs. Long tendrils of seaweed bodies sway in foggy currents of flashing, turning, strident beams of light. I’m ascending, body buoyant without weight, as I try to move my numb limbs. What did I take? I look at my hands, the smears of fluorescent orange paint and powder. I just wanted to be free, to fly. Feel the wind, soaring down the mountain path on the back of Mariama’s moto. I stretch my arms out, close my eyes and become the air itself: drifting, unattached.
XXXXX

Guided by light of the full moon and Venus rising, Khadi eased the door shut behind her into the latch with a gentle gratifying “click”. I’m never in the same or different places, but I am good company regardless. I depart as air, a constellation rising. She paused and listened to the morning. Epiphanic night colors divulged to her the secrets of sleep-singing crickets, dream-dancing of cassava leaves, crystal-painting of morning grass. She recited the symphonic canticle with her footfalls on the uneven gravel path to the well, the delicate sway of cotton as she walked in the occasional whistling paths of mosquitos. Soaked in tepid moonlight overflowing from the frame of the mountain Chien Qui Fume, she turned off the path into a grove of trees towards the river, and felt like she was disappearing back into the dark.

xxxxx

“another nuit blanche, huh… or should I say matin? The two must be the same at this point for you now. Just a perpetual, non-stop existence.” Mariam added skeptically, eying Khadi over a steaming cup of ginger tea. The wood from the fire crackled, as if in agreement.

“At least you have hot water for breakfast. Anyway, I am used to waking before sunup to prepare food for the family before the hospital shift.” Khadisah added, “I’ll be fine, habibti. No worries.”

“I know your dreams are getting bad again. Hunde kala e saa’i mun. Everything in its own time. Take care of yourself first, for once.”

She struck a match without reply, lit the candles, and poured herself a second cup of tea. Mango flowers unfolded outside the kitchen window, drinking in the early morning warmth with dusty yellow hands opening to heaven. She held the matchstick and watched the flame approach her fingers, remembering the countless needles she has sterilized to perform surgeries even the male doctors were too uneasy to attempt.

“So, what grand prophecies did I miss in the stars this morning?” Mariama put on her glasses and slid them up over the bridge of her nose with her index finger.

“The usual 3am omens, no bad spirits.”

Mari hummed a little hymn to herself and half-smiled as her green eyes flicked downward to her open book and wordlessly melted away any tension as if she were the effortless break of dawn dissipating a mere cloud of morning fog.

Xxxxx

A songbird starts singing a clear soaring cadence. And I am falling back below inundated shallows. I feel her soft blonde hair on my face, her colors warm and sunny. My name over and over and over. She’s shaking me, but I can’t speak. Her voice is perfect, it is all I hear anymore. Mariama with ivory skin, pastel hair. A ghost? No, a child. No more muted ringing in my ears. I melt into her as everything goes black.
My father was kind, unlike most from where we’re from. The kind do not live long enough. Walking in tall grass before a storm, the wind would whip at us in riotous orchestral gusts; I spread my wings and let the weight of air lift me away into the music. I closed my eyes, face upturned to the swelling rainclouds with pregnant bellies. “My Khadisah’s a little bird! Keep spreading your wings, and you’ll fly across the sea to America one day,” he said in French, the language for educated men.
xxxxx

Prep is the hardest stage for projects. Mariama starts in the cold shop, mapping out the light and colors, the size and shape she’ll be sculpting with. When it comes to the glory holes, something else takes over. She was a fote, of mixed blood. From a family who supported her education, her liberty. She thought of Khadisah’s upbringing, pushed the thought from her head as she focused on the heat of the furnace, the twist on the yoke, and the heavy grounding of the pipe. The sound of the port outside the open studio window grounded her, Conakry’s canoes readying their nets, bobbing in the sunrise stained glassy waters. Khadisah is sea glass, she thought. She heals others as she cannot heal herself, a polished stone ever-changing, and strong to the core. Shaped by something bigger, without choice. Although, the fact that there is no true place for us is shattering. But we’ve learned to live with jagged edges, smoothed them in buckets of the rains we’ve carried for miles on miles. Words can be shrapnel, written of the body, in perpetual ancient gestures. Looking down at the glass on her worktable, thin frames of women curved in dance like limbs of a tree in a whirlwind. ****** hieroglyphics speak of the writhing societal inconsistencies, the murky waters from which we fill our cups. The scars in their hearts built by the privileged, defiling bodies and souls without consent.

They are the ones who do the slaughtering.

xxxxx

“I have always loved mythology,” remarked Mari after perusing a chapter or two of her novel. It was a miracle alone that she knew how to read. “Shame that we lost so many of our stories, women.” Khadi had lost track of time, meditating on her morning rituals. She glanced at the positioning of the rising sun on the burning horizon through gaps of light through red kaleidoscopic trees.
“Next time bring me with you,” Mariama suggested, tapping her temple and pointing to me. “To your walking dreams, I mean. Wherever the night spirits guide you when all other men are sleeping, and the world is entirely ours for the taking.”

Khadisah’s gaze fixed fiercely on her friend’s once more, and the whole room erupted with the veracity of fracturing, interconnected, rampant red color. I try to keep my visions to myself, thinking about what used to become of them.

Glass is an extension; it exists in a constant state of change when molten. People change every second, in a constant half-light of who they are and who they will become. Like the lake between dreaming and reality, or a painting in constant interpretation. A word without formal translation, a feeling. Making stained glass, revelations of shape-cut fragments are painted with glass powder and fired in Mariama’s homemade kiln, fusing mirages of paint to the surface. Soldering joints with lead for stability, there is something meditative of puzzling together their memories. When glassblowing, she breathes life into her art, a revitalized self of otherwise secluded rights. Unveiling colored lenses of filtered light, she distills her life, betrays time. Creating is second to nothing, as concrete as petrified lightning in sand, and the fern-shaped kisses of lightning flowers on skin of raging energy.

xxxxx

It was dead winter, dead night. No shoes, no coat. I stopped answering Mariama’s calls. Too many glass cuts and bruises, empty nights. Walking up the snow-covered sidewalk to the chapel, Khadisah felt like she was buried in the new seamless blankets of fallen snow, fallen angels. Sometimes she forgot who she was. Because she cannot save everyone. A wandering ghost, an oracle without omens. Streetlight glowed through polychromatic windows, complex renderings of tall white figures preaching of salvation. Vivid crowns of gold, marbled robes, and flecked wings outstretching and draped by flickering light on the walls. It all reflected on her skin, histories of stories in light. Candles softened the hallway with the smell of incense and old books. Khadisah sighed and exited, reentered the snowy dreamscape outside, and looked up at the universe. The absence of light was beautiful, empty, and full at the same time. The window from a miniscule existence, what oddly calms and keeps us up at night. It was quiet, no wind, no moon. She laid down, a kite without a string. She started making snow angles and let herself cry about them. All of them. The pain when her husband visited, her daughter’s inevitable path like hers. The imprint of her body congealed to glass by the time the sun rose again, and she spoke colors to the stars. The seasons changed; the stars realigned. And more snow fell into her ghost.

“so, who’s gonna take you home, huh?”

I wake underneath Japanese maple, red leaves outlined in dark umber flaming against the clear blue sky. After a deep breath and regaining my surroundings, I evaluate where I am. The underdeveloped path from the reservation meanders back to site. I don’t remember what time or day it is, but I stand and jump across a trickling iron-red stream, I land on the other side a bit older, a bit wiser. Outlined in sweet grass and sage, I gather the herbs. Mint, sumac, elderberry, and yarrow. Sunlight guides me, and I thank the earth. Wah-doh, I say to the four Winds. Peace.
The mint leaves burn, and their ashes float towards heaven.
-----

Like tuning into the radio station from deep in the forest, she heard fuzzy, fragmented sounds. She felt light against her closed eyelids, but only saw a shoreline. She knew it was a dream. The trees aren’t right – the leaves were replaced by flowers, lending their neon petals to the dense sunset air. Standing in tall sweet grass, but there’s no gravity. She looked up, and saw the Japanese maple, the embers of leaves. And saw a reflection laying in the sun looking down—or up?—at herself. She wanted to fight the setting sun, become pristine like them. But she couldn’t hold her breath under the waters for too long. Spilling from the vase of an inviolate soul, sewing the stars like her scars. When the day is burned, we vanish in moonlight.

_

Working in the hospital, the color red. Panic attacks disassociate Khadisah from reality. She can still see, but can’t move, and only watches the violence as she crumbles under the skin. There were more angel marks, more places, less friendly. Stitches from infancy to womanhood, pedophilic ****** rights. A mother at 13, she cried for days and... feels the words rush back like water flooding all around her, rising around her body. This isn’t flying, this is drowning. So this is permanence, imprisonment from identity. A body collaged up and down, cut and fragmented on city and rural streets like vines salvaging mutilated walls and shattered windows. Being so stuck she was free. She saw a lost childhood in Mariama’s glass, and she was light as a feather in her father’s arms again.

The men say the seizures are from the Diable, but it was worse than that.

Even glaciers sculpt land and cut mountains over time with oceans of frozen glass. But earth was flooding once again.

And there was no blood on her hands.

Dad’s got a mind like the machines he works on
His psoriasis-beaten hands, still tough as they’ve always had to be
I come home to, “How’s your car?” and, “Do you need money?”
His jackets smell of oil and metal shavings and sometimes they hide splinters
His laugh is contagious and it mostly ignites from one of his own slightly comical remarks,
and it makes his belly move up and down like a boat on a lake during a storm
It reminds me of when I used to curl up for a nap on that pillowy tummy
and I’d bob up and down as he breathed

Mom doesn’t stop taking care of people even once she’s left the hospital
She can tell something’s wrong before I know it, myself
Her blue scrubs are her superhero costume,
and her other clothes are just a disguise
Her hugs make me miss her, somehow,
even though we’re as close as we can get
Something about her arms feels like being curled up in an afghan
and looking outside on a bleak and frore January night - Safe
They smell like every comforted cry and sympathetic word of my entire life;
Like home

You and I are like a mom and dad.

We have taken kids under our wings-
Keeping them happy,
And full,
And medicated.

They keep me accountable.
But they also enable me
To always seek pleasure,
So I can pay the happiness forward.

It keeps me fat.
My ******* soft
And swollen,
And my hormones are racing..

You and I are playing house
Because everyone wants a beautiful family..

But we are parents that never married.
We're not just together for the kids,
But we're not in love either.

It feels like we're stuck in courtship.

My heart still races around you,
And I stare at your lips all the time.
You pay for our 3 am dates sometimes
And you always look happy to see me.

We're two nervous kids
Only accepting affection in small doses.
You used to flinch whenever I would get close to you.
You let me lean on your shoulder a few weeks ago...

The worst part about having a baby daddy that won't let you kiss them
Is that I know it's not from lack of affection
Or maybe even attraction.

It's how fragile this is
For you.
You know that if you kiss me,
You'll learn to hate my lips.

Maybe it's because you could see yourself kissing me for a long time,
And you don't want to see yourself get old.

Probably wishful thinking.

In my selfish imaginations,
We consummate our marriage.
You cover my neck with lovebites,
And I give you pink scratches on your back...

I wish you would hate me.
Then I could kiss your pillowy lips,
And you could just squeeze my *** for hours,
And maybe someone would get an ****** out of it.

I think I'm a desperate housewife,
Waiting for you to really fall in love with me.

I don't know if you ever will.

I know that I really want you to.

Until then, I'll tend to our little nest.
I'll kiss our ******* children goodnight.
I'll make you lunch in a Burger King bag.
I'll let you give in to me, hopefully...