With her black eyeglass frames and sensible heels,
the psychiatrist is a contrived portrait of neutrality.
The timer on her desk ticks sickeningly,
counting off the missed opportunities for revelation
that pass with each minute.
I ask her if she has considered a Victorian fainting couch,
she does not smile.
I make cheap cracks about diet ads and the plight of the modern anorexic,
she scribbles something on a legal pad-
from where I sit, the only legible word is "questionable".
She is not describing herself,
yet I can think of nothing more dubious
than being paid to listen to another's tedium.
I spend one hour each week with my  hired companion,
and she, in turn,
spends her time relaying information
to another army entirely,
sending reports to the other doctors,
leaking statements to my family.
She is the informant, and I,
the gullible sap who believes in
"conditional confidentiality".
I pretend I know nothing of the arrangement,
and try to speed time by imagining alternate realities.
I picture her as a talking doll-
A string protrudes from her back;
when pulled, a mechanical voice says
"I see", or occasionally,
"How do you feel about that?"
I stifle a laugh,
and glance  over at her glazed expression-
there isn't much of a difference.

I wear my scars on my sleeve,
far away from my heart.
I give them no introduction, and in return,
hardly anyone comments.
Once, I was told that such marks are
something to hide
with neatly pressed skirts,
long sleeves, and dim lighting.
For some time, I made an effort,
then lost the shame-filled motivation.
They are rose-pink, criss-crossing,
haphazard badges of a life
lived free of convention,
every one a road sign that tells
just how far I've come-
beautiful if solemn reminders
of a former self.
They are small, puckered triumphs,
things to admire if only for their stability:
They do not grow in number.
I love their gaping mouths,
their age and soft surrender.
Infrequently, I examine each scar
with all the care and concentration
of a cynic in wonderland.
My fingers land on them like butterflies,
any pain has long since faded.

I have no tolerance
for the music you listen to.
Slow and heavy,
I worry that maybe
it might make me feel something.

An old fairy-tale book molders silently
in a cardboard box, in my airless attic.
A coat of dust has stolen its grandeur,
the pages are dog-eared from generations
of small, sticky fingers.

Inside, a castle succumbs
to ten years of neglect.
The knights slip into apathy,
leave their armor unpolished,
and start to ponder
a change of career.
An empty-headed princess
languishes in her tower
among yellowed love letters,
with no hope of the rescue
promised to her
in twenty pages or less.

There isn't anyone left
to fight the dragons, nobody wants
to believe in them anymore.
The children averted their eyes,
and slowly built up
each palisade guarding
the magic left in their heads.

Most women do not
cook and and clean house
in preparation
for violent invasion.
But you did,
the countertops ache for lack of dust,
the appliances self-conscious in their sterility.
More than sufficient-
for anybody but the figure on the doorstep;
who, using only a key
has already torn through
your first, only, and tastefully painted
line of defense;
has pulled pins from verbal grenades to throw upon
bursting into the kitchen,
where you waited
white tablecloth of surrender and
tea like a peace offering.

I
you will be saddened
by trivial things,
the unfamiliar fridge magnets,
the arrangement of the furniture.

II
you will shiver without
the shelter afforded
by misguided boys
with pills in their pockets.

III
no one else will forgive you
the illusion of control,
the rhythm of numbers
scrawled across your ribcage.

IV
instead of friends,
you will tell strangers about
your self-assured destruction,
the alarms on the windows.

V
you are no longer
the beautiful wreckage left
when a train of innocents
crashes into wonderland.

I am just waiting for something
anything
to leap out from behind me and say,
you.
my darling, beaten-blue.
you with the bitter taste,
you with the b-sides
you with the photographs, too.
come with me, out of this
                                          bruised and terrible
                                                                         you.