
A Disgusting Tryst

if the act is on, full wattage
everyone sees a together girl, straight backed by taut strings
oh the puppet master pulls
them tightly in compensation for internal sag
they see a girl who has checked all the boxes;
education, polish, spit and shine, big smile, combed hair, thighs together
they see what they want to see
just as we read the truth and speak a lie
who wants to know the inside? The fight beneath?
Maybe at 18. When we still have patience, and time, and youth and romance
thinking it lovely to talk of emotions and breakage and pain
the beauty of those things when safe from death
edging closer, every year, less tolerance
until even your therapist has a break-down and can’t listen anymore
Covid 19 keep your distance? Aren’t we already alienated and disregarded?
She wants someone to listen, she wants someone, she wants to stop
this hole within her from growing out of control and taking her over
she wants to speak her truth to someone who gives a damn
it’s almost like wishing to have perky tits again and a hymen
it’s almost like hoping at the dinner table for love instead of silence.
She used to fake it really well, used to know all the ways of getting clean and squeaky
People are kind to children and pretty youth
Unkind to those who are mentally ill and grow old in their despair
old before your time, before you stopped wanting to be wooed and still wanting to wear
tight clothes and push up bras, just because you can.
Now she understands why middle aged women read romance novels
or hate and never do
the combat of wanting to be desired and knowing it’s not going to
ever again, they only like those little girls in tiny clothes
whose bodies are barely formed
are you bitter? Are you scorned? The world belongs to men
because they stop loving at a certain age and women
hate each other especially the peachy ones, who remind them of
what they’ll never get back.
The fight beneath, the bitchy office manager who used to tut beneath her breath
every time she walked past in her best blue heals
she had a good heart then and it hurt to be treated so
now she knows the meaning of
the loss in their eyes
but she still wants to be desired
is she going to turn into one of those sad ole gals who keeps wearing too tight jeans
hanging out at less and less popular places in hope?
Or will her heart shrivel and dry like a match burning its sulfur
hardly holds its original form
just the dark wood left, stained by flame
never to be struck
again.
She would like to think someone would
love her at any time, for more than whether she has loosening skin or
sagging bits, she has heard this is something men point out unkindly in bed
she’d probably sock them if they did, and bite something off
who the fuck has the right?
It fills her with a fresh hell to imagine
how they think they’re entitled
but her young self will remind her; it’s we who let this happen
dear wolf
we lay ourselves down when they tell us we’re not worthy
and we either let ourselves vanish
or we stop believing we can be
desired for more than the price of our skin
imagine us hanging like pieces of meat
dear wolf
waiting for the flies to obviate our claim
to be equal or good enough
whilst they, rotund, graying, flacid
rule the world or pretend to
we give life, we carry the future
are we going to let this be or
become wild, something untamed and furious
with the thirst of a girl wanting to give her entire heart
and throw it into the furnace
watch it burn with all that you want
this love, this need, this impossible desire
even as your body dries and says; I am done
you’re never done, you bring life, you bring longing
within you is a timeless heart.
She wants you to know
she may seem withered to you or not
as once she was, but she needs as much as ever
that desire, so much so she may climb out of
of her falling skin and become
a butterfly in reverse, going underground
where in darkness nobody can tell
then it’s all about the beat of life
that eternal drum
and anyone can play
as long as they join
beating their need against stretched leather
in the ancient way before we invented
exclusion and condemnation
when those wisest and most sought
were not children
but their bright eyed elders
still with the pulse
of hunger inside them.
Photo by John Rocha on Pexels.com
she’s ransomed for chunk change
by the betrayal of her inward gaze
pain and her varied pins
the reddened lips of an untruth
poised to strike
she stopped writing then as if
they etched her into stone and left her to moss
and rain
fall.
As a child she was told again and again
you will fail
she, being headstrong and determined
never did.
They said she wasn’t clever enough so she
left the first place prize on their desk with the words
don’t destroy futures
carved into the wood just like
her tomb.
As an adult she decided
there is no fate, you make of life what you will
by never giving up
and that worked well until the illness
turned her into a wraith and sucked the life force
out
leaving emptiness within.
No matter how hard she tried,
living
and its delights
did no longer appeal
she had a vested interest in
letting go.
God
did not speak to her
she tried calling but
the line was busy
all she could hear
voices under water murmuring
prayer, curses, little confessions
wrapped in violet leaves and cast
from sight.
Her blind faith
had improved
in the darkness she stumbled
alone because when you hit the bottom
there is rarely anyone there to pick you up
those people who pretend to giveashit really
don’t
they only suck the same air as you
noisily like cattle at trough
it is rare to find loyalty or even true depth
especially in people made of
empty promises.
So easy you see, to say, yes you mean the world to me
in fact if you did not exist, I would die surely
my life depends upon yours and I am unable
to imagine a day without you.
Such little words, running like little ink
spreading like little lies, falling like
little shoes thrown into lakes
before the drowning.
See here? Your smile and the benificence of
your factor? I could measure
the extent of your professed heart ache
in jelly beans and find
sugar is too sweet
truth has a bitter taste
especially when it lies
dormant and wilted beneath your tongue
a key without opening.
your falsehood, like an actress pealing her stockings down
slow and smooth
I think of the times I wanted to believe badly enough
I swallowed the whole cocktail
syrup and all
just to feel for one moment
something was real
and we all descend
like discarded play things
compelled to stay beneath the surface
lower in gravity we sink
until air is a daydream
until breath a distant memory.
Your loyalty had a hole in it
the size of your folded lies
and in darkness we find all things
reveal themselves
including the tarnish sitting just beneath
glittering promise.
So then, what of the day above? And its
mercy
radiating like hands
pulling us up through weeds
long have we been submerged
in the weight of betrayal
there in, our sickness no end
just the owl leaving treeline for his prey
sharp eyes scouring landscape
just the lost embrace before you
punched your ticket and entered
the void.
Here I am swaddled in
soyousaids
and words do not hold much
resonance with me anymore
I am a creature of pain and unsettling
rinsed in regret, I find no place
to feel certain
only that time will continue to count down
toward something eventual and quiet
like the sound of a clock that persists
after the end of the world
has bid her leave
to tick.
Photo by Brenda Timmermans on Pexels.com
Again the telephone rings
Shrill and haunting
I would rip you from the wall
Hurl you where I could not retrieve
And break every electronic component
If it meant
I could not be found
Always I have desired to be found
Saved from emptiness
Saved from myself
And the loneliness that shouldn’t be inside
But remains despite this
And to spite me
And now when I am hunted
I turn inside like a wolf eating innards
The glove
Dropped in the pond on a cold day
The hand
Left to freeze without it
I want nothing of you
I want nothing of all of you
Except to be allowed to vanish
Except to be allowed to return
Another time
Not this time
Not now
But when I can finally see
That my loneliness is cured
That I am captured
That I am free.
I push people away
as they pushed away from me when I first learned
that’s what people do
so run ahead and do it first
you might tell them your real age, or show them the scars in your skin, that usually does it
with online trolls who really only want a
mirror little narcissist
you might show them your face and all the welts that
lay invisible and divisible like trails of tears
finding only drought
you might reveal your defeats and play join the dots
with stories for each one and then you may
know me just a little
except I don’t want to be known and even as I write
I remain anonymous to myself
the perpetuation of a dream instead
where we dance sweaty and disordered with our hair
collapsed like flamenco skirts in rivers of ruffles
two people with thick manes and thin skin
I taste blood on your lower lip and the depth of it
makes a vampire of me
your pulsing neck is salty from your keening
we interlace our hands like church mice and bad girls and best friends and artful dodgers
I feel your fingers pulsing within me as together we cleave
so much comes from a body who wants and so little from one who does not
when I see you, I want to close my eyes and hold onto the image
how you stand, the light caressing your flawless skin as
oil might run her rivets down your elongation
If choice were a bird, I’d choose you again
And once more, with the release of my lips from yours
A song passed between mouths like a key
Open my heart, keep yourself there
If choice were a thought, I’d choose you again
And once more, with the capture of your ebony and ivory
You, who is seamstress to my soul, play your flute
I hear it behind my eyes in the vault of my trust
If you were a dream I should better wish to wake
Our drowsy love may keep us drugged by its tempest
Sleeping in the passion of your touch
As sun sets and night becomes us
Photo by Kat Jayne on Pexels.com
When I am sad, a voice, not unlike my own
chastises the impulse
if it is that, wishing to rise beyond, crush of emotion
when I am sad, I make myself sadder
by listening to those inherited echoes, telling me how I should feel
shutting down the validity, condemning feelings less than
knocking walls already fragile, disqualifying the emotion
when I am sad
I think of your disappointment
how much you wanted me to be
a thing of steel
reflecting only brightness
nothing dull or sorrowful
how I became in irony, almost everything you loathe and detest
I would say I am sorry, for your distress
but I learned instead of words, to be sad
maybe in part, because I saw, that flint in your eyes
nothing else was there
though in truth I was sad, at six years old
watching kids bully each other
knowing then, inequality and inequity
imagining the fight before I had, grown tall enough
hoping The Magic Faraway Tree
was real but knowing if it were
children grown to adults, would cut it down
when I am sad
sometimes it helps to think
love cannot be broken
by sadness or loneliness or grief
love stands as our first flower
even as it no longer exists the scent remains
to save us from disappointment
of so many other things
including each other and our infinite ability to be cruel
I am still the child with the blue rabbit
watching adults lie to each other
and kids emulate and pinch, the very stuffing out of hope
for if there is a Magic Faraway Tree
I think it would not be
for you or thee or me
like all magic things
only reveal itself to those pure hearted enough to know
sadness is manufactured by what we do to each other
with each cruel act it grows
if we let it and if we don’t
then next time I am sad
I will think on other things
like your voice and how
you make my heart quicken, just in your use
of words, the familiar cadence a worm
reaching deep into my heart
moving toward light.
how when they like you
you think they are being their true selves
their gentle care
mana to your eroded soul
it is merely the sticky gloss of their expectations and dreams
appear attentive
short-lived when you do not
rise to unspoken expectation
once they know you are
just who you are
fantasy or the begetter of
their own glossy stage play
all the light
all the brightness
are withdrawn
and they say
no problem
but by friends they mean
I will no longer shine a light your way
there was something else
on offer
swung at ill thought promise
for they exist at
the bus stop for restless people
who only give damn when they get
paid in turn
we mean what we say
but they are
not true
to their word
intention like
blotting paper absorbing
all the little stains and feelings
and no boat can be formed
for those left drowning
in their indifferent wake
Somewhere
Forgotten over time
A place that hurt
So terribly an ache
Felt like a fresh burn
Has been badly covered over
With paving stones uneven
Moss and lichen veiling crime
If someone deserning of pain
Saw
They’d immediately recognize
A broken, disturbed surface
Jagged and ill repaired
Lake without mirror
Time, a sad blessing
Where grief is concerned
What you thought you’d never recover from
Cut like totem in marrow’s deep
Doesn’t cease to be devastating
You simply forget the intensity
In order to not fall dead
The lessening is like laying a road, or putting up wallpaper
Layers and layers
You think it’s insulation
In many ways it works
Til something unexpected
Reminds you of how you really are
Behind all those layers
In all those crocheted boxes
Stored in denials, fickle womb
That pain you thought, softened
Is as strong as the day you first felt it
Love
Does not
Just whither up
And die
It twists blade upward
Unwilling, yet deftly
Cannibalizing those morsels
You thought most delicious
Til they become tormentor
Even licking fire, preferable
Than one minute more
The scathing and seal
Of pacts
Made in silent war
Where nothing is said
Hate and love, inside out versions
Of the same, mad drum
Beating relentless
Till one falls, one stays standing
Panting in flickering light
Of damage, desult and sate
On the chapped lips of lovers
Wicked in their apportioned
Vengeance
Some have too little love
Like hunger they scrape and search
Pealing the skin from their fingers in want
Looking until emptiness becomes full
For just a glimmer of compassion
The thing marking human
Quick to turn to hate
Like a fickle madness
Or held diving breath
So alive and quickening
A carefully guarded amber flame
Proof of life
For if cold, we are surely dead
Dormant to feeling
Impervious and keening
Easy is the greased slip to nothing
Feelings a weary bead counter
Chanted prayers, wishes forging hope
Touch, warmth, caressing tangible
Not remote
We were not made to stand alone
Though if you set your mind
On climbing chalky cliff side
Be sure there is purpose
For some are made of granite
They release radium
And the unmoving possession of their heart
Is surely worse than never knowing
The hot dulcent murmur
Of poison with purpose
Apparently
men can gather bed notches and
this elevates them socially
whilst women of the same history
are sluts plain and simple
therefore
I am a whore
not because you tell me so
or for any notches or black books
but for the raspy feather in my chest
when it tickles
I gather up my fancy
and I imagine
all the rides I’ve taken
which is as far as I go today
given my propensity for not coming back
but there was a time
I let four boys into my room
not all at once or even
in the same afternoon
they were as different as
the rules for men and women
one I found ugly and angular
his penis was a sharp hungry thing
that burned the desire out of me
another was vain and glorious
a cheshire cat apt to lap his own cream
his was large and unwieldly and
whatever they say about size isn’t really true
it’s about what you can do with what you got
the third had a penchant for drugs
and redheads and he had the best music collection
and the prettiest member
but I will when I die
think on the fourth most of all
short and a little fat with a tiny prick
that boy knew the secrets to loving
and we climbed all night
on divine ladders to heaven
where I briefly told him I loved him
and he bruised my womb
with his insistence I was his alone
which sadly I never was
by then my counterfiet heart
had been scattered like confetti
I was no more able to trust
than a painted lady selling her wares
It was the cheapened version of me
I let hook herself out on a line and dangle
you do that sometimes not for attention
but the disgust you have for yourself
and all the smut that got you to that point
and all the grubby fingers that wouldn’t quit
invading your right to peace
by then I had no feelings other than
roll another one, turn the record up
come here and let me suck
that pain away
it seemed the perfect solution aside
knowing the world would brand me a slag
concubine at best
but there is it
like the condom filled trash
stinking and real
though if you get stoned enough nothing
lasts long enough to peturb
including grateful boys who give their all
and in that five minutes of bliss
you learn a thing or two about transactions
how they salve the pain you never reveal
how being abused can make you turn around
and do the very same thing
though they’d never understand why
molested girls will open their legs to strangers
it’s one of those sad dichotomies
that’s also got a gender inequality label
for don’t you know it’s not always
piss and vinegar
makes a young man rut and rut?
we’re all carriers of some brand of pain
and those damaged souls
recognize each other