Like They Are In Love

I have magazine images in a black book,
of brides
and cakes
and a mad hatter wedding.

Orange has become a pattern. I follow it,
on to the pavement laid
over a four-tier that I chose.

And has it come to be?
Has this compact icing eaten
away a beautiful day?

I have hoarded slice after slice
from red weddings
and pink weddings
and green weddings, that I never want to attend.
I stuffed them under pillowcases,
in closets,
under my un-kept single bed,

meant to be pulled out on a day when
buttercream will whisper at me about
the way I should dance,
like I am in love,
like I know how to make four-tiers
come alive with
lilies and
lime.

I will pull the slices out
with white diamond
shoes, but by then, I am afraid,
my legs will not remember
how to move like they are in love.

Devil Bruise

I gave my husband bruises to
plaster me with.
Bare boned, I have pleaded with
double edged devils
to spare me from
fingers engulfed in flame.

But, the fire comes. Twisting
my insides out, wringing
leftover drops
of love
out,
to drip down drains,
to suffocate.

Permeation takes place. Fresh
becomes stale,
gross.

Like wedding cake.
Like a bride’s bouquet.

Like stiff shoulders daring a
husband to come close.

The Wedding

White dress
white cake
white people
surrender to social
“norms”

“norms” slither like rotten
worms through
white cake
creating tunnels to
loveless
bites of
artificial sugar

my sister, “the prude”
stands with me, “the slut”
introduced

shake heads at
shake hands with
“your new dad”

 His white body stands
atop the white
cake
next to the white dressed
Monster

her claws sunk deep into
his spine

vows were stolen from
Once Upon A Time
a normal dance
a normal kiss
family glides in
out
Congratulations!

An artificial prude
a drunken slut
remain –
photographer is
late

a successful wedding night
later
white
man atop the cake
is stripped of a healthy spine –

collapses under
a perverse
white Monster,
his wife