Glass Globe (Good Girl)

you called me your good girl
in heels
dresses
shaved legs and perfume like lilies
lavender hair
crystal tear drops, rain drops, lemon drops
hanging heavy from my ears
gum drops
sugary lips
cigarette breath with listerine
your good girl in black
in red
in glitter skin, twisted bows
wild hair, wild heart
heavy heavy wild breathing
your bad girl in blue
disco ball dancing
circles around you
shots of whiskey
lime from your lips
spinning on a string
from your fingertips
i'm a glass globe
wind me up and watch me twirl
down, down, down
on
you drop me and i shatter

Remember?

These are some of the lines I liked best from a writing exercise we did in our Writing Group last year.



I remember drinking chicken soup in my grandmother's kitchen  while they took him out the back door.

I remember the way you said my name the first time we met.

I remember my first drink and 7 years later I remember nothing.

I remember watching the fireworks explode over the pond while she cried at home.

I remember finding my drugstore reading glasses under her bed and sneaking out.

I remember dancing with her by the bathroom of the nightclub.  She doesn't remember, though.

I remember asking him to 'repeat that in spanish'.  I wish it sounded as beautiful when I said it back.

I remember waking up that morning and not remembering.

I remember the way the bear-skin rug felt under my feet and being too ashamed to admit wanting to sleep on it.

I remember sneaking to the bathroom after church on ash-wednesday and scrubbing my forehead.

I remember bleeding.

I remember giving birth to triplet girls in a dream.  They were his.

I remember meeting a boy named Ian at a hotel in Providence.  He told me I saved his life.

Poems.

imagine all of the lines
that just don't fit into poems
they die on computer screens
and in minds
blackberry messages
love letters that never make it to the lover
they sit quietly in facebook statuses
and in cookbooks
or fade off into the headboards in motel rooms
whispered into dark skin on top of sweat-jewels
there are poems in every breath
shhh, listen closely
the rhythm you hear
in the padded steps of the tabby cat
will radio-rock our babies to sleep
and the beating, banging, bumping pulse in your neck
the tick-tick tocking of the clock
the squeal of tires
hissing teapots,
carrots boiling for soup on top of the stove
will have us dancing under glittered ceilings
in underground dance halls
where the poems never die

Letters and Emails.

My tea is too hot and the letter I got in the mail, the one from the state, is peeking crawling scratching its way out of the draw I tucked it away into.  There was no rain today.  The ink didn't run.  I cannot pretend I didn't read the words I read.
I printed emails at the office today from boys who just want to fuck me saying 'you're doing a hell of a job' and 'i hope you'll stick around' and I responded in that professional tone I have, the one with the slight laugh, the batting eyes the straight spine, no frown, all teeth.  I tucked them into metal drawers and I left and the wind outside was biting through my skin, breaking my bones.

My tea may have cooled down by now.

How many calories are in Toothpaste?

I have to wash my face with three different chemicals before it feels clean and
I remember a poet-girl in college whose ribs you could count through her tee-shirt
and the poem she wrote asking
'how many calories are in toothpaste?'

I think about it every day.

So Long Self-Published Love

i burnt all of the poetry i had written about you
it was going to be a book
with photographs and pressed flowers
and a dedications page with your name
the title was a floral play
on your name, too
now there are ashes in my hair
and i hate wasting paper
and that is why i'm crying so don't think it's you
i wish i could smoke in the fumes
and breathe out all of the words i shouldn't have written
i shouldn't have written them
i shouldn't have written lines like
oh baby, your body is soft skin, soft lips, soft hair
and i feel silly like a girl in the rain
smoking her last cigarette
but they're gone now
and you're gone now
and we're both in separate worlds pretending
that we're the one who isn't speaking
to the other
oh baby, your body is hardened heart and flawed skin
and all of those times i said 'i love you'
i lied
or maybe i didn't
but now i guess you'll never know

Tired Fox

tired fox

I drew this for you.

Sex.

I try to pretend that I am the things hanging on my walls.
The postcards and the pictures and the drawings and the painting of birds without eyes.
Really though, I am the tequila bottles hidden under the bed, the perfume on my pulse points, too much caffeine in my  blood and hip-hop songs.  I laugh too loud.
My back hurts from the cold and I love pop music.  I don't dance naked as much as I should.
I am fluorescent lighting cat-eyes - daytime hustler looking at the boys in their button down shirts and trying to see through to their chest bones. 
It's all about the money and the after-hours beer spots.  Sports on TV, always something.
Fit in, fit in, fit in.  How well would he fit into me?

hungry.

i am surrounded by sheets of ice.

i am trying to write but it isn't often i can indulge in too much coffee and daytime tv.

i am worrying about court dates and falling icicles and losing the love of my life to a warmer state.  i am worrying about the growling in my belly.  i'm alone and there is pasta in the pantry and i could lace it through hot dog bits and call it art and i could brave the snow and rain and bitter wind and trade my slippers for sneakers and go find tacos in lowell.  i'm hungry but all things, when ignored, will eventually go away.  that's what i've heard.  is there truth to that?