honeydo list

you messaged me
just to check in on your stuff
another list, don't forget
the bookshelves
the books
the wii
the games
the playstations
the nes
the records
the record player
the clothes
the the the the
it went on and on
but what i won't forget is
i am in love with a man
who cares more about a $10 bookshelf
than i think he cared for me.

primeval post-marriage

I could break you with my thighs,
venom teeth, blazing gems on dagger rings
elegant fists, coiled, holding flaming coals
bragging while drinking your tears...but I won't.

I won't recoil into a fortress dark
build up cemented walls of male bodies,
or swim burning pools of woe and whiskey
or army crawl on loaded hips, scraped knees.

I do not get lost in you, no more Gulliver
largely awkward, stumbling in your fragile world
calculated steps, miserable and sanitized, protecting
compromised immune systems and boy ego.

I should smudge your spirit out with sage
vacuum up each skin flake, bath in crystals
emerge from menstrual blood, witchy good
cleansed in moon tides and free.

I will just shed you faster than uterine lining
without a flinch, a cramp, a cough, a gleam.
just your neatly folded band shirts, clean
records respectfully boxed, waiting patiently.

Because I rise from burnt amber ashes all the time
golden but feminine, searching and fearless
still open, pure and true, knowing even
if my legs are lost, I'll will just make wings.

for the dearest bwk

you smoked merit cigarettes, gpc, now pall mall

nicotine sweat stained sheets, a soft jersey sea

folded waves green, a failed marriage wedding gift

i think the house is full of the lot, of crispy flowers

faded and decaying, maybe they were fake

a fire mantle alter praising your past mistakes.

it's the spritz and fizz of cold coke cans but

later then, generic 2 liters diet and caffeine free

its clinks of ice in the same glass mug

brim greasy and discolored in semi-circle kiss

your lips aligned as you drink handle in right hand

unsettled and changing just illusion of chaos

you always been my stability.

in my husband's hospital bed i slept

it was like how
for the first year,
we slept together
in a tiny twin bed.

an entire year of
negotiating limbs
battle lines drawn
in morning breath

entangled perspiration
bathing our nights
quenching the roots
of our would be life.

it was just like that
but last night? you stop,
"are we allowed?" like
we could be stopped now.

Nine

"Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do
so would injure them or others."

it took me too long to realize
you didn't do it to spite me,
you gracefully forgave
and even loved
despite me.

hands in pocket and indoor voices

it was like
for the first time
i actually got
to touch.

Oh seedy!

Atlas shrugged, the world fell
Leda cooked an omelette,
Odysseus found a new girl,
and I just laid in the ditch and
let tornado winds blow over me.