Small Works

She followed the dank smells of Earth and rain, that melded into her. 

She was a tangle of fine bones and became a brush fire of broken dialect. Still, she thinks of unrequited love in colors that do not exist. 

For now, she will seal herself into the bones of the Earth, where the soil will grow over and fold her body like an unopened love letter into its rich, dark embrace. 

____________

You are a language I do not speak. I cannot feel you there anymore.

I don't have the ability to force this air out of my body that does not belong to me.

The foreign dialect that you speak is broken, choppy. I can't call you home. 

I am always forcing you out; I'm sorry, it's habit. 

___________

[11:48pm]

Of course, there are distinct disadvantages to surviving a scandal: You lose your friends. You lose your trust. You lost all credibility in what you dearly love.

You begin an intimate, five-day relationship, seducing a slick-barreled gun that sings your name.

But after a while, you unwrap your lips from around the gun. You grab your pen. And you write. Because when it's all said and done, that is what you do.

Write.

___________________

[Free Write - Lambs Ear]

I have been held between calloused fingers with courage caked under the fingernails.

I've watched the tribe of white knuckled girls with the knobby knees fall off the jungle gym.

Their mothers would sit on the park bench and smoke Virginia Slims. Must be getting old, the way their skinny fingers combed the better half of their crinkly silver hair.

They get carried away out there, how they invite themselves into strangers cars, fire up another cig and tell their stories to each other. And the kids are wild and all footwork, thinned lips the color of roses, questioning whatever confuses them.

I am uncomfortable with their softness, mumbling syllables or whispering fairytales. They picked scabs until they bled and their mothers pretended not to notice as they soaked in late night stands and whiskey;

I want to say to the girls on the jungle gym, "you were born to a mother who wore pain like trees wear their rings, as marks of bravery and battle cries."

But because I am forever bonded to this earth, I will feed myself with their feminine giggles carried by the wind.

And for now, I will carve myself down to nothing more than water and remember that

observation really is a lonely science.

___________________

[How To Get Over Him]

When he finally asks what's wrong, tell him that he's really just too good for you and you're afraid that one day he'll wake up and realize that he could sleep with so many better women.

When he leaves the apartment and gets in the back of a taxi cab at two in the morning, don't follow him. Maybe even though you saw him with another woman, laughing and joking in a smoky bar with their heads held close together, you still think you have a shot with him.

You don't.

Dress yourself up if for no other reason than making yourself feel good. Put on your tightest, tiniest little black dress and some high heels and have a dance party in your own room with the stereo blasting.