and of course it’s beautiful

In here, out there nobody sees. Pomegranate seeds shred through my teeth and we accept it. He smiles and of course it’s beautiful.
A blood moon grows 10,000 times what it was, in here. Out there, nobody knows.
I count, up to seven minutes in Heaven and wonder, in here.
Out there, nobody waits.
Everybody talks.
Everybody spits venom in the eyes of people they love.

I love him for the birds, he just doesn’t belong in here. 
This desert is mine.
I sleep on cactus beds and wait….with time.
The sun is mine. I’ll keep it in a locket for those days that get dark, in here. Out there, nobody notices.

I smile. He smiles, and of course it’s beautiful.

The People

Starved out of politeness, cockroach-kicked feet
walk across a blue night.
My lungs are stuck together, breathing in
radiation from the hot air
blown in my face.

The people, the people glow
white teeth at every camera. I see
the teapot boiling,
steam rising,
whistle blowing….

my ears ring out electric chords,
far from the classic, ghostly shadow
that sprawl across my nerves
when they start to shiver.

They eat very little,
or a lot, or they drink
or not,
or they lie and mispronounce their own
names on purpose and move around mountains
blending in with the tones of the town.

These people seem largely designed, I
walk on needles. I am little and not
proportionate. I dream about
ages, and eggs and other meals
that are not enough on their own.

Is anyone? Enough with just their teeth and
their camera and light?
“She’s only crazy,” says my mother.
And the hills are long monsters leaking
into my brain. I’m dizzy
and distorted. This image.
This image set up in sanity, or not.

In A Dream

Pig snouted soldiers strut
like heavy cannons,
over dry wild desert weeds

I tumble behind a boulder
maybe twelve or thirteen
I had not met the cycle yet
of Mother Earth and her Moon

The others slept in the madhouse
where echoes of screams
jumped from wall to wall

I tried to burn all of us down
once, melting us into a boiling
ooze where we could flow
together the right way

but she caught me and
I was sentenced to the garden
living off tomato bugs
and raw onion

This was when there was something
now it is this
desolate; sepia spotted trap.

I closed my eyes behind the giant rock
begging the shadow to suck
me into its safe home
It whispered that I was not ready
that my temples were froze

That’s when I heard their cries
mother and brother being
cooked alive
I opened my eyes and
the pig snouted soldier snatched
the dark hole from my face

I am awake.

THE LAUGH OF THE BEES

Swarming in with poisoned tips tucked
under innocence,
Nature’s vengeance dancing from
flower to flower,

no matter the color,
or the size,
or shape.

They are the thieves of each unique
fragrance,
and I wonder,

Do they watch for the tulip to open toward the warmth of the sun?
Do they wait for a rose to display her heart proudly?
Do they time each moment precisely
for attack?

The light of the sun is unconditional;
food for the flowers,
heat for the thieves,

and on those magical days,
when I am the Bells of Ireland,
exposed,
hungry for the warmth of my Sun,

they swarm in and attack!

 

And The World Doesn’t Agree With Me

My time is 15.
I am round cheeks
and naked with definition.
I don’t know how to hide under
the thick film that buries me later.

He is built with reddish, muddy hair.
He flares and expands in size,
greater than any other young torso.
I watch him hold hands with Grace
and Innocence, I listen to him
sing with rebellion and defiance.
He strums, and he strums me along
to the quiet, unexposed nights.

My time is 16,
and he has left. He has found liberty;
liberty, or abandon.
I have found a stuffy old pharmacy.
I sit on sidewalks eating tiny tablets, remembering
abandon from times: 8, 9, and 10; it is
sadly comfortable,
like I am with him.

3 months later, he brings back the East Coast.
His air is accented and tired,
thick for me to breathe.
He smells like 15, though, and he tastes like
the cigarette we shared on the night he left.
He brought himself and his guitar
just to me,
and he strings, and he strings me along
to the quiet, prudish night for two more weeks,
and then he is gone.

Now, I listen to the music,
to motorcycles drive by
my dark basement, with strings that
I will learn to play later.
Not yet, it is not time for me yet.

Right now, the film is building.
Right now, I am being defined.
Abandon has timed itself, lined perfectly
with my over-exposed skin.
I need him.

Now.
Later.
I need him.
I will,

and the world will never agree with me
and nobody believes me.

Fire Juice

My mouth broils as he Ogre’s around
our apartment. Things,
things,
little things,
severely minuscule things
are everywhere,
out of place,
unclean.

His small feet stomp inflammation
into our feeble floors.
His small hands run away from
his body
to find me,
to strangle me!

I watch from underneath
couch cushions, where crumbs of
yesterday lay sullen until
they are found out later
and
sucked away by his mean vacuum cleaner.

He calls,
he calls me out…

angry laughter speeds from his
black callousness to
my eardrums. I hear them explode.

He stomps with plague.
He stomps to me. Ripping me from
haven, his touch ignites my mouth
filled with fire juice

and
all I can do is spit!

Overlay

The woman with the old walls
painted new walls in her
home

Burnt red was smothered with
pale yellow,
a non-fattening banana
ice cream
wall.

She covered up the old walls
often, burying
old lovers
and gross mistakes. She could
scrub the greasy
instances
but  her eyes will not pick
out the dirty spots
without
a finger,
that is not her own,
pointing out
the
places that pollute
the walls.

Even if her eyes could show her,
her elbows do not have
strength enough
to scrub
scrub
scrub
the past away.

The Man of Steel

Man of Steel installs himself two feet
from me
at the bar,
resting his rusted joints.
The years have been hard on his
Steel bones.

He has a wife who is not made
of metal;
she is the ambiance of
a fresh bloom
or
a spring afternoon
and poofs her hair in the morning.

He wears a charm around his neck,
a talisman,
because a man of
gird cannot
move on his own –
steel is heavy!

A potion of spirits
must surely add to the corrosion in
his joints but it seems
to soften his supportive structure.

All the people,
all the people,
all the people want to know him.
A man buys him another drink;
the bartender leans
over the counter
to reveal her
gourmet mammals.
All shriek and snort around in
merriment and mirth.

Oh, what a great invention by
The Man of Steel! He almost sucked me
in to his illusion, but then I
saw his bandaged elbow dribble
when he bent the glass
to his cheek.

Men of Steel can do many things
but Men of Steel
don’t leak!

 

Dirty Words

The ghosts are becoming countless.
I could name them, but that wouldn’t do any good. I try
to hide from them, but they always find me; under piles of blankets
on my bed when I’m turning in for the night, through the music
playing on the radio when I drive
my car around town,
in the eyes of an ex-lover who looks at me as if he
wants to rip my teeth out with
pliers.

The ghosts sit with me in every silent moment. They whisper
to me and giggle. They know that the escape
isn’t working out as planned. One of them gouges at my eyes. It wants blindness
to suck me deep inside myself so that I have
no way to try to hide.

When I sit, to write these sick stories, I am so engrossed with
fear that the words refuse to fall from the ink of the pen. They climb through, to the
top of the pen and right back into my hand. Dirty, filthy little words climb up my arms and through
each little nook in my soul and back to the dark, screaming corners of my
mind.

Each letter stopping by my conscience to scream obscenities before settling in comfortably.