He Came

he sleeps twisted inside of me
hands tight on my bruised lungs
if I had a voice
with him
it would slice my own tongue
and when he moves to awake
his easy turn on my hand
burns through everything I know

one slow thrust into my dignity
and I split in two
and I don’t know
which one is me

Married To A Monster

not the kind you think of
when the word presents itself

there hasn’t been gifts
or flowers
or cakes

no declarations of love

I am veiled in quicksand
my ankles stolen
right from underneath me

A preacher speaking “blah, blah, blah, God” ….
and all that stuff

my dear family and friends
gathered around me
laughing

a single dove laying on
an altar
plugged into oxygen
plastic wrapped for perfection
suffocating

the caterer
with the smile of a thousand devils
reminds me to pay my bill

tonight we roast the dove

Hourglass

Separating skin from a tree
is a faint task, like
twisting glass back to sand.

Long, narrow veins exposed to chaos,
leave their limbs. I climb inside
them for hydration.

I’m a fish, shallow in water,
borrowing lungs from
a human.

Don’t make it glacial,
blue is the true color.
It is royal.
It is blood.
I am oxygen and it feels good!

My husband left me sweltering
during the ripe moon. I grew
ripe, too; a full cherry
hunger in a bottle
of Gin.

Then this tree, he’s latched on
to me. I pour my fingernails
in. He knows his strength
matches me tightly.
We seize together on Earth’s early
tremor, and just as I start to peel,
layer by layer,

his exposed veins melt into
venom, he turns me,
my swift hourglass
resets, twisting sand
back into glass.

Skull Crushed

He mounts himself before me
un-zips his stiff skin,
wraps his violent arms around me – to crush

against his ribs. I brush his chest,
boiling veins coil through me,
eyes bulge from my head.

His affection is silent. I see through
muscles and bone – his frail components.
They cannot move. He refuses.

I lay my soft nature over his void.
He is unaware. His nourishment is silent.
He moans. I am starved.

He is heavy in hand and heart, dangles his love on a brick,
then hits me with it. I swell – with thirst,
hungry for his deep devotion,

for his full, dark desire to tie me to him,
vein to vein,
lung to lung,
bone to bone

forever.

Earthquakes And Eruptions

I live with a turtle
in cold corn field rows. He is hard.

Last time we visited a moon together,
he took my pen, his tricky art,
pliable concern caked dirty under
turtle nails.

He has not always been
a beast. Once, he had wings.
He hovered above sandstone.
I thought of his death. Afraid.
He would be ghost treasure feeding
corn field soil.

He was a well-made horse. Gallant.
Reinforced.
I bridled him. Caged him.
The Big Blue Marble called to him
with a voice
of adventure,
of freedom.

But, he was kept.
Trained.

I nailed his shoes to the dirt. One day,
I felt the Earth crumble beneath my
dainty feet.
Earthquakes and Eruptions.
The horse ran free!

I cried for a year,
spent one more in guilt,
then another in admission..

until, one firewater night brought him
back to me. He stood like a horse.
He spoke like a horse.
He drank like a horse.

But, he was not a horse.
His eyes had become chicken neck yellow.
Shifty.
He tried to stand as a horse,
but he startled
and ducked,
tucked himself inside.

A turtle. With a shell.
In a field.
Cold.
Hard.
Taking my pen because he hasn’t any thumbs.

Lingual Swamp

A filthy witch lived inside me when
I spent too much time
growing.
She eliminated the healthy bugs
that sewed my insides nicely,
that watered my battle
and push forward flowers.

I wanted to learn how to fish
with a stick. I wanted
to pick protein out
of fish scales, but
the witch said
she had an allergy. She took my stick
and hid it.

I miss my bugs. The healthy ones.
They helped me stay clean.
I cannot breathe
properly
on my own.

I grew with the witch for years,
while she sang
death march hymns. I learned the
words
and ate them, instead of the fish.

When it came time for gutting and
cleaning, I painted
my own limbs with scales
and
fished with knife sticks for protein.

I spent too much time growing
with this rapacious
witch. Her sharp teeth chewed
my affections to analgesic cream

that spread throughout me, burying
everything but
the enchantress and her
music.