There are women
Short skirts
Tight shirts

Leaning on counters
Popping gum
Smiling at every man that passes

Handing lollipops out to girls with braids
Ribbons
And ambitions.

Women who get undressed
Flip hair, don't care
Sliding into passenger seats
Standing on tip-toes to reach

Wear blue on a golden afternoon
Read books "far too complicated"
Eat messy food with unmanicured hands
Who don't belong to you.

There are women

Can't even begin to squeeze
into that tiny size 2 dress
Don't have the time to stress over
How many times a week
A month
A year they shower.

Women that don't even think about the color pink.

There are women
With babies
And menstrual cycles
With short hair
And Harley motorcycles

There are tough women
And strong women
With tattoos
Degrees
Febreze
Who love other women.

There are women that save lives
Who thrive on the idea of being free
"I don't want children"
"Don't need no man"
Who don't like to sing
Don't like to dance

There are women who are loud
Who take tokes
and laugh at jokes
Women with hymens still unbroken
Or reminded of it's absence every single day.

Women who have hair in more places than one.

And there are women who are sad
Who are broken
And angry.
But those same women can be glad
Can be put back together again.

There are women
Who don't know stereotypes
Or how to break them.
And there are women
Who have hips
And know how to shake them.

I realize that the time we have won’t be enough.
If you add all the moments up....
You have a lifetime that flashed by in the blink of an eye.
& Maybe if I can count all our moments together...
Instead I will have an eternity to share.
Today, I am 23 and tomorrow I shall be flowers arising.
I clench and whisper to myself to remember every detail.
Feeling the moments slipping.
As the way life arises into consciousness & then out to oblivion.
I am reminded that all of myself is only the parts in which I can recollect.
My mind the only bridge from meaningful to meaningless.
I pinch my crisp blue jeans in hopes that I can still feel that I exist.
I can feel my unmanicured nails piercing my skin through my jeans.
All in hopes of penetrating the impermanence nature of this moment.
The hourglass drips a grain of sand at a time.
Yet, it only takes a second for a desert to form.
Maybe on the edge of the world standing upon a desert I can find solace. 
Finding comfort instead of fear about where I end and the infinite begins.

It took me one year, six months, twenty-three days, and thirteen minutes to stop thinking of you. 
To stop constantly digging my unmanicured fingernails in my palms every time I saw you show up on my newsfeed and I’d like to think I don’t know why I haven’t just ******* blocked you.
But I do. 
It’s hard to admit that 
I’m so in love with you,
seeing that you changed your mood from “bored” to “hungry”, is worth the splintering pain I get 
in my chest. 
It’s embarrassing to know that while you’re thinking about the growl in your stomach I’m thinking of the hunger in your eyes the first time you told me you loved me. 
you loved me. 
you loved me. 
god, I’m so ******* tired of the word “loved”. So now that your favorite shoes are scuffed you don’t love them? 
Now that your piano is missing a key, you don’t love it? Now that your grandmother is six feet under, hollow-eyed but still in her famous Christmas sweater, you don’t love her? Where did it go? Did it vanish when your shoelaces frayed, when you couldn’t hit that particular note, when grandpa stopped smiling? when I stopped smiling?
It took me one year, six months, twenty-three days, and thirteen minutes of melatonin margaritas, long-sleeved Julys, late night poetry, early morning trash and you, you are not worth it. You are not worth failing math because i can’t concentrate everytime the teacher says “X”. You are not worth spending my whole third period wondering if that’s how you see me. You are not worth the look in my mothers eyes when she finds me screaming in the shower at 3 am and you are not worth the same look on my little brothers face when he asks me why I’m never hungry anymore.
You are not worth the paper.
I have killed so many ******* trees in the last eighteen months hoping maybe they’d **** the memory of you, but the only thing dying is the light in my eyes and ******* I want it back. My dad told me yesterday that I smelled like smoke. I told him it was cigarettes. I did not tell him about the light in my eyes, or the embers in my shoes because how am I supposed to explain that the first time you kissed me you lit a fire in me.
How do I tell him the wind of your “I don’t love you anymore” blew it out.

The following poetic account
written more'n a dozen ***** dancing decades ago,
while I (a socially withdrawn **** Sapiens)
one indigent Yahoo
groveled along (on a secret Msn)
along boulevard of broken dreams,
whereby yours truly forced to eat crow
quite challenging cuz
wonky twittering angry birds
alive and well darting hither and yon to and fro
able, eager, ready, and willing
to gouge out the eyes of one common Joe.

Arduous agonizing affliction
didst unrelentingly assault and assail...
aghast to exhale... lest I would lose
desperate clinging clutch
held by more'n one
but less than eleven  
bloodied cracked fingernail
phantasmagoric phalange *******
like tendrils constricted
stoppering me to whisper or wail

against being swallowed
courtesy COSMOFUNNEL
into hello poetry tumblr
(think Alice in Wonderland
falling into rabbit hole)
yawning abyss menacingly beseeched
hmm...release could immediately curtail
cumulative (lifetime's worth) travail
freefalling at lightspeed, jump/
kick starting pirouetting unnervingly,

unstoppably, unwaveringly... zipping
into edge of night
along the outer limits
of the twilight zone
defining, harboring lurking dark shadows
spelling infinite black hole sun - hell
buzzfeeding me where linkedin
earthlinked hotmail of pinterest,
suffering lovely bones would ail
making minced meat out of me

“****” analogous to an imagine aery dragon
vanish as guilt – courtesy didst hail
analogous storm trooper peppering
Pennsylvanian's psyche... with eternal jail
time for eternity excluded option
asper garden variety baby boomer male,
albeit the father of deux darling daughters,
the eldest (broke vow of silent communication),
she reached out after
months long hiatus telltale
sign indications to accept genuine apology

her biological father (me) culpability
regarding destitution raged against hurtfulness,
he affixed indelible psychological
scars each etching indelible travail
boomeranged back to yours truly duress
during her impressionable years, she did rail
and rant similar to countless
previous conversations, the scale
innocent intelligent progeny, we begat
(myself and misses) financially ill prepared
to provide respectable accommodations.

Our "dirt poor" status detrimental
livingsocial among affluent MainLine
incomes luxe Lower Merion
living costs fateful design
neighbors cursed, ostracized, vilified...
unsightly unkempt property (i.e. unmanicured)
intolerant snobs didst malign
child welfare services called NOT to dine,
but emphatic for papa and mama to align
dwelling safe and secure for minors
and miners for a heart of gold

yes, I attest despicable living conditions
crowded house with Zison heirlooms
owners - malignant hoarders did confine
considerably reducing cubic feet,
they relations of spouse evicted us
ready to point carbine
at temple...quicker than noose
dead of winter 2010 near homelessness
relocated within "roach motel" decline
'twixt omnipotent covalent
carbonic, harmonic, opportunistic bond

among our dynamics with offspring
livid with rage, asper an inferno no divine
comedy compounded by lascivious
behaviour - mine to hasten dateline
enduring helplessness, hardship
being alive plus brandished carving knife
against self witnessed...I assign
poor marks as paternal parent,
who bemoans loathsome
impact...this papa gropes toward hotline
writhing with agony
worse fate than swallowing quinine!

The following poetic account
written more'n a dozen ***** dancing decades ago,
while I (a socially withdrawn **** Sapiens)
groveled along (on a secret Msn)
along boulevard of broken dreams,
whereby yours truly forced to eat crow
quite challenging cuz
wonky twittering angry birds
alive and well darting hither and yon to and fro
able, eager, ready, and willing
to gouge out the eyes of one common Joe.

Arduous agonizing affliction
didst unrelentingly assault and assail...
aghast to exhale... lest I would lose
desperate clinging clutch
held by more'n one
but less than eleven  
bloodied cracked fingernail
phantasmagoric phalange like tendrils constricted
stoppering me to whisper or wail
against being swallowed into hello poetry tumblr

(think Alice in wonderland
falling into rabbit hole)
yawning abyss menacingly beseeched
hmm...release could immediately curtail
cumulative (lifetime's worth) travail
freefalling, pirouetting unnervingly,
unstoppably, unwaveringly... zipping
into infinite black hole sun hell
buzzfeeding me where linkedin
earthlinked suffering lovely bones would ail

making minced meat out of me
“****” vanish as guilt – courtesy didst hail
analogous storm trooper peppering
Pennsylvanian's psyche... with eternal jail
time for eternity excluded option
asper garden variety baby boomer male,
albeit the father of deux darling daughters,
the eldest (broke vow of silent communication),
she reached out after months long hiatus telltale
sign indications to accept genuine apology

her biological father (me) culpability
regarding destitution raged against hurtfulness,
he affixed indelible psychological scars each travail
boomeranged back to yours truly duress
during her impressionable years, she did rail
and rant similar to countless
previous conversations, the scale
innocent intelligent progeny, we begat
(myself and misses) financially ill prepared
to provide respectable accommodations.

Our "dirt poor" status detrimental
livingsocial among affluent MainLine
incomes luxe Lower Merion
living costs fateful design
neighbors cursed, ostracized, vilified...
unsightly unkempt property (i.e. unmanicured)
intolerant snobs didst malign
child welfare services called NOT to dine,
but emphatic for papa and mama to align
dwelling safe and secure for minors

yes, I attest despicable living conditions
crowded house with Zison heirlooms
owners - malignant hoarders did confine
considerably reducing cubic feet,
they relations of spouse evicted us
ready to point carbine
at temple...quicker than noose
dead of winter 2010 near homelessness
relocated within "roach motel" decline
'twixt omnipotent bond

among our dynamics with offspring
livid with rage, asper an inferno no divine
comedy compounded by lascivious
behaviour - mine to hasten dateline
enduring helplessness, hardship
being alive plus brandished carving knife
against self witnessed...I assign
poor marks as paternal parent,
who bemoans loathsome
impact...this papa gropes toward hotline!