life like

lonely wine 

cut lips 

dried by good weather and 

not talking 

life like 

night rides 

trash in 

other people's cans

trash in 

my house too

life like 

a dirty sink

but a day done nothing 

haven't done nothing 

life like 

phone calls home 

whole ocean half day difference 

makes all the difference

life like

peripheral friends

partly smoked cigarettes 

hair unmade 

bed unmade

life like

midnight kisses 

with faces i can't place 

in places i can't face 

again 

life like 

so much self hate i can't look at a photograph of my body 

can't take a photograph of myself

can't memorialize my dissatisfaction 

life like 

makeshift meals

on a steady diet 

of self-loathing 

life like 

a love 

that i can't hold 

and forget sometimes 

what it felt like to hold

life like 

no purpose

too many plans

oh, but i cancel!

life like

a library of songs 

repeating day in and night out 

night in and day out 

life like mine

but not for too long, 

right? 

"...Born of wisps

It becomes razor

An Understanding..."

fr. @AmandaCary's "When It Speaks"

Beauty ensconced

within the whorl of your

selective ear is my 

voice twined several

times around barbed fences

to your liking

I only speak now

at your bidding to your

cronies at your fetes

you will parade me 

lashed to curve at your side

I am willow but subservient

as long as it grovels to eyes

and eyes and eyes your own

watching from many faces

in the dank of my own

solitude I worship at altars made

silt and tears, I bide my time

in words I mouth

beads clicking

In the dark bar our eyes were locked

broken only by glances at each other’s smile

and your brief cigarette breaks

where I sat, long purple dress

and a soda float in hand.

Those days I took your nonchalance as mystery.

More bar nights, less eye contact

only a brief squeeze of my knee

as I sat alone

in a crowded room.

Each time another man would ask “are you ok?”and I would offer 

the same sad smile I’ve seen on women my whole life.

Later you held me as I drunkenly cried

rare tears of insecurity

saying softly “baby please, I love you”.

Yet in the morning you stared

silently out the kitchen window.

Perhaps you never saw the universe in me after all.

N'er do well 

the tartlettes, not the Belles

of dubious occupations, but

hearts leadened with goodness,

  no, we address 

your unrepentant 

predecessors, perpetually crimson

painted around a gum-popping leer

no gratitude to be displaced or

guilt-ridden conscience will be 

assuaged, mama made sure, sugarcakes,

your vices were indulged to 

the max, and daddy spared no expense

that your petty dreams be oohed and ahhed

the craven and the crones 

seem to like this myth perpetuated

a pack a day nicely sandwiched between

your bratty insults coated in praise and kisses

blown along with the stale smoke

no one is impressed for too

long, seeing the inky mascara a hook

upon your deathly cheek, no one 

is smitten too entirely, minx tangled 

in little girl lost barbed by 

the tough girl exterior

no one

 we, the spurned,

delude ourselves

daily

    who is looking into

      those hellcat eyes

        and sinking deep

        within your 

         slinking 

            lies today?

**dedicated to crass, no-class A.N.s of the world we'd love to hate but unfortunately cannot. Not quite yet, at least.

I thought he saw me

I thought he saw the table, freshly laid out-

a meal so beautiful it was art.

I thought he saw me

standing there in my dress and apron

hair disheveled from stovetop heat.

Did he think I was beautiful?

Was he thanking the heavens for

finding a woman like me?

I couldn’t tell you, honestly.

His silence is loud and

I feel my petals falling-

dying off for lack of sunlight

on a fragile heart. 

I can feel you.

I can feel the ground beneath you.

I can feel the moisture of your breath surround and encase you.

But connected? No, not exactly.

Attached, perhaps.

I've learned to care for you.

I've learned to turn the stabbing needles that swim in the hot steam of your belly into a glycerine that I can abide with.

I've learned how to keep your guts from heaving and your hair from falling out.

But when I close my eyes.

I leave you behind effortlessly.

You give me no choice.

You force this absence that makes no sense to me.

You evict me in fervid waves every chance you get.

And I see you there, your chest rising without me.

Your gears and levers and nuts and bolts all in place beneath me.

Yet you swallow me again the moment I wake.

And leave me wondering why you needed me in the first place.

But at least I know that one day, I will exist without you.

I will not be anchored to your grime.

I thank you for allowing me the comfort of knowing.

And when asked if Iʼd rather have scales or have feathers.

I would choose feathers, no doubt.

Then perhaps I could fly with my eyes wide open and take you with me.

If only for a second.

And grant you the favor you've given me.

Hello, darlin'

I've been watching you, waiting for you to show your face

Waiting for you to slow down and see me sitting here in my orange cardigan

Itʼs been a long night out here to pasture

And my toes are in the mood for a little bit of digging

I havenʼt got much class

But I can spin a few words when the air is right

I love the way I jiggle as I walk

a hipsway that pulls you in

thick thighs to cushion your bones 

as you plunge deeper inside

finding a home 

stillness a dew drop

mourn not the caterpillar

the butterfly lives

#haiku

#orhaikuish

#flutterby

#bysummer