inside my chest, a universe
is born – yet to be touched
by hands of The Creator
he drives over city limits
lips openly rested
tongue saturated with
thoughts of fresh
female
sentiment
one particular body
conception happened
a seed was planted
it took root
in salty palmed
memories
I never have left this desert
where my heart started
he knows I can –
I will be his shadow
Summer has changed. Shadows walk loudly
through the forest.
I never thought I could multiply this way, but
you help me heat the sun. Now I’m locked
in the middle of a road
that I don’t know,
your feet planted in front of my knees.
A door falls asleep. I meant it for life.
Poisoned fruit for useless tongues. Then your
taste proved me wrong.
I lay on my back
and watch the morning cry. I made the forest
lie, but you’ve been lucky.
Jack the Ripper crossed the river and hung
up my soul. Now I chase the dark for you.
I haven’t drank you for an hour,
or swallowed the sharks
swimming in your pale
manhood.
The road gobbled me up and
I do not miss your cancerous tongue,
all I smell is rubber
and all I want is the moon
to take me to bed
where I know what lives under
the sheets.
I know the blank ceiling page
and the rotation of the clouds,
I know how I cycle down,
a tornado scripture
burning my steeple to ash.
I translate you into languages unknown,
too complex for me to read,
the devil’s tongue,
a serpents spit,
a good muse when the fire rumbles
me to numbness.
Welcome home, a strawberry plant
grows out back
for you, but it
has twisted to fingernails
to scratch away the bugs.
It has a heart, ready for transplant.
I promised to die,
I admit, I’m in the habit,
but it just sat in one spot,
sucking on water cells
reminding me what it
would feel like to overheat.
Now you are here, hiding in
the desert, my fruit not fertile
enough for you
to eat.
So, you say it’s the center of time,
one hand holds it,
the other says good-bye.
I can’t have you come back like August
without water. Your limbs shriveled and
cracking, bare knuckled,
moving like a tree
away from fire.
We built moons in the back of Cadillac’s,
coffee black leather seats
trimmed back – to make
room for the
others.
I wore thorns under my skirt, then.
I let the pure taste rise from your voice
and settle on the rhythm that
rocked us into daylight.
For you, sound lined up
and agreed with me.
You will come back like August always does;
a dirty deed to compliment me,
to bring me to naught!
But, the moon sails on
and without it,
I cannot.
I’m not so angry after all
this time, he smells like honey, hot roasting in the damp evening.
His carpet moves like the sea. I might be breathing, but he’s not.
His blood is worn out in deep veins, his secret time is up.
I am not angry this time, he positions himself for love and I watch,
jammed with battle fever, I am hot for war.
A soldier holds no fear, and there is no time to speak.
He engraves himself with yesterday and I wear him next to my heart.
I am not angry after all
this time. His blood dries up and my ache fades.
We are both permanent in a temporary place.
This is where she could drip blood
if it could drip
outside of the body,
but she is internal.
Penetration can happen if lead solders
make contact.
On a bluish/gray scale,
she was never meant to be loved,
or touched,
or shot out of a pistol
well below the speed of sound.
there is no grace. Each flake is a poisoned needle
jabbing in my skin.
Every sting of winter is a piece of
her blue eyes,
and
his blue lips barely parted in a box.
I imagine his last breath and
wonder if it felt like Winter,
if it felt like the cold prick of
hell jabbed into his veins.
Winter has chained me to the past.
What is lost weighs more than everything
Winter has ever given. I imagine her singing,
and if she sounds like Summer.
I know that I am here now, and I can never go back,
but still, I wonder,
when it snows in the desert.
A gold poetry rests under hand,
he was a painter and
a wrinkle in life.
I am his daughter.
On his lap, music
listened to my breath,
he was a sweet harmonica
smothered in vodka.
I was a drinking flower.
I scooped his footsteps with
a shovel and
slept in his smokey shadow.
In his order, a drunk soldier.
I am covered in armor.
He coughed,
and spewed me
out into a cold ditch.
One day, I painted him red,
myself blue,
and put him in a box that
blocked the sun.
I drifted with his body
along an eight year ocean,
until I became this,
a dark island.
A whisper,
sapphire, spiral breath
in the air. We choke
on language. Our silent hands
hold each other
up. The staircase
is a treacherous place,
though.
I at the top.
You at the bottom
of a death match,
strangled by guilt,
waiting for a whisper to
mend your wounds.
You turned me to salt.
I do not breathe.
I cannot whisper.
My eyes have become two
blue deserts.
My voice, a cactus.
I am rolling over barren land,
searching for hard water
and you stand, at the bottom
of the world, in a white ocean begging
me to whisper.
maggiemaeijustsaythis 