bile

like wax lips
i gum, i mouth at you
i resist the urge to taste
tongue inside and i roll back and forth
and ride, and wave and
promise things and
ask for things
that i have no right

i have not felt so
strongly this urge
to destroy
to palm and swat
to be the cat to your mouse
if only for some sort of
dervish elegance

i turn my head
down my back lies
it shoots
a pain
and i know
that i am aging before my time
and i am drowning in bile
so vile
and self-manufactured

summer

your roar is dull and lifeless
i imagine you blonde and boring
i once was called brooding
if only for my dark hair.

I am clawing at my insides
trying to find a foot-hold
to pull myself back out
the raging, the rampant
curse of a girl

every night i slaughter
the voices in my mind
that say lay down and die
and every night i whisper
myself to sleep and i say
'oh sweet girl,
we'll be back to our
regularly scheduled program
right after this commercial break'

i think of you
there's not much else
my mind the halls of school
mid-july
janitors pry open lockers
mop my brain-floors
and throw away
old forgotten sandwiches

yes, i need a foothold
my arms have grown fleshy and weak
more wings than thick branches
and as always i fall too fast
and shatter with a crash

a calling.

i have long written myself off
as chewed nails and split ends
but maybe there is beauty beyond
faded seventeen
and cosmo will be proclaimed
a bible of lies

somewhere between that girl
you know and that girl you
jerk off to and that girl
who serves you your dinner
sexlessly, her power to enrapture
out of touch, concealed
and healed and only released
only allowed to lash
with precise consideration
and no longer youthful
plunder, asunder
to that age-wizened
spread

she contours

to the shape
and the angles
of your bed

but not in your head
you are too young
to know which way
the shadows should lay
and how to caress
and seduce
the slightest, subtlest
most authentic
moan

between them all
that viper's strike
a flattened spring
waiting
the fall
the saunter
of her prey
between miss homecoming queen
and mrs. robinson

yes between her
and the playboy centerfolds
and the teenage fumblings
between the Maxim count downs
and the crust on your thumb
yes between them all
between fantasy and school marm

lies me
waiting for you.

mesh

whipporwill
this coquette girl
is wondering
why you don't crow

summertime
jingling clothes line
change in the pocket
of forgotten sun-dried
osh kosh b'gosh
of yeserday

wave, flap,
rat a tat
woodpecker
this blatant homewrecker
is calling
you out to play

the chess set
gleams
polished
by sweat
and pride
silver upon
worn, gnawed
city park wood

if we were to talk
bearded billy goat
would you tell me what
i was like as a kid
(no pun intended)
or would you just daze,
fall to the simmer summer sun blaze
and eye my auburn hair
considering the taste
and risk

I'd really like to go to the ocean
Do you think you would take me?
Do you think I could buy you a snow cone?
And we can talk about all things other?

I'd like to go to the ocean
Not ride the Wonder Wheel but just watch
Footprints on the sand and the bloated bodies
Browning in the Brooklyn Basted Waste
Land.

I'd really like to go to the ocean
you don't even need to hold my hand
I'll even pay for the gas
if you would just drive me to the ocean

please

i lost my thought today
mid-sentence
and i paused, for a split second
just looking in your eyes
and realized that you were
listening to me
really fucking listening to me
intently and with interest
and i fumbled and blushed
because there is nothing of
any consequence that I have to say
lately and I don't know what to do
anymore
when my voice rises above the din
and someone decides i am worth more
than what i am paid hourly
or how long i will work for free

i want to crawl up
in the nook of your arm
and listen
and remember what life is like
outside these four office walls
that feel more and more
like a tomb
where i am encased in paper

limit

everything below my waist swells
I've gotten used to ankles
the size of softballs
and have stopped complaining
that it hurts to walk.

i thought i'd hit rock bottom
at 250
at 300
then at 325 I fell
I dropped
I shrunk to 260
then five years
up fifty
down fifty
til age 30 I
cry in a doctor's office
and say
"that scale is wrong."

and she believed me
she said there's no way
you weigh that much
and i felt hope

i waddled after her
to another exam room
but there it was
the only thing broken
is me

she says my blood pressure is up
i say it's from the shock
she talks about endochrine disease
and I reach for faith
but it's hidden behind the cracker box

in a month she says
return and we'll check things again

i eat pizza watching
intervention and other addict shows
other happy fat shows
biggest loser and more to love
i want to save your life, he says

i don't think there's any hope or help
or any sort of chance for me
i'm sorry, but it's true
i watched sylvia
and felt haunted
walking room to room
summer storm outside
carlos called me to come out and play
it seemed better than dying
at least for today

i thought my limit would be thirty
i thought my limit would be immobility
i think my limit is diabetes
perhaps my limit is when they say cancer
or maybe it'll never come
and i'll just die
unlike a human
so far from a woman
more of a piece of heavy equipment
hauled and managed
not loved and cherished

i thought i'd be better
than this