©Ashley Lily Scarlett 2016
Monthly Archives: May 2016
Ratted.
The sight was hazed, the stature awry,
When whistling chaperoned the blindness.
Our bones would knock as sea-sick rocks,
As we tripped the dance of the inebriated.
Sometimes! I make! …THIS!
Collage made with the sweet-tempered sorcery of Microsoft Word. Wtf?
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Paper Doll
I am sitting in four inches of cold, grey water and I don’t know what day it is.
It hurts when I move and it hurts when I don’t, and I wish that the tub was full.
I want to hear the overflow slapping the tiled wall
and sloshing over the edges and onto the floor,
but I only hear the sound of police sirens and the sound of the overground train
and, somewhere far away, the sound of rain hitting your face.
It’s hard to believe but my skin looks even more fragile underwater
than it does under the unwelcome gaze of the sun.
Oh, I am still a paper doll. I just don’t belong to anyone anymore.
Paper doll, paper doll, in my little paper home.
The lamination you gave me has worn away in your absence.
The bathwater reaches my core and I wonder how long it will be before
I fall apart or disappear completely down the plughole,
pieces of my insane paper brain diving directly down the drain.
I have proof that I was once your pretty little paper doll,
for I am damaged now, far more damaged than I was before I was yours.
My broken body boasts the most impressive spectrum of bruises,
on top of bruises, on top of older bruises,
from merlot to crocodile to dandelion, all over.
And all of the dirt and the hurt has charred my heart an impossible shade of black –
you know everything turns black when it burns,
and you fully fucking set me on fire
when I had my back turned,
when I wasn’t even looking:
it is a strange thing,
smelling your own demise while it’s busy cooking.
And, you see these? These scars on my body are just careless creases
that were made when you used to fold me up and put me in the pocket
of your favourite jeans or a compartment of your wallet.
You didn’t think about the creases, did you?
About how battered I would become, living on the inside of your jacket,
scrunched up with all your other pretty little receipts,
living among the dirty copper pennies,
getting stabbed by your keys.
No, you didn’t think about your paper doll.
You didn’t think of much at all.
nina’s not a virgin
art by emma vakarelova
They made love with the air conditioning turned off even when it hit 40 degrees celsius, the warmest summer on record. The smell of their sex hung in the air with the humidity.
Juan lay on his stomach, his face buried in Nina’s shoulder, who was on her back staring at the ceiling. Even after a week, she had been unable to orgasm. Juan was diligent but Nina grew frustrated with the desire that built up inside her. It made her think of how they used to race uphill to the waterfall, how the climb made her heart pound so hard it drowned out the birds. They didn’t slow down as they reached the rock face from which they leapt. They flew into the wind, and the blue of water and sky bled into each other. But there was never any anxiety. Gravity would not let them down.
Nina was sure an orgasm would feel like this. She wondered if there was something wrong with her. After seven days, her feet still clung stubbornly to earth.
OFTEN
Often is
An ointment resolving circular
Cat with broken paw, dragging
Crepe paper, staining glass crush
Heavy fruit weighing tree, drawing off water, leaning in to thirst
Throat so dry, skin blanches in hurt
I wanted you to know
My emptiness
When
Ceasing
Your presence taken away
And day
Is just another day
Iodine and cotton balls, scuffed knees, children building sand effigies, adults smoking behind benches in quick, hurried puff, in case they
Look
If i reach over
Our curls of sheets and unfunded entreaty
Who listens to
Humans without parents or tooth fairies kissed better when they
Fall?
If I spill boiling water, how deep will it burn? How long the pain?
Often is
My slippers tread on cold time
Warning your hands slack against book
Leading through stories
You let go
To dream
Of when safety, held you in her tree tips
mighty against the world
We paint ourselves into fable
Releasing yoke of skin for pelts of
Ether, glimmering as dew in foliage finds us reborn among briar
Often
Mouths on each other, finding solace in red embrace, our embroidered fate, turns on thimble, a drowsy thing, indolent with whispers, we who inherit fire, remove our fingers from the sun and draw down night in azure, so if trembling against a sudden chill, you run for warmth, climbing inside my welcome as birth in retreat, our shape is a reflecting pool, mirroring moon’s mounting slough across space in urging sleep
Unchanged Razors
Michaelangelo’s masterpiece pales
in comparison to
my friend washing
dishes
at 3am in the morning,
drunk
on anticipation –
He’s got a date
tomorrow.
He wouldn’t even get out
of bed
otherwise.
“He’s gorgeous
and smart
and funny
and kind
and likes dogs over cats,”
He rambles past my
plea for silence.
“But, goddamn,
he is one ig’nant
sonofabitch.”
My friend is black
and gay –
I’m just glad he skipped
his own Tevilah*.
I worry for him.
But after his rant,
without missing a beat,
he bathes
and shaves his balls
and then (using the same blade)
shapes
his goddamn eyebrows.
He makes me
wish
That I were gay.
Or black.
I’d be able to
help him
then.
Or at the very least,
understand how hard
it is
to shave
big black balls.
—-
(* = Tevilah, a Jewish baptism/conversion ceremony).
Delight
He bites her neck.
She bites his lower lip.
He kisses the end of her nose.
She kisses the tip of his chin.
He kisses her right shoulder.
She kisses his left knee.
He kisses her fingertips.
She kisses the palm of his hand.
He kisses her left buttock.
She kisses his left thigh.
He kisses both her eyes.
She kisses both his nipples.
He kisses under her arms.
She kisses behind his ears.
He kisses her hair.
She kisses his toes.
He kisses her elbow.
She kisses the crook of his arm.
He kisses her mouth.
She kisses his mouth.
They shut their eyes.
Image © Ashley Lily Scarlett 2012
Text © Ashley Lily Scarlett 1995
Soon
I only despise the poor
Because I know one day
I’ll have to sit with them
And listen to them tell
The same stories
To justify their poverty
And I’ll be helpless against
The boorish unfortunates
Because I’ll have nothing to say
Since poverty has nothing to do
With positive thinking and hard work
But instead comes about
Like gooseflesh
Under the winter moons
Of a forgotten sky
hijacked amygdala 