a crumby date
i watch crumbs collect
on you from your open mouth
and know it’s a no
I like wearing fabrics of many colors and designs:
plaid, paisley, bright or pale solids, calico print…
I don’t even mind much if the fabric is wrinkly,
but what I can’t stand is if it has nibs or lint.
I was never predestined to receive grace,
I’m always in a state of kenosis to fill the empty space;
I’ve been numbing myself this whole relationship with the smoke of blueberry in taste, as I’m weighed down by the inevitable regrets that I face. I did read about hope that I was willing to embrace, from the poet who wrote in the form of erase. I found it refreshing how they deleted the undesired text to leave something beautiful in its place.
I am heaviness thinking of you.
It costs me. I exhaust all variations on your theme.
Perhaps I unbutton your blouse,
and take a mellow bite from your mouth.
We toss aside comportment and composure.
I rip off my saddle to cover you.
We pause. Velvet night surrounds;
we look but remain without understanding.
At dawn I will cook between
every flame appearing—burning glints
surging thorns in the clarity
of your chocolate eyes.
And you shatter my teeth with a kick, saying,
No. This isn’t love. I’m every woman alive to you.
Waking for its own sake
as dawn insists
its way to the ridge
above my home, I
will arthritic bones
from bed.
Groping through
a chest of clothes,
I find the skin of grays,
dress myself in prayers,
worship all day
without saying a word.
Days drift as I rise this
way, two years since my
job was taken away.
Like meditation maybe,
I pray alphabets in my head,
weavingways of leaving my past…
to forgive.
they say
they like it when i write
hopeful
but i know
that my hope is
fake
i mask too well
no one ever seeing what
i am feeling
but i’m too honest
no one will ever not know what
i am feeling
so they know
that my hope is
fake
pretending to be happy
doesn’t make you something
that you are not
i am trying on different
versions of myself on the
daily
trying to find what fits
today, it’s hopeful
tomorrow is a mystery
they say
they like it when i write
hopeful
i’ll try to wear this
outfit
again
Hair loose blowing in the wind,
Feeling fearless, feeling free, no worries
Youth at its finest, top Down, feeling the sun
Feeling frisky, he side eyes me, one hand
on the wheel, the other on my bare thigh
grinning, pedal to the medal. Free ar last.
Your Fluevogs: the hot ones with purple trim,
corinthian heels, and spiky iron straps.
The feel of them on my heart, the anguish.
I’m remembering them; And growing younger
in a memory, recalling a different, luxurious pain.
Crushed. Coming across them now in our old armoire.
As the phone rings, and slices the Saturday afternoon
across the ribs. I know it’s the lawyer. I know what’s next.
