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

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.

Three Minutes In

Three minutes in – I am a dream.
Have you ever been met
by a mirror? Twisted like
eyebrows in confusion.
Steel eye compartments
ready for battle.

Nail my head to the floor,
my only choice is to look up
to neighbors…
to enemies.

The minutes slice off the clock
as we talk – I am imaginary.
She sees me with her husband,
white t-shirt sucked to my
chest, wet from digestion –
I am the dark apple.

My bags are packed, my body
on 90 miles per hour.
The hidden highway – I carve three minutes in-
distressed almond skinny
dipping in shame.
Have you seen me today?
Have you looked in the mirror?

Termite

I see that one arm is stubbed
by something. No one else can see
this, like it isn’t true.
To them, I am tragedy,
and I let them.

I am a hot potato
and they drool over food.
My crippled hands shove their
mouths full of muscle.
They like it raw
and tough.
So, I give them my back bone
to gnaw on,
they snap it like baby pea stock.

I spend two years in the ground,
done with legs
and feet
and toes
and balance.
I buried myself in dirt,
living with termites.

The thing about termites that no one else can see,
is that they aren’t true. To them, we are tragedy,
and we let them.

Janus

By doorways and walls, I pass through
with two faces. I am honoured
and assassinated by fruits and
seeds of the people.

They move their lips, I hear deep shrills.
They whisper like big cannons
at battle. I keep each as a sacred
stone; I throw each as a poisonous tale.

Today, God loves my motion. I merge with
Galileo under seven planets
I am his Dialogue on the Ebb and Flow of the Sea.

But tomorrow will take me suspiciously.
Medusa will come to show
the bogus end of Venus and her beautiful phase.

White weasels come in pack, they smell her
insidiousness; she sits coy on my tongue
while I am categorized.

Back to square rooms, black chairs,
flat carpet,
doorways,
walls,
I pass through with two faces.
I am honoured by amber vials,
assassinated by the pills.

They move their lips,
I hear fuzziness and laughter…
quit laughing at me
quit laughing at me
I am a statue,
I am trapped here.

They Try To Erase Me

I never had been born. It was old hands
that sketched my frame. Hands that knew how to suffer
wisely. It was a gift
to my bones, a curse that shifts
with weight and time.
Clocks wait on scales to tip time. I am rushed.
Blood cycles through my life.
Old lines outline my eyes. I am timed.

I slept with a man
and was traced. He recreated me; my child.
My simple face on a prettier canvas.
I didn’t wish for this.
I didn’t dream.
She just belongs to me.
I drag my bones along aching seas
each step pains deeper with memory,
with time.
Dark lines shade over mine.
They try to erase me

From my bones, I cry.
I cannot be
an easy sketch of a memory.

Shipwrecked

When it is day, I do not recognize
this land. We live on
moonlit love and hard water
soaked in oak barrels.

When sunlight takes over
this land, I do not recognize
his hands that
lay me to rest with Strigiformes
and kiss my skin to death

his voice blurs my vision
when it is day, he is
not him
he is a reflection of a
fermented sea I drown in

every night,
when I swim away from this
foreign land I live on.

The Great Crime

You will lay aside your suspicions of me.
Slide the doormat over your back,
be still.
I turn silver coin accusation
between my finger tips
and flip.

The great crime, I ask you,
a civil war inside me,
or you?

My innocence is like this!

Your guilt is a private loss,
but the way you droop confidence
downward, as if the ground
will forgive you,
shows my victory,

and in my voice, forgiveness,
but my gut smirks.
I am a temple of construction.

A Secret

“There is a dream outside. 
I am dark and imagined and 
I can’t wake up….”

I have forgotten how I write.
My voice is with the calendar,
in the cemetery,
dusting off a bottle. The sun has moved
in on this town,
drying up oranges,
turning water to dust.

Today, I am a reflection.
A left over.

The wind is locked.
My phone is dead.
People have stopped watching.
I am underground,
away from cancer and traffic.

“…and the dream is inside, too.”

Light is nothing, not even artificial.
The birds are an alarm;
God’s warning.
If someone could crush my hand with
a hammer, I could stop all this.

The world is stretching.

I want my voice back.

November Legs

I have not felt my legs in four years.
I hate months. Each carries different
demons. November is a home-wrecker.
Prancing in lives
like a horse,
with a horse,
trampling my legs,
shattering a fragile life.

He went with the moon.
A silver carriage
whisking him into the night.
I laid on the floor in
a broken heap. Expecting.

A cloud came in and took his place.
Pouring sharp gulp after gulp.

Until, questions came.
Until the bugs crawled through
my nostrils,
dragging hallucinations behind them
on chains.

I loved them. For a moment,
I loved them. But their names changed.
On a basis.
We went infrared together.
Having seizures and one night stands.
Dancing black dances.
Taxi after taxi. Until,

the cloud cleared. Left me like he did.
November was not anymore,
and still I cannot feel my legs.