Pimple popping
Lathered deodorant
Awkward tampons
Hair in unwanted places
Drunken nights
Failed hangover cures
Flunked classes
Broken hearts
First kisses and first times
Rebounds
Hookups
Hickeys
Rushes of frustration
These are all
unglamorous occasions
Of a not so florescent
Adolescence

the river is
drinking it
sequins
blankets
the river runs past
hobos
unidentified
water fowl
two trolls
taking shelter under
the bridge
there’s conversation
in another language
fiendish brains connecting
fiendish yet
beautiful
thunder
tampons
a turtle
a naked boy
on the patio
rain
definitely
rain
unmatched
and the steam
coming from the
bridge
once there was a troll
on my face
and I swatted it
with a broom
but it came back
it came back
with you
laughter pounds
with the rain
laughter that wears
emotion like
skin
soft
elastic
still pink
bouncing
on the river’s surface
breaking
absorbed
sustenance for
the trolls
like fiends with faces
like minds with names
these two connect
with spark
and the rain
falls
the stillness under
nature’s
machinery

imagine five undred tousand tampons
imagine ow much moisture dey would absorb
imagine all de bajinas, imagine the smell they would make.
i love me ganga, it makes me imagine

Sweaty face bright purple and greasy
I used to hide my body between the pages
But he told me to not read any more

Itchy head heated enough to make tea
My eyes are now how the trees say my name
My eyes are now the leeches I put in empty tampons

Sweaty neck I only want some traces of lips
Sweaty palms I only want some other fingers
Sweaty thighs I only want to walk well

******* sad wrapped in plastic
Cranky child trapped in old wrinkling skin
It may well be irrational excuses

Womb nervous and not worthy
Cerebral excuses, hormonal excuses
Highly sensitive person excuses

Delayed maturity excuses
Premenstrual syndrome excuses
Premature menopause excuses

Abusive motherhood at 5
Traumatic childhood at 18
What happens in between stays in between

Woman is a title that comes with too many consequences shoved into the spaces between each letter. I have worn it proudly, not fully understanding the heaviness it carries, or exactly what it means. I still don’t.

Summer camp teaches me how to shave my legs when my mother neglects to. I am eleven, with hair on my skin barely long enough to pull out when my bunkmates coach me on how to erase it. "Boys don't like girls with prickly bodies," my counselor tells me confidently. I soon understand that to be woman means to be bare, stripped, and clean, always. Being woman means catching the changes of your morphing body before anyone else can point them out.

I am raised to keep secrets. We call the parts of ourselves that we aren't supposed to talk about private. I learn to be silent in more ways than one.


Haley is my best friend. Together we uncover the mystery of womanhood untold. She loves a boy two years older than us and gives herself to him in his parked car outside her house during one of our many sleepovers. I listen as she confesses the details to my eager ears. We learn more about *** from each other than we do health class.  The information given out is too much and not enough at the same time. We are taught enough to do it, but not enough to ease our unknowingness.

Condoms are given out for free. Tampons are not.

Virginity was a concept we were told to maintain from early on. At 14 I want to get losing it over with so I do, with a boy two years older, in between his childhood sheets. I am high enough to blur the details, but not high enough to forget it happens.

I learn how to cauterize undesirable memory with substance, the way too many women do.

When a sophomore girl comes to school with a broken face, everyone is quiet. We all know about the fight, the pushing down the stairs, the bruising that swelled violently like her love for him. "I think he's even hotter now," I overhear someone say.

The first boy I ever love treats me like ****. I let him because that's how it works in the movies.

I love a straight girl with curly brown hair and a smile too much like summer. She kisses me and then tells me about whatever boy she is pursuing that week. It confuses me to no end.

Mia meets her first love when we are 17 and gives him all of her too soon. When he dumps her, I come over ready with a box of popsicles in hand.

We play with Polly Pockets well into our teenage years. The dolls live out dreams impossible for us to reach.

I realize vulnerability is not an option, but something we are born wearing.

A friend shows me how to keep my keys peeking through my knuckles at night. I hold them through scared fingers as I navigate the side streets necessary to get home.

Mom buys me glitter covered pepper spray, "because it's cute." I know her unsaid words and what she really means. "There are too many bad people in the world to not be cautious, you can never be too careful."

When a girl I don't know well is attacked in a back alley by strangers, we sit nervously the couch and talk about the terrifying reality, how bad we feel for her, and how awful it must be to go through something like that.

I call my best guy friend immediately after someone I know takes my body without permission. I explain the details to him of what happened, still shaking from the shock of it. I wait for his response, hoping for open arms ready to hold while I shatter. He sighs and says, "you should have been more careful." I don't counter. I shower three times in a row, tuck myself into the same bed where it happened, and pick up the cracked pieces of myself in the morning. I tell no one else after that.

**** is the punch line to too many jokes.
I don’t laugh.

In an anonymous thread, I read as people discuss the topic of ****** assault. My eyes lose count of how many times strangers say, "just because you regret it, doesn't mean it is ****." I have seen doubt ******* too many faces hearing the stories of survivors with dull eyes from telling theirs over and over again to people who will never believe them. Their truth is taken with a shot of uncertainty.
They ask, "Why survivor? Why not victim?"
They say, “It doesn’t **** you, you’re not a survivor.”
I want to answer that survival is a choice made in the aftermath of destruction, that we either chew our way through the broken glass or swallow it whole, letting it break us from the inside out. I want to say survival is not as simple as we didn’t die. Survival is consciously refusing not to.
Instead I say nothing.

I know girls with too many piercings and tattoos because they had run out of room on their small bodies to let out any more anger. I watch darkness fill their skin with its reminder, young girls who know pain all too well.

A man on the street calls out to me. I shake my head quietly because I'm afraid of the bomb my response could set off. I have seen too many ticking men explode for me to want to fight back.

I learn about abortion when I am too young to understand it, too self-centered at the time to try to imagine the fear of unwanted growing inside of her. I have grown to understand the importance of choice.

A guy tells me that if a woman has *** with more than five guys in her lifetime, she's a *****.

Someone I hook up with shares with me about how his friends audio record their girlfriends during ***. He laughs, I shudder.

"Guys don’t like it when.."  is a tip I hear almost daily.  

School dress codes mark my shoulders unholy, my shorts too miniscule. I am sent to the principal's office in 10th grade when I refuse to change into a top that doesn't show my lower back. I ask what my body did to have to learn this kind of shame. I am suspended for the rest of the day.

Beauty pageants teach me that perfect woman is exactly what I am not.

My ex boyfriend calls me a ****.

My other ex boyfriend calls me crazy. I’ve learned that crazy is synonymous with “she had an opinion that did not align with mine.”

In my college lecture we talk about the origins of hysteria, remembering how women in history had their voices twisted into insanity. I think about how often “calm down” is used as a modern-day-tranquilizer.

Us weekly tells me every week, in one too many advertisements, how to lose weight.

My campus paper posts an ad for breast augmentation deals. "Get spring break ready."

The size of my chest is too much a reflection of my brain’s capacity.

Being woman means too much in a language I do not fully understand. It is skin and bones, it is raw and blood, it is a mouth filled with words unsaid, it is fear and worry, it is an unspoken connection between us all, it is 75 cents to a dollar, less for those of color, it is censored body, it is *******, it is being too much to handle, it is being equated with less, it is we are the same but we are not treated so, it is we are human in a world we call man’s, it is we have been struggling under the waves for centuries, it is not drowning, it is still swimming, always

Search. Find. Push.
******. Ouch. Nothing.

Sitting; uncomfortable.
Stand. Walk. Ouch.
Nothing.

Blanket and a mirror.
Search. Find. Push.

Standing.
Search. Find. Push.

Pull. Splatter-print red on plastic.
Leaving sliver of string attached to puffy cotton. Dangling.

Check. Finished. Blood.
Pull.

Search. Find. Push.
******;ouch;nothing.

Search find push.
****** ouch nothing.

Repeat repeat repeat.

Ours was like fireworks
in the mid-summer sky
Radiant,
       Iridescent,
                   Incredulous,
                              Alive
but the finale came suddenly, unexpectedly soon,
& the band played on,
as if nothing had changed,
as if a fountain of sparkling embers and flame
had not just erupted mere inches away.
And now,
where explosions once seared summer's sky with crackling thunderous incandescent delight
Only whispers and wisps of smoke remain,
Scattered by the breeze,
Whithered, then, by rain.
And of the evening's reveries precious little can be found:
some soured beer in crumpled cans, discarded haphazardly
surrounding a threadbare picnic bedspread
rumpled beneath the branches of an ancient live oak tree.
Dew now wet where lovers once had lain,
staring up into the night
in wonder, ignorant of such banal things
like: masquerading lust in love's robes, declaring,
"I've never loved a love as deep as the love I have for you,"
and truly being unaware of the uncanny substitute;
Or the unbridled disenchantment unleashed by abandonment
and the inevitable transience of an insufferable pain.

We ****** on bar balcony balustrades, over looking city streets.
We ditched tampons into trees rather than wait to satisfy our needs.
We left your ******* in a planter
on a patio under an eve
On purpose, So that some poor, unassuming shop-keep
Would find them
(along with cigarette butts and an empty bag of ****)
and have no choice but think to themselves,
"Did someone **** here?"
and then immediately understand the answer is
"Yes. Exuberantly!"

We defiled. every. place. we went;
giggling with glee at all of our indiscretions.

Oh how many indiscretions could there possibly be?
We shall know;
All of them!

And so we did,

And we were free.



On new years eve I carried you piggyback in your peacock blue sequined gown through the streets of our ****-soaked-gutter-of-a-town.
You were barefoot, drunk, and refusing to be told what to do,
that you had to wear your shoes,
that the streets were far to ***** and dangerous for your tender little feet- you said "Just let me be, It's fine. It wont **** me..."
then, looking at the gutter, continued,
"probably.
And these shoes already are, so..." sticking out your tongue
But I couldn't put you down.
Not in that place, not at that time.
Nor did I even want to. I could have carried you all night
(which was fortunate, because for most of itI did.)
We were declared the city's cutest couple by a stranger on the sidewalk whom we passed while galloping down the street, you, giggling, alight upon my back, running at full speed. This declaration was reaffirmed by everyone met.

A pixie, you know, will always trip you up
(they're natural pranksters you see).
Their magic is undeniable, but oh what trouble they can be.

- My toothsome little faerie - You meant trouble for me;
but what a beautiful, beguiling mess you turned out to be,

You snuck pixie dust into everywhere we went, and
Dispensed it with abandon-
Spread it like caution to the wind.
Sanctifying everything and everyone we met.
That poor city was baptized in our joy.
It's sins washed into glittering gutters,
where we lay sparkling, genuine and loved.


We broke the records that night,
all of them, known and not.

We loved harder than diamond,
than a trailer-hitch to the shin,
Deeper than the fathoms of the trenches at the bottom of the sea.

We made soulmates seem like strangers.
We spoke nonsense fluently.
We shared mind and body, food and drink,
and careless wanton play.

It was

The most
     *******
          Fun
   I've ever had
       in my life...

Probably the most that I ever will.


Every moment I was with you had
the sizzle and the tease
of a bottle-rocket, lit
and held between my teeth.

I knew that I'd get burned
If I held it to the end,
But I did it just to prove I could;
To prove to me
That I was brave enough
To be unashamed
  To be unafraid
   To be.

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

I know you think
I wear lipstick everyday
And my hands always
Smell like
Chai tea and raspberries

I know you think
My tongue always
Tastes like
Melted sugar
And peppermint

I know you think
I sleep in the same lace
Underwear
You find me in
On certain Sundays
In the spring
When the air is light
And my jeans
Don't stick
To my thighs

I know you think
I'm larger than life

Above chipped teeth
And bruises
And cigarette ash
And acne

I know you think
My eyes don't turn
Blood red
And poison
When I cry

I know you think
My finger nails
Are always
Freshly painted

And I always wear
A bra
That fits

I know you think
Yoga pants are
My comfy clothes,
Never gray sweat pants
With a faded red stain
Between my legs

I know you think
My calves are always
Soft, hairless, and toned

You think
I wait by the phone
With vanilla incense
Burning in a red robe

But you're wrong
And that's impossible

I won't let you in
Cause I won't be
The one
To shatter
Your whole
Pretty, little world

I'm disgusting
Sometimes

I sleep with
Way too many
Girls and guys

And sometimes I cry so much
My eyelids peel
Til I look like
Leather face
And I don't leave my house
For 8 days

And in those 8 days
I shower
Maybe twice

My skin gets rough
In the winter

Right now
I have a
Pimple on
My left shoulder
And every morning
It looks a little
Meaner

My ***** spill
Out over the top
And the sides
Of my favorite
Sport's bra

And I don't care

I smell like burnt oil
And cheap hair dye
Half of the time

I haven't washed
My sheets in a while
And they smell like
Salt water
And chlorine

You put me up on a pedestal
From which I refuse to fall

So I'll stay here,
Far,
Untouchable

You'll never love me
With sticky tampons
In my garbage can
And half drank beer bottles
On my bedroom floor

I'll stay here,
Far,
Untouchable,

Safe

I feel life from the words I write despite them being words I slurred over night it's like I fight but my pen is the sword of course I force myself into creative prospects I expect to wreck what in front of me is set
I wondered what would happen if I ruled the world gimme a shot at the top I'm not Clinton I only need one girl but seriously I hate this place controlled by industry it's ****** me up the environment and desire for right went out the window when the dead presidents kept talking from beyond the grave the money you made won't matter so cut it like a beanstalk

DaSH:
And fall into a pool of tears
From all the single mothers over all these years
Tucking youngins under covers
Undercover trying not to let the pain show through
This is the same strong woman that still holds you
Even though you're older and make your own decisions
Its gotten colder in the later years just wishin
You could go back to the beginnin
Back to when **** was simple
And all you had to do was listen
To another bedtime story
Next thing you know you're drifting
Away from all these problems and all these lights
Fluoride will **** our dreams they tell us to brush our teeth and cringe when we say reality bites
But I'm just trying to figure what's more important
Being myself
Or being Your kid
Just another thought from the tortured
I can feel the flames lick my body 'fore the torch's lit
Society's trying to burn us
And if they think they can teach us before they learn us then its straight out the frying pan and flying into the furnace

Nero:
I'm all alone like a watchtower my life turned sour but I'll devour any chance to **** up fools with rhymes perchance I'll leave you entranced with my writings but I'm sliding off topic so dash if you're ready then go a ahead and rip because we're cyphering on some poetic mafia ****

DaSH:
**** clips in the toilet with the ******* safety off
******* blood royal flushing with my king homie Alucard
All your ******* are old and lack any kind of support
So I'll hang em make their back straight with that ******* IV cord
If this cipher is random
Hope they deal with what I hand em
Four grenades a box of tampons
Watch these ******* explode while standing above the commode
Uncan them
The whoopass they deserve
Then im swervin in their hearse
Hopping over every curb
Speeding through every sharp turn
I love to watch their bodies burn
I love to catch every single ash between my teeth and eat them
DaSH is such a beast you freed him
By acting like a priest
When youre a demon in the streets
*******, capish?

Nero:
Alucard the damphir ******* blood like canned beer I'm near my apex others are below I'll free flow like arkham you won't question in a session when I leave your ***** barkin rhyme sparring call me Ali all these fools stay trying to Rock me like cheap Versace but I'm high quality leather built for your pleasure linkin words together you'll take home and treasure like Sinbad I don't sling crack but my rhymes are the pipe because reading this I know your *** got addicted tonight

DaSH:
Slicing high up on their frame
Like I'm aimin for the throat
Lots of gore on the floor
Need a boat to stay afloat
The walls needed more paint
You donate another coat
But I don't need your ******* charity
I'll stumble and I choke
Before I ever let you get to me
Before you start ***** you'll be history
How you ******* plan on ending me?
Just get Gone, Girl, be a mystery

I miss being a child
Ignorance is bliss
I've never heard anything truer.
The moment a child is told not to take candy from a stranger or to insert its fingers in the outlet, it is starting to face the horrors of the world. Rapists, murderers, terrorists and thieves; people the child is going to hopefully always evade and not face. And then said child turns into a adolescent. Makeup, tampons, BO and acne. You find out boys are pigs and girls are easy if you know your way with words. You feed off of everything you read and see - the media, parents, teachers, peers and strangers. From then on you have two choices: grow and fend for yourself or keep being a sheep and depending on people to make you feel like somebody. You can educate yourself about sexism, homophobia and islamophobia or call every Muslim "terrorist", say the n words and call people f*gs or *******. Speak up for yourself. Be independent, be your own person. Don't be afraid to look stupid. Research, listen, know your facts. Take very opportunity to travel. Expand your mind. And your heart. Speaking of, do not search for love, it will come. Do not forget to love yourself before loving anyone else. Wrap yourself is self-respect like a thick blanket in the middle of winter. Blow up your self-esteem. But stay humble. Do not brag in the faces of those who have less than you and do not envy those who have more than you. Strive to be as good. So yes, ignorance is bliss but is it really worth missing out on the knowledge?

we are soaking wet, we tumble into the tent, naked and hot and so wet.
we giggle as the air clings to our bare skin.
we are trapped in our cave and have never been more free.
nothing else can matter.
not the hot dogs in the rain, now roasting for no one
not the man mourning his dwindling fire, a standoff with Mother
nothing else could matter.

we are in our cave until we aren’t and that is all that matters.
no cigarettes to be smoked,
no drugs to be sniffed ,
no ***** to be drunk,
only two giggle girls gone calm.
so calm and so serene and so alive
no Man matters
just two beautiful women flowing with their moon in the moonlight.
just laying and giggles and.
oh i hope that rain doesn’t stop.
cause we have gone mad
we’ve forgotten all the bad and sad and
what it means to be self conscious and
how to be cool and what about the economy.

and we’ve remembered what rain feels like.
and we’ve remembered how to be rain.
because we are wet and smiles and fluid and warm and perfect.
we are perfectly rain.
and this is my place.

we left all hope and fear and desires
and hot dogs and tampons outside the cave.
and **** tampons.
we are rain and we are flowing.
and the cave made rules:
what is outside the cave stays outside,

especially tampons.

the cave is for flowing and flowers,
and we are naked and wet and ha.ha.ha. hot
and have never been more free.

and in that moment i’ve actually forgotten
that outside this tent is not my place,
our cave led me to the faerie land of our tent
and i’ve never been more in love
with the idea that this could be my place.

I'm a feminist.
I'm a feminist because 85000 women are ***** every year
I'm a feminist because domestic violence will effect 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men
I'm a feminist because a woman has a right to wear no make up and a man has a right to wear make up
I'm a feminist because if a woman faces difficulty in terminating a pregnancy why doesn't the man for leaving in the first place?
I'm a feminist because a father has as much rights to his children as the mother
I'm a feminist because 1 in 5 women aged between 15 and 59 have experienced ****** assault
I'm a feminist because I believe in equal pay regardless of race, religion and gender
I'm a feminist because a 1/3 of people blame the victim for their **** or assault
I'm a feminist because 12000 men are ***** every year
I'm a feminist because I believe it is ok for men to cry!
I'm a feminist because male victims of abuse deserve the same support as females
I'm a feminist because most women in the UK do not have access to a **** crisis center
I'm a feminist because what I do with my ****** shouldn't determine my self worth
I'm a feminist because there are 5700 cases of FGM in the UK alone
I'm a feminist because a women has a right to cover or uncover her body
I'm a feminist because middle aged men are the at the highest risk for suicide
I'm a feminist because who you fall in love with shouldn't be a sin
I'm a feminist because crimes against properties receive harsher punishments than crimes against a person
I'm a feminist because everyone has a right to say "No"
I'm a feminist because my position as a woman shouldn't be determined by whether I breed or not
I'm a feminist because no ones gender determines their career in life
I'm a feminist because my ****** shouldn't prevent or deter me from body modifications
I'm a feminist because women are far more likely to be assaulted or killed by their partners or ex partners
I'm a feminist because everyone has a right to education and health care
I'm a feminist because everyone has a right to practice their religion
I'm a feminist because being a man is not determined by the size of his ***** nor the amount of women he has ******
I'm a feminist because men can be pampered too
I'm a feminist because fathers deserve as much time as mothers off work to be with their children
I'm a feminist because manspreading is pathetic and sexist
I'm a feminist because of the Suffragette movement
I'm a feminist because of Elizabeth Tudor, Anne Boleyn, Boadicea , Cleopatra.
I'm a feminist because I needed no father to learn how to be strong, loud and powerful
I'm a feminist because my Mother raised me on her own
I'm a feminist because my mother inspired me to be as loud and as crazy as her
I'm a feminist because my father beat my mother
I'm a feminist because my uncle committed suicide
I'm a feminist because my brother is branded a freak for his mental illness
I'm a feminist because my sister is branded a scrounger for being a mother
I'm a feminist because I buy my boyfriend flowers and pay for meals and treats
I'm a feminist because the man who sexually abused me walked free
I'm a feminist because the ex that abused me branded me a *****
I'm a feminist because I can be as brutal as any man in the metal scene
I'm a feminist because songs shouldn't glorify **** or violence against women
I'm a feminist because being blonde doesn't mean I'm dumb
I'm a feminist because no one should touch anyone or grab their *****!
I'm a feminist because my pads and tampons are not a luxury but a necessity as I control control the bleeding from my womb
I'm a feminist because my breast tissue is no different from a mans yet why must I be shamed for uncovering them?
I'm a feminist because no ones bodies should be sexulised against their will
I'm a feminist because I shouldn't be made to wait until 25 to have a smear test
I'm a feminist because I came from no man's rib but a woman's womb!
I'm a feminist.

"I will have but one mistress here! And no master!"

This is the year I'll try
to be brave
and stop running
I can't guarantee it'll work
I won't promise that I will
but I'll try
Try to let a boy in
I know it sounds cliché
but I need to let someone figure me out

A cold sore and a box of tampons
On the eve of new year's eve
Was my wake up call
a cosmic karma ***** slap if you will
A sign from the gods that there will be hell to pay
if I don't try to change my ways
Enough of the hunt and chase they say
for I've carpeted my dense forest
with all the maimed hearts from seven years
of a coquettish past

But how to change?
How does the hunter willingly become the hunted
to throw down one's crossbow and wait defenseless
I'm so good at what I do
How do I force myself to lose my self in order to stop the
vicious thing I've become

I TOOK WALK TO BULLER BEACH
I COULD NOT WALK ON THE SAND WITH MY BARE FEET
THE WAVES BROUGHT TO THE SHORE TAMPONS, CONDOMS AND PLASTIC
EVERYWHERE WAS CHAOTIC
THE SEAS HAVE BECOME A DUMPING SITE
WITH ******* PILED TO AN UNIMAGINABLE HEIGHT
MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN DEFECATING ON ROCKS
WITH NO SHAME
NO WONDER ITS NAME
TURTLES , DOLPHINS AND SEA BIRDS ARE DYING
THEY SWALLOW PLASTICS AND DIE FROM CHOKING
IF FISHER MEN ARE CATCHING PLASTIC TRASH
HOW CAN THEY MAKE MORE CASH?
CHANGE UR WAYS
AVOID THE TAKEAWAYS

A mere three poems you have posted
and I sense something like beauty
in your lines
Something exactly like beauty
A hint of pain,
but every indication of self-betterment
through self-reflection
and direct (non-)action
as you feel the edge
but do not press it through
which I hope you continue not to do
And although I have never
drawn my own blood
I find myself touching things
just to see how they feel;
my intent, to escape anything real

So I imagine you experience life
in a similar way
Small escapes whenever you can,
but questioning whether something's
wrong with your head
And the agony of loss;
your cells certainly remain
And your mention of tampons
brings to mind for me
that my last love's last remaining
evidence of our time
is a ****** wrapper that stayed
in my trash for months,
even survived a move
and now rests in a big bag
ready to go out.
Surely, you are still with him
somewhere in his life.

You are not disgusting,
of that I am sure
We all have our secrets
And those of us who hide them all
are the disgusting,
because you find them out
when it hurts the most

And as I bring this piece to a close,
I see you have revealed two more of your own,
further revealing your heart and its beauty,
as you give to a man who has a heart like my own

Her profile reads “I dance for tips,
                                downtown in Portland.”
Most are looking for the next pair of lips
to kiss
between their legs.
But I'd like to hold
                                her hands
                                behind her back
as she bends over
                                realizes I don't drip ink,
or cash,
                                and wimpers.
A sugar-daddy?
With tattoos? No,
you might get an insurance salesman,
                          or occasional sports equipment re-saler
a single father or two
                         to pay for your tired, old
opinions.
Or you might stop dancing,
                          sell real-estate
your creativity decaying inside a white,
metal box
                         like those bloodied
tampons         janitors were
embarrassed--
ashamed-- to pick up
in junior high bathrooms.
                          She might move back in with her parents
and fly
             like some silken night-robe flapping on a clothesline all day Friday,
all day Saturday. Until lunch on Sunday,
when she pulls it down.
Or she'll flap that way
              for years, on a line in Portland.
Until one day,
                         one day,
that man who won't hold her
                          in the shadows
                          will
                          come
with money,
                     tattoos abounding
and watch her dance
with tears
                  streaming
into the sheath of her time-worn robe
in afternoon sun.

I get off the Belt Parkway at Rockaway Boulevard and
Jet aloft from Idyllwild.
(I know, now called J.F. ******* K!)
Aboard a TWA 747 to what was then British East Africa,
Then overland by train to Baroness Blixen’s Nairobi farm . . .
You know the one at the foot of the Ngong Hills.
I lease space in Karen’s African dreams,
Caressing her long white giraffe nape,
That exquisite Streep jugular.
I am a ghost in Meryl’s evil petting zoo:
I haunt the hand that feeds me.

Safely back in Denmark, I receive treatment
For my third bout with syphilis at Copenhagen General.
Cured at last, I return to Kenya and Karen.
In my solitude or sleep, I go with her,
One hundred miles north of the Equator,
Arriving at Julia Child’s marijuana herb garden–
Originally Kikuyu Land, of course—
But mine now by imperial design &
California voter referendum.
(Voiceover) "I had a farm in Africa
At the foot of the Ngong Hills."
My farm lies high above the sea at 6,000 feet.
By daybreak I feel oh, oh so high up,
Near to the sun on early mornings.
Evenings so limpid and restful;
Nights oh, so cold.
Mille Grazie a lei, Signore *******!
Andiamo, Sydney, amico mio.
Let it flow like the water that lives in Mombasa.
Let it flow like Kurt Luedtke’s liquid crystal script.
We zoom in. We go close in. Going close up,
On the face of Isak Dinesen’s household
Servant and general factotum. (Full camera ******)
Karen Blixen’s devoted Muslim manservant,
Farah: “God is happy, msabu. He plays with us…”
He plays with me.  And who shall I be today?
How about Tony Manero for starters?
Good choice. Nicely done!
Geezer Manero:  old and bitter now,
Still working at the hardware store,
Twice-divorced, a chain-smoker,
Severely diabetic, a drunk on dialysis 3 times a week.
Bite me, Pop:  I never thought I was John Travolta.
But, hey, I had my shot:  “I coulda been a contenda.”
Once more, by association only,
I am a great artist again, quickly made
Near great by a simple second look.
Why, oh God? I am kvetching again.
I celebrate myself and sing the
L-on-forehead loser’s lament:
Why implant the desire and then
Withhold from me the talent?
“I wrote 30 ******* operas,”
I hear Salieri’s demented cackle.
“I will speak for you, Wolfie Babaloo;
I speak for all mediocrities.
I am their champion, their patron saint.”

Must I wind up in the same
Viennese loony bin with Antonio?
Note to self:  GTF out of Austria post-haste!
I’ve been called on the Emperor’s carpet again,
My head, my decapitated Prufrock noodle,
Grown slightly bald, brought in upon a platter.
Are peaches in season?
Do I dare eat one?
I am Amadeus, ******, infantile,
An irresistible iconoclast and clown.
Wolfie:   “I am called on the imperial carpet again.
The Emperor may have no clothes but he’s got a
Shitload of ******* carpets."
Hello Girls: ‘Disco Tampons!
Staying inside, staying inside!
Wolfie: "Why have I chosen a ****** farce for my libretto?
Surely there are more elevated themes . . . NO!
I am fed to the teeth with elevated themes,
People so lofty they **** marble!"
Confutatis maledictis,
Flammis acribus addictis.

So, I mix paint in the hardware store by day.
I dance all night, near-great again by locomotion.
Join me in at least one of my verifiable nine lives.
Go with me across the Narrows,
Back to Lenape with the wild red men of Canarsee,
To Vlacke Bos, Boswijk & Nieuw Utrecht,
To Dutch treat Breuckelen, Red Hook & Bensonhurst,
To Bay Ridge and the Sheepshead.
Come with me to Coney Island’s Steeplechase & Luna Park, &
Dreamland (aka Brownsville) East New York, County of Kings.
If I’m lying, I’m dying.
And while we’re on the subject now,
Bwana Finch Hatton (pronounced FINCH HATTON),
Why not turn your focus to the rival for Karen’s heart,
To the guy who nursed her through the syphilis,
That old taciturn ******, Guru Farah?
Righto and Cheerio, Mr. Finch Hatton,
Denys George of that surname—
Why not visualize Imam Farah?
Farah: a Twisted Sister Mary Ignatius,
Explaining it all to your likes-the-dark-meat
Friend and ivory-trading business partner,
Berkeley (pronounced BARK-LEE) Cole.
Can you dig it, Travolta?
I knew that you could!

Oh yeah, Tony Manero, the Bee Gees & me,
A marriage made in Brooklyn.
The Gibbs providing the sound track while
I took care of the local action.
I got more *** than a toilet seat, a Don Juan rep &
THE CLAP on more than one occasion.
Probably from a toilet seat.
Even my big brother–the failed priest,
Celibate too long and desperate now–
Even my defrocked, blue-balled brother,
Frankie, cashing in his chips at the Archdiocese,
Taking soave lessons from yours truly,
Taking notes, copying my slick moves with chicks.
It was the usual story with the usual suspects &
The usual character tests. All of which I flunk.
I choose Fitzgerald's “vast, ****** meretricious beauty,”
My jumpstart to the middle class.
I spurn the neighborhood puttana,
Mary Catherine Delvecchio: the community ****
With the proverbial heart of gold &
A backpack full of self-esteem deficits.
I opt out.  I’m hungry and leaping.
I morph again, grab *** the golden girl.
Now I’m Gatsby in a white suit,
Stalking Daisy Buchanan in East Egg,
Daisy: her voice full of money;
My green light flashing on the disco dance floor.
I, a fool for love; she, my faithless uptown girl,
Golden and delicious like the apple,
Capricious like a blue Persian cat.
My “orgiastic future” eluded me then.
It eludes me still. Time to go home again to the place
****-ant Prufrocks ponder their pathetic dying embers.
Time to assume the position:
Gazing out from some trapezoidal patch of green
At the foot of Roebling’s bridge,
Contemplating an alternative reality for myself,
A new life across the East River,
In the city that never sleeps.
I crave. I lust. I am a guinzo Eva Duarte.
I too must be a part of B.A., Buenos Aires:
THE BIG APPLE.
But I am ashamed of my luggage,
Not to mention my baggage.
It’s like that last thing Holden Caulfield said to me,
Just before he crossed over the Brooklyn Bridge,
Crossed over to Manhattan without me,
Leaving me alone again, searching for our kid sister,
Phoebe, the only one on earth we can relate to:
“It’s really hard to be roommates with people
If your suitcases are much better than theirs.”
Ow! That stung; that was a stinger.
I am smithereened by a self-guided drone,
A smart bomb full of snide antigravity,
Transformational and caustic.
My meager allotment of self-esteem
Metastasizes into something base,
Something heavy and vile.
I drop to earth like lead mozzarella.

I am unworthy, unworthy in the maximum mendicant,
Roman Catholic mea culpa sense of the word.
I am now Umberto Eco’s penitenziagite.
I am Salvatore, a demented hunchback
(Played flawlessly as a demented hunchback by Ron Perlman),
Spewing linguistic gibberish in a variety of vernaculars:
“Lord, I am not worthy to live anywhere west of the Gowanus Canal.”
By East River waters I weep bitter tears,
The promise of a promised land denied.
I am a garlic-eating Chuck Yeager,
Auguring in, burnt beyond recognition,
An ethnic trope, a defiant Private Maggio
From here and for eternity,
Forever a swarthy ethnic stereotype
Trying to escape thru a small but significant
Hole in the ozone layer above South Ozone Park,
New York, zip code 11420.
That’s right, Ozone Park.
If you don’t believe me, look it up.
GO ******* GOOGLE IT!

And I just don’t know when to quit.
So why quit there?
Work with me, fratello mio, mon lecteur.
Like you, I took the LSAT so long ago.
Why am I not a distinguished American jurist
Asking the one question that seems to be on
Everyone’s eugenic lips today:
“Aren’t three generations of imbeciles enough?”
I am Charly from Flowers for Algernon,
A slow learner with a push broom, swept up in
Some dust from Leonard Cohen’s cuff.
Lenny: a grey-beard loon himself now, singing
“Hallelujah” for fish & chips in London’s O2 Arena.
“Suzanne takes you down, Babaloo!”
At last, I am Jesus Quintana—
John Turturro stealing the movie as usual--
This time in a hair net and a jumpsuit,
"Made of a comfortable 65% polyester/35%
Cotton poplin, you can even add your own
Ribbon leg trim and monogramming
For just the right look to be one of
The Big Lebowski’s favorite characters.
Mouse-over the thumbnail below to see our actual style
(Color must be purple). Style #: 98P, Price: $55.95. On sale: $50.36.www.myjumpsuit.com."
Fortunately, I am a savvy marketeer:
I understand the artistic potential, the venal
Possibilities of product placement. Go with me
To that undiscovered country.
The humanities uncorrupted till now by
Crass gimcrack television ads. That’s right:
******* commercials smack dab in the
Middle of a ******* poem. Why not?
Great literature has always been about
Selling something, even if only an idea.
Hey, **** me, Herman Melville!
We both know the publication costs of
Moby **** were underwritten by the tattoo artists &
Harpoon manufacturers of New Bedford,
Matched by a small research grant from some
Proto-Greenpeace, Poseidon adventure in some
Great white whale-watching swinging soiree.
Murray the ******* K, pendejo!
At last, I am The Jesus, a pervert & pederast,
According to Walter Sobjak—another post-traumatic
Post Toasty, like me, still out there in the jungle,
Still in love with the smell of ****** in the morning.
My bowling buddy, Walter, comfortably far to the right of
The Dude, and Attila the *** for that matter,
But who gives a **** if Lenin was The Walrus?
(“Shut the **** up, Buscemi!”)
“Once you hang a right at Hubert Humphrey,”
Said the streets of 1968 Chicago,
"It’s all ******* fascism anyway.”
That creep could roll, though, and as we know so well:
“Nobody ***** with The Jesus.”
Can you dig it, Travolta?
I knew that you could!

INCOMING!
I just heard from an old girlfriend who is miles away,
Teaching school in Navajo Land.
The Big Rez:  a long day’s interstate katzenjammer,
A Route 66 nightmare by car, but by email,
Just down the block and round the corner.
I had previously closed an email to her with a frivolous
“Say hello to my stinky friend.”
It was a total non-sequitur, an iconic-moronic,
Ace Ventura-mutant line from Scarface,
Which may have meant–in my herbal lunch delirium—
That she should say hi to some mutual acquaintance
We mutually loathe, Or, perhaps an acknowledgement that she–
My surrogate Cameron Diaz–has a new **** buddy,
Of whom I am insanely jealous.
Or maybe it was a simple Seinfeld “about nothing.”
Who knows what goes on in that twisted *****’s head?
She spends the next two hours in a flood of funk,
A deluge of insecurity.
A veritable Katrina ****** of self-consciousness,
Interpreting my inane nonsense in terms of vaginal health.

Hey, you want to ruin a woman’s day?
Tell her, her **** smells.

she was the first
to act as though
she wanted to be my beretta,
to hold a holster to my thigh
and accept the badge
of partner in crime.

she spoke without shelter.

pool days of marination
in monsters and taurus,
a kiss for pity
as i'd yet to be corrupted,
and she stole some joy
in taking what wasn't hers.

she was bigger than me.

she showed me
how shattered touch screens
can look like dried petals,
but cut like cold *******,
and when you're in a field of dandelions
how they come in handy.

she wrote the book on flagellation.

she promised it was all for me;
calloused fingertips from
loving me with lighter fluid,
scratches for feral adoration,
and the damocles' above my head
or rather hers, and hers to drop on a whim.

she wrote a chapter on manipulation.

i wasn't ready the first time
she pushed passed denim
and plaid as easily
as she waived my concern,
nor the second --
nor the third.

she had daddy issues.

i still didn't know
how tampons worked,
or vaginas for that matter,
and so to be forcefully
and viscerally introduced to both
behind a tree in Henessey
****** up my brain a little.

she called it "mad week."

ear bud cables
became garrotes
around my neck
in the suspended
movement of a pulse
through my aorta;
and as every day with her,
i felt she crossed a line,
and as every day before,
i never called foul.

Listen here ******
Your hole is too tight
There are no fake ***** out here none made in China
I despise virgins, cause ***** don't fit

I don't appreciate blow jobs that's temporary
I prefer full time jobs
So won't you take ******* ***** as a full time job mouthy?
Won't you wind my tambourine till it weeps and sobs?

I don't like ******* that weren't ****** before
They got penises acting like tampons
I don't like being the first ****** this **** stays  on girls hearts like tattoos
If we ******* are my client, we build a rapport

Growing up l had a phobia for hairy vaginas
I always told my ****** to shave because I never imagined myself dating a bushman
Nothing is an idiot like my **** I saw it growing feet and standing cause this girl in a taxi was eating banana
Growing up I had a phobia of a pointy ***** in public.
Don't hate, my pen_is writing.

advertising has changed so much
in capitalism,
it's a form of existentialism,
while the french philosophers
abstracted in coffee shops
english existentialism took to
constantly advertising people,
they're not cheese grins and tampons
and toilet product quickies...
they're literally full time adverts,
they do that thing called blogging in video...
it's a strange existentialism,
it's a plagiarism of c.c.t.v.,
the new medium of advertising requires
constant consumer surveillance with those clowns
getting gifts from companies, talking about
getting them and pushing them on...
advertisement literally became a movie picture
akin to Hollywood... the internet age
gave us advertisement actors who
advertise with so much existential angst they
have to encompass each and every day
as wroth advertising - and confuse people
with mundane issues akin to dentistry
and take-away menus that they're not doing...
what they're actually doing;
a friend in need is a friend indeed,
a friend with **** is better,
a friend with ******* and all the rest
a friend who's dressed in leather...
(placebo's pure morning).

Electricities ,a mystery to me
How a switch can just turn a lamp on,
And I always thought The Periodic Table
Was where my sisters kept their tampons.
I don't understand Higgs Boson ,
Can't fathom out that Hadron Collider,
Or , if an apple a day keeps the doctor away
Why can't fifteen pints of cider?
I was reading a book in the Science Section
And the Librarian gave me such a frown ,
It was called "The History of Helium "
And I couldn't put the f* thing down.

What it's like to be cold
Or how many times a punch to the gut will actually hurt.
Or what about a hamburger? How it tastes and feels.
Or french fries loaded with cheese and bacon bits.
What a summer sun can do to pale white skin or how bad a sunburn can peel. Watching a baseball game with two handfuls of popcorn you payed 50 bucks for.
What it feels like to be left alone in the minivan while your mom was in the store shopping for tampons.
What its like to hold the hand of somebody that you once loved. what it tastes like when you eat our first bowl of chicken noodle soup and how the broth feels creamy and warm running down the back of your throat.
Watching somebody escape a near death on a 3 way pile up when your father was pulling into the driveway after another one of his "nightly experiences".
This in reigns the question.....

What do angels dream about?

Word, knives.
Blades plunged into the frail masculinity each man hold.
"Grow a pair"
*******
"Sack up"
*******
See America wonders why women are objectified in our culture.
"Youre a ******? ******* loser"
"You haven't had a girlfriend? So youre gay?"
And the sufferers continue to suffer, unheard, but Why?
"Youre acting like a *****"
"Don't dump out your purse dude"
"Does the ***** need some tampons?"
"No, no I don't need any tampons. I'll start working out
I'll get muscular so women will love me.
I'll stop hating myself so guys will stop torturing me
I'll have lots of *** so everyone will think I'm a man"
And here's where it gets dangerous.
Other men and women have turned an innocent boy into a shark who will attack anything with a different set of reproductive organs
He doesn't care that he's being aggressive, he just wants to be "normal".
He wants to be a man.
See sexism works both ways, women perpetuate sexism towards women
Men perpetuate sexism towards men and vice versa.
And it all starts with one sentence.

fem·i·nist [fem-uh-nist]
adjective
1. advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men.*

I used to be afraid I'd be stuck in a training bra forever.
For awhile I didn't wear one.
My grandmother would yell at me.
I told her I was a feminist.
I didn't know what it meant.
A part of me wishes I could go back*
to that time of AA's instead of DD's.
One less thing to define me.
Maybe then I could be free of the restraints.

Eyeliner seemed ridiculous.
Poking yourself in the eye with an 8 dollar glamor crayon.
Crayola sells them for 15 cents.
Always was cheap - Not the makeup - Not the crayon.
I don't leave the house without it.

I used to be afraid of tampons.
They grossed me out.
They confused me.
I didn't understand how you could stick something "up there"
and walk straight.
I'd be surprised how much it can handle.
Strength. Numbers. Endurance.
But, I still can't walk straight.

I used to be afraid of the boogeyman.
The darkness in the closet.
The monster under my bed.
I was a smart kid.
I knew they were there all along
under the comforter
beneath the sheets
next to my fragile body
stealing my sliced heart
and ******* the rest.

The monsters wear a disguise.
Rubber.
If you're lucky.
Without the water balloon and crossed fingers your stomach fills nine months times its size.
So they say.
I still like to believe it's an old wive's tale.
And I refuse to be an old wife.

I never considered thongs underwear.
I considered them floss.
Why wear one when you could just go bare *** and achieve the same result?
Now I floss regularly.
Hygiene is important.
Clean my mouth.
Well, might as well brush my teeth while I'm at it.

I used to be afraid I'd grow up and couldn't eat Popsicles anymore.
As if chasing after the icecream truck was something prescribed to a little girl in spaghetti straps
******* only her thumb.
Innocence lost.
I don't like Popsicles anymore.
Unless they're cherry flavor.