see I float around society like a plastic bag sometimes
unseen unless someone needs me

and there are so many truths I've seen
about women

these are the undeniable facts:

Beauty: women love beauty. they are consumed by it. it feeds them till they die, clutching stylish cases and well-worn tubes and knuckles bruised by constant forcing, or they sit in darkened obscure corners waiting for a no-name prince to charm them into believing lies, avoiding mirrors along the way.

Intelligence: it's okay to be smart but not so smart that a man feels five inches tall against the length of the word you just uttered with smooth unaffectedness, if you do that he falters, feels as though his life has been false, and then he tells you to stop reading your books. and you do it, because you fear you may lose him. women hide from the monsters of science and math, drown in the seas of history and literature and pretend all the while, giggles in every breath's pause, that they just don't know. because no one wants a woman who can recite Chaucer but can't even press a decent crease or bake a good cherry pie.

Hard Work Ethic: women were born to work. they work to maintain an illusion, they work to get a man, they work to keep him, they work to make him feel superior, they work in cramped cubicles and then in cramped apartments, making them uncramped, and then in cramped bedrooms under cramped sheets, trying to hide their leg cramp so as to not disturb his concentration.

Confidence: women hate other women who are confident. because those women have learned to disregard every lesson from charm school, and everyone else struggles to find the perfect hair flip. secretly, women love another woman with confidence. because it shows them they can be that reckless one day.

Dress: women want the short skirt in the window. but the directions on the tag are as follows:
DO NOT WEAR WHILE DRINKING. DO NOT WEAR IN COLD WEATHER. DO NOT WEAR WITHOUT PANTYHOSE. DO NOT WEAR IF OVER 130 POUNDS. DO NOT WEAR IN THE COMPANY OF DRUNK MEN. DO NOT WEAR TO SPORTING EVENTS. DO NOT WEAR IN THE PRESENCE OF OTHER WOMEN. DRY CLEAN ONLY. women leave the skirt on the hanger.

Strong Personality: women tell other women to be quiet and keep their heads low. that is all they know. when they were little girls they used to shout. then they became teenagers and were taught to whisper when they wanted something. whispers are saved for secrets, lies and things women want.

Competition: women want men. women want other women. women want people. women are told they want men. women fight for men, because they are taught men are the ultimate prize. women win men and are disappointed with the terms and conditions that apply. but it's too late. they've already won. women wonder what they were fighting for in the first place.

Affluent: women wish money didn't matter but when they're counting pennies for every man's dollar it's hard to ignore.

women are told by men their mothers their sisters their teachers their bosses their world

that they are too loud ****** ugly fat hairy ***** loose slutty uptight frigid emotional stoic competitive timid.

women tell other women these things and think their world will love them for it. women love other women, but begin to believe they don't.

biggest problem women have is with a world that thinks they can't handle their own ****.

ice too is structured, I have witnessed its
appalling unbrokeness for longer than I
care to recall.
as with the guiding principles of
silverware, conversation should follow.
any misapplication would be as rude as
one cut off midsentence.
the mark of polite society is cultivated facade without imposition, hitchless
ritualism.
****** muscles uncramped of miseries,
poise is how stock is measured.
yet there's Michelangelo's: David, even
more poised with his pecker's forbidden
talking point.
tonight we exchange the currency of one
year for another--as the fog goes about its
yellow life.
no yellower than these so tight-lipped
about teeth.
the first time it happened, tobacco smoke
stratified layers of breath, cologne & perfume--letting fall delinquent unwash.
they all spoke at once, their features grew till they were competing panoramas.
as if they continually crawled out & came
for me with their airless truths.
how I learned to see with one eye, use the
opposite hand natural to me, balance on
one foot--to disalign with their choreography.
I increased that split second, I lingered upon it, caught others stitch a seam.
I saw the easeful converse of skulls make
stark headway, stiffly tolerant of arms left
raised in toasts.
the polished hatred of servants complimentary with movement & stationariness.
fool, martyr, poet--isolate any of the above & I will be indistinguishable from them.
it is I who lowered my guard, not they--throwing my nerves into the pools of impregnable circles.
hard at the art of hearsay, a one to one with a King--one with no dynastic
trickledown.
I drank from that chalice on New Years Eve--white flannel trousers rolled up.
masticated peach in my stomach, my ankles cuffed by a shoreline's puzzle piece.
splashed in the face by a mermaid's tail,
as to revive me from an undreamt year.