accident

I am

a sexual mess
& not in the good way

there’s no easy cure
no standard therapy

just confusion
in the wake
of crumpled duvets

intimacy echoing
like a bad joke
off the four walls
surrounding a single bed

I’m

only playing grown up
because Scrabble
requires more than
one person

this is the adult truth
they shield you from:
nothing makes sense
no matter how many

candles stab the cake
or
wrinkles map your face

stray blonde waifs
get away with it
find salvation
at the last minute

Hollywood happy
functioning for Freud

I
would say
fuck it
but the irony
would be
in bad taste

dilate

hello me,
so this is self discovery?-

standing between mirror and bed
reluctant to witness
yet being a captive audience
to relief and issues unravelling
all over again
stuffed into some cupboard
way in the back
only to fall out and bury me
in crap
and childhood was forgiven
flaws dismissed
in that moment
frustration overrode
confusion dispelled
internal workings revealed
astonished
as everything was confirmed
and completeness overwhelmed

vaseline smears genders
into insignificance
when honesty juts out
like an exclamation point,
a pointing finger,
an arrow directing...
like instinct refound
tighten the straps
while what has always been
introduces me
to
myself.

my sister's ghost

dark staircase leading downwards – an esophagus –
and us on the edge, like a nightly prayer, with the moonlight
hemming our nightgowns blue and a draft cupping them up
like mostly-deaf ears. the night hitchhikes in with
the old moon, an unwanted houseguest, making itself comfortable and
the house is full of snores. they flutter around us, through the walls –
blind, slumbering moths, which pupate in the corners
and hang there like nocturnal,
mummied earrings.

we share a candleflame between us, bobbing eagerly like a girl with an untold secret.
our faces pale, stiff masks in the light, cobbled, our eyes dim nuclei
and the darkness crowds in around the light, timid and worrisome
like a spectator of a séance. we hold our breath
and eye each other as wax tears up,
and drips down the sullen, fleshless candle
like runaway pearls.

it begins with a blood pact, a pricking, gimp-eyed needle
from mother's sewingbox, our fingers offering up warm beads
of truth and promise, black in the yellow light.
trees scratch at our windows, like prisoners tallying the days, the days,
the days.

we

whisper.

and the dark staircase creaks and fidgets, divesting
periodic statements as we hide under the covers and suck our fingers
and tell each other ghost stories, grey-faced and godless in the dark as heathens.
the night is fluent in stars and goosebumps
and the candle betrays us with its scooping, tribal shadows
collecting around us like black, clerical buzzards(they
will not eat us,
if we do not sleep)

our eyes waver
and we watch the moon pantomime an odyssey
across the throat of a wintering sky.

insomnia, anyone?

I stayed awake till two
o’clock, tired
but not wanting to sleep.

To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub.

I am no Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be—
not even an attendant lord,
not even the fool.

All I have is this book
full of words that repeat themselves for pages
andpagesandpagesandpages,

and they call this book my life.

Write.
Write, woman, write
because
you must.

terror

i wake every hour
to make sure I'm still safe
trying to avoid the nightmare
in this dusty room where shadows creep...

when it's so late that it's early,
in this night with little sleep,
I fall deeper underneath.

the kiss

The memories are always there
no matter how hard I try
to circumvent the past...
like watching a carousel
circling
round and round,
a child riding her steed,
yet going nowhere...
I'm teetering on the edge of sanity
seeking salvation from this madness
going round in my head

the cure comes
ice cold
piercing the vein
I pulled back a little
the liquid changed color
rust
plunging forward-
a vaccination
for my poisoned thoughts
immune
to all the voices...

the fire
is starting in my chest
radiating through my bloodstream
my body is growing heavy,
falling over in a stupor...
I'm
lost
turned
about
looking
over
my
shoulder
at those yesterdays,
the dancing colors, spinning round...so fast.
So fast.

And the memories tilt
around in my head-
a pinball on the loose...
no longer
distorted in the magic mirrors
singing a sing-songy round...
no more roller coasters,
no more whirling and twirling Gravitron
refrains holding me down...
no longer lost in
a carnival of thoughts
and blurred memories.
of the past

then
I'm
numb

I'm masquerading in and out of lucidity
as the intense nothingness fades...
all the while debating the consequences
of staying here, amiss the bliss
of heroin's kiss,
where the ugliness recedes...
I concede I'm better off in my carnival of thoughts
even if
I have faded...

Like once colorful city-graffiti,
now drab,

I was here.

playing house

she spins in circles
to dizzy herself
and blur the realities
that sometimes suffocate
her childhood

daydreaming
of moms that hug
and dads that love-
the image of joy
is clutched tightly
in her moistened palm.

the muffle of empty conversation
pulses through creaking boards,
as she remembers a distant time
when she had joined them;
when she knew how to laugh
and live


in absence, she cannot help
but calmly reminisce
of those bluest eyes
and the softest disposition;

but in reality,
the beating in her temples
too often recall
the daily beatings...

and her desperation to behold {be held}
is too much for one soul to bear.

burning

A phoenix won't rise from what we've become
But at least we can say we burned...

We burned trails through the sky
choked smoke
and swallowed our affections
our souls combusting into bits of flame
igniting a passion that consumed our selves
and left us in a cocoon of sorrow,
and regret

now that we have been extinguished
there is nothing left

feel

i won't tell you,
i've replaced my heart...
i realise you won't find me here.
and i'm lowering bars,
so there's no hurdles...
i'm hardly speaking.
i want to say
stir up these dead leaves of mine
make me smile,
even cry.
wrap me in your trembling arms
and douse my wrists with kisses

just let me feel.

his story

I opened an old book
and read with relish
the faded words it bore
of relatives
once virile
now dead.

I felt my heart soar
as it read
of old deeds.
Sore at the inky memories
of war.

My eyes burnt
and I wanted to leave the pages
strewn on the floor,
for a magpie
to find and take
as I silently grieved

for the fathers I never knew
and the bonds of history
that tie.

Carve

In an attempt to carve
a name for herself,
she slashed up her arms
until they no longer resembled limbs.

When you can’t recognize
your own appendages,
you know you’ve come a long way.

september's son

Seeping into me every year
as the September sun fades
seductively subtle dancing around me,
like a shop girl,
persisting, insisting
but I'm resisting her pleas to change
I become me
the wilted withering wallflower that doesn't quite blend...
amongst the Lilies, a real tumbleweed
pulled from my roots by the harsh audacity of
f.......... a........ l....... l...... .....
driven-
rolled about by the w i n d
aimlessly wandering,
wondering
while that pop.you.liar
stream of consciousness drifts past every October ...
November
halts
with the refracted reflections
in store windows toting the invitations
of preciousness and precocious precariousness,
that wears like vintage fashion on the minds of the hopelessly ordinary who've never
felt
anything
beneath the surface.
I don’t need your under.standing
or pieces of your kindness, sacked,
like brittle glass beads.
I’ve got my protean-self to reinvent;
like last decades jeans.