When You Come Around

love can be molded with nips of teeth
against gentle pink skin
in secreted smile
and long distance phone calls

you can be a bird
and wish for cannon balls

or you can be stuck where you are
standing in the shower
with your hands below your waist

you can laugh until you fall off the couch
heavy lidded
inhaling sticky sweet drugs down into your lungs

or you can be a bug
under the floorboards
scurrying from fat cat paws

love can be a warm bed
a warmer body
and clean sheets crisp against the night air

you can whirl around the dance floor
pushing the grabbing hands away
and billowing up to the sparkling lights

faces can be video lines
lips parted to a glowing 'o'
we can be naked
to the gentle blue flickering
of another day in TV static

o' hands of mine
be swift in time
and I shall lay my head
at your feet

with heavy breasts
and your name tattooed on my hips
I will be waiting
for the day when you come around

Bed-Bugged

I would not suggest to you
an extended vacation in my bed

for I toss and I turn
and I find myself uncomfortable
all the night long

I really am
a terrible bet
and a bear in the morning

do not dip your hand
below my waistband
in an attempt
at playful dawn reforestations

I might take it upon myself to bite you
to nip at your fingers
until you shriek
and take your hand back from me

I have sharp teeth
and I enjoy the taste of fingerprints

I am not particularly fond of your morning halitosis
I prefer to keep all the blankets to myself
your breath is making my neck hot
and I want my pillow back

no matter where I plan my legs
yours seem to be a tangle in the way
my arm has gone to sleep
while I plot my revenge with my own pins and needles

you are on my hair again
as you latch your hands onto my breasts
I am rolling and rolling and have nearly
rolled clean off the bed

I wish you would stop trying to sleep on top of me
didn't you read the sign on the way in
written in bold letters above the doorway?
It states my positions quite clearly:

"Don't Plan On Long Stays,
Please Depart With A Minimal Amount of Fuss,
You See, I'm Trying To Sleep,
And In All Actuality I Probably Hate Your Guts."

St. Paul

with soft soled scuffing down long halls
of ancient linoleum
over cracked and splitting lines
they stream past in soft pastels
with their disinfected smiles

I sit wringing my wrists
against the plastic placard in my hand
wondering if it will hurt this time
if it will work this time

the room is silent
sterile
they have moved it down the hall
but it is much the same
a table covered in white paper
as white as paper cranes
with stirrups that never ride anywhere
with my knees up in the air

I disrobe quietly as the nurse
busies herself with tubes and little vials
of treatment bought wholesale for times like this
I can hear the doctor in the authority of textbooks
speaking quickly in the back room
in a long diatribe of prescription and diagnosis
to a panel of white coats and greying hair

she leans over me
implements in hand
gentle smile in place
she tells me to scoot up a little closer
now breathe in
now breath out
just a little pinch
keep breathing

and its done
see that wasn't so bad
and it repeats
over and over again
day after week
week after month
maybe for the rest of my life

every time I walk down the cheerfully painted halls
covering up nearly a century of illness and habitied nuns
I pass the Pope staring at me,
with disapproving eyes
and a near-sneer upon his lips,
from his gilded golden frame
outside the wooden room
where I see the truly mournful
crouch over softly uttered prayers

as I make my way to the archaic creaking elevator
with a secret pain deeply hidden in my body
I fear not painful death like those humped over
the priest's soft words
spoken before uncomfortable chairs
and doubled-over bodies

I fear instead pain for endlessly stretching days
I fear this uncomfortable feeling between my legs
this uncomfortable walk through these sterile halls
I fear never letting someone enter me again
who doesn't have a needle in her hand
and a relenting worried smile on her face
I fear the day they tell me it will not get better

and once outside I let the wind take my hair
I let the pain settle inside me
I watch the trees sway to rust coloured bricks
and oblivious faces streaming past
the girl with unwashed hair
and pale ghost-like skin
just outside the hospital door
with a cigarette in her hand
huddled next to her I.V. tower
Cinderella coughing up bile in a blue robe

I turn from her
pull my collar close to my cheeks
allow myself to be swallowed by the moving throng
of glassy eyes
and bodies pretending at health
and I follow the wind home
with visions of immortal nuns in my head
with careful smiles upon their faces
and careful needles in their hands
forever floating before my open legs

The Thickening Wood

I ran through wet tree branches
and felt the recoiling sting shock me
back to my own disheveled mind.

With little droplets of sap in my hair
and deep red welts blooming on my skin
I ran, feet pounding against the needled floor.

I ran, even as the rain pelted me pink
against the dark green hands
reaching for me.

I ran, sloshed through the creek,
upon smooth coloured pebbles worn flat
and perfect for skipping.

I ran through tall grass, with the alfalfa in bloom,
scraping at my thighs;
little purple flowers caught up in my dress.

I ran and startled big black birds to air
a great rush of wings
past my ears, all frightened.

I slid down the hill once dust
now turned to mud in the rain,
splashing up my knees with wet dirt.

I pounded down the road, a muddy rut,
my breath coming in rattling gasps,
my legs aching fire sinking into the damp ground.

At the end of the trail,
I dove back into the thickening wood
as the sticker bushes clung to me, pulling me from my path.

The canopy closed over my head,
lushed green deepening the further I fled
into those flats of wild roses and bull pines stretching for the sky.

The black berries brambled in my way
and ripped at my skin with swaying thorns;
sweet juice staining the souls of my feet black; berries crushed under foot.

I ran, not once looking behind me but frantically sprinting faster;
I outran my slicked thoughts of you to the crumbling river bank,
and when I got there I dove straight in and let the flood waters pull me away.

Lips as Red as Blood

my thighs are slick in a rush of blood
crimson thickness is running down my legs
past my knees
pooling at my ankles

it's filling up my mouth
when I part my lips
I can only speak in burbles
and spit the ground all red

the dirt drinks me deep
filling up the cracks in the landscape
my femininity dripping
a trail of jeweled droplets to his door

he can never understand my comfort
in the drips left behind on the white tiles
as I slip from the kitchen to the bedroom
seeking lips to kiss only hard

he cringes in the face of the female rigor
that stiffens my belly
with unkempt want and forgetful desire
he does not understand what it means to bleed

to bleed with no blooming wound
to sit folded in on your self
with fingers tipped in blood
and eyes heavy in unfocused thought

the ground is thirsty for me
the moon tugging at my white dress
slowly turning crimson in the fading night
as he twists nervously at the door

he is goose stepping around my trail
gingerly picking his way to a clean spot
he quivers, 'I can feel the red tide of you slamming into me
even with my back turned'

I whisper through lips as vermilion as blood
'then never turn your back on me
and you will never have to know the nightmares
I have been saving especially for you
never turn your back on me
and I will not come howling for you in the night.'

I take my white dress and crimson flowers
blooming all over the room
and fly up to the ceiling
grasping only shining bloodied kisses

I leave trails of garnet on his face
I tug at his hair
I weave in and out and in again
dipping my red fingerprints down his back

and when the night cries in staining tears
the patches he is unable to bleach away
he will remember me all in white
and know what it is to be wanted in only a hard red way

The Wreck

I think I will set fire to this sinking ship
and see if it can burn in the rain
maybe a thousand tin sailors can swim
but I doubt it

with iron limbs
I am sure to sink to the bottom
where I can search for sharks
freezing in the deep
as the waves slam into my iron chest
and the ringing carries across the water

there is armor in my belly
and planks where my eyes should have been
I am going to build a raft
to drift further from shore
and see if I can set fire to it as well

with all these burning ships around me
the sea is illuminate
and the seals are dashing
to eat the hearts of drowning men
their pelts gleaming in the reflection of flames off the water

you could swallow pearls
that were once orbits in the center of your head
and find me down here
rusting in a bed of seaweed
under the bones of great iron ships

you should fear death by water
as I am a drowning sort
wearing a crown of little fish
and a cloak of octopus tentacles
with arms like nets
set to drag you down to me

you told me my kiss is like gasping for air
and I taste of salt water
well I would rather commit to something
than live a life dry
abandoned on some beach
as the ghosts wade out
to find my blood in the tide

I would prefer to drown completely
and make my home beneath the waves
in these caverns of dark and rotting wood
caught in the songs of passing whales
than to perform this drowning in increments
which you seem to cherish o' so very much

I Knew Right Then That You Would Break My Dirty Heart

And you might wake up tomorrow
with the strange taste of blood
in your throat

and you might wonder where the summer went.

You might wonder about the cold place next to you
and the strange perfume upon your pillows.

You might bury your head in your arms
and remember unusually cool skin on a sweltering night
curled against you
whispering something
that sounded like a dirty confession of love.

You might think you remember me
but I am just a dusty ghost
on your tongue
that you collected one warm night
from the trash cans in the alley
and I have gone home
with my dirty pitch black heart
to the clean white snows of Winter's hands
and the gentle caresses of Fall's windy tongue
to calm myself of your summery lies,
your heated hands
and your golden shining skin.