White Winter

In my dreams
she comes, frostbitten;
blue asphyxiation.

Her lips like dried leaves,
brown,
crisp.
Her eyes streaked with trauma
and
under siege.

She commands me, summoning
my tremors with
her poisoned whistle.
I try to inhale,

but my lungs are missing!
I drop.
To my knees, in panic!  They
have escaped!

I cannot find oxygen to grant voice
to tongue. She wrings me out!
Her eyes clamped tight
to my throat, twisting
her frozen corpse
to my
bone.

She has spread; I am cold,
White winter.
Alone.

Substitute

You’re in my closet again
trying on my heels
coaxing my jeans to shrink
shrink
to just under
nourished

I have a face for you
glued on
golden fish eyes
a sassy little smack
and a painted
pout

for recognition

you wouldn’t know me otherwise

I drank a tube of toothpaste
a bottle of Kracken
and
coerced my female intuition
into
your rough clutch

you pinched
my finger tips
one-by-one
dressing them in frilly little
dresses

then my neck
choked with the devil’s diamonds

you kneel down
lips to my naked knee
a
soft
kiss of approval

I am ready.