hey everyone. It’s half way through April which means that it’s 1/2 way through NaPoWriMo and so I am going to post the poems i have written so far.
Here ya go:
“B is for…”
Bra.
Boobs.
Barely 9 years old and a
B-cup.
Back then
I felt excited.
My best friend and I had just made a check list
of all the things
we needed to be considered
“Women”
And I
was already winning the competition.
I remember writing about my exhilaration
in my pink-kitty-heart-vomit
Lisa Frank diary: “Now Finally
I’m a Woman
I’m a Woman
I’m a Woman
I’m Sexy”…
My Father used to leave me places:
Laundromats
Shopping malls
Hotel lobbies.
He said this
would help me be more independent.
A tall 10 year old
with a C-cup
twenty dollars
and 6 hours to kill.
By then
I had checked off two more items on
that list.
Left my best friend in the dust
As adult men
honked their horns
bought me ice cream
and handed me their business cards
Leering
Like flocks of patient vultures
circling
a corpse.
She entered our 6th grade class mid semester.
An outsider. Clothes just one shade out of season
Family just one step below status
she didn’t stand a chance
Some kids were just destined
to be the joke
the giggle
as they passed.
The name tattooed
to bathroom walls.
I spent that year breathing a sigh of relief
eyes fixed on hallway floors
just happy to survive
just glad
to be invisible.
First Crush(The Vintner):
I judge my health by my thighs.
When they’re strong enough to crush a man’s skull
like the last shiraz grape
found in vineyard
I know the season has started.
I keep the barrels in the closet
Aged French Oak.
The empty bottles wait in the cellar
thirsty for new contents
He rings my door bell
and arrives with orange zest
and dark chocolate
and when he’s going down on me
I contemplate this year’s harvest
What sort of wine
I’ll soon be drinking
and at just the right moment
I Squeeze.
You know I am quite fond of you.
I have a sequin pinned to my left ventricle.
With each heartbeat I feel more fierce. At age 16 I learned the art of self design.
And fell in love
with stage doppelgangers.
There once was a spectacled lemur
who always said the wittiest things. And lefts its paw prints
on music sheets
I was a tick waiting patiently arms outstretched to grasp his swagger.
There once was a worry doll
I used to smother under my pillow
when her nail-biting got the best of me.
She always reached a nerve.
I still have the accordion
It sits in the corner
in a coffin
along with adolescent infatuation.
But I had grown tired of bandwagons
and already drank my fill
of you.
Today they discovered a cure for apathy
Today the fairies came out of hiding
Today scientists discovered physical evidence
that unicorns exist
and the asteroid set to hit Earth
just barely missed.
Today the body of the LochNess monster
washed up on a shore in Scotland
Today the zoos opened their cages
The giraffes started their war on humanity
and the trees revolted.
Today we were able to marry the person we loved
Today they elected a 6 year old child as president.
And our hands were made out of abalone shells
so we could see what beauty we could find in our palms
instead of the power we felt in our fists.
Today our heads didnt feel so heavy
and when we opened our mouths
we didnt try to say the right things
just spoke in the language of our hearts
our tongues thumping.
Today the headlines were lifelines
and we could read our own fortunes
in our fingerprints.
When the love letter you wrote
included references
to smoking bath salts
and eating my unborn baby
I knew
right then
that you “get” me.
It didnt take you long to unhinge
my padlocks
like an escape artist
loosening my straight jacket
I know sometimes I pull
the chains too
tight.
That I open my mouth too wide
yet you studied every groove
all the dragon breath
my mangled incisors
somehow making my crooked smile
seem
lovely.
I know sometimes
I squeeze
the fireflies too
tight.
Holding them
in the shade of my palms
forgetting the weight
of my greedy hands.
Forgetting the feathers
I’ve spent a lifetimes
scotch taping to my
skin.
Sometimes
It’s just too
hard
to be human
I opened “I never loved you” and out fell his heart
I opened his heart and inside was a hammer
I opened the hammer and inside was a brick
I opened the brick and inside was a fist
I opened a fist and inside was a tear
I opened a tear and inside was laughter
I opened laughter and inside was a girl
I opened a girl and inside was a crushed flower
I opened a crushed flower and inside was
hope.
-
It’s the tooth’s need for flesh.
a desire to see bone.
to see what is hidden
below the
surface.
Sometime the bite marks I leave behind
are never deep enough to satisfy the craving
like a beetle
knawing the last bites of sinew
I slither my tongue to the bottom of a smudged glass
this is where things get ugly.
-
Why wont phone start ringing?
I threw it in the corner
like a punished child
after the last message I left on your
answering machine.
Then stalked bar stools for substitutes
collecting the phone numbers
of your replacements
like hungry fly paper.
-
I’ve numbed the lights off
forgot to set the mood
threw his clothes in a pile
fumbling and frantic
like I were caught in a river current
grasping at anything
-
the next morning
my bed is raft
popping sleeping pills
like blisters
the sun doesnt deserve to see.
faces like mine
were built for nights of regret.
5. You still havent called me back.
I drag razors across my sins
sometimes I pick scabs
until they bleed red watercolor in the bathtub
I feel nothing
after emptying another bottle
my throat explodes into a rasp
like a broken wasps nest.
6. there are hooks in my spine
I thread a single string through each one
and tighten my face muscles
so they can stand up right.
this is the posture
of someone who can handle
anything.
The strings snap
constantly.
7. there was nothing more I wanted
than for you to be unhappy
it never seemed fair
that I should carry
all the bruises.
Other Woman
sometimes he wont tell you
or wont mention her
until the 5th or 6th date
will swear
you are different
that you are something
special.
Your relationship
is an orchard
of freshly picked scabs
an arm filled with gentle
self inflicted scars
your bed:
a vacation
and her’s will always be
home
he will always leave you.
you’re just
a new puppy
he can walk around the block
wagging your tail
still waiting patiently
by the door
for him to return.
copyright 2013 Melissa Rose