A Disgusting Tryst

Many years hence or was it yesterday

I dreamed of giving fellatio which is

never a good dream

and wondered why in the dream

a woman had a penis and I was

hoping by opening my mouth I would

be loved by that woman

there are myths and signs and wonders

even in nightmares

totems to the soul

speaking to our inner darkness

I thought of my chess pieces

how strategizing was never my thing

the mother who hated and was indifferent

the brain damaged father who struck out

in endless anger

and my own yearning for more

more, more, more, more

but when you have no more and that is it

you keep returning to the same place

hoping the outcome has changed

surely the definition of madness

resides very closely in that repetition

no release, release found often

under the pulse of music and movement

dancing away the scathing hurt

or beneath someone I pretended cared

fucking away never worked

it only hurt

more

never good at sharing

gods aren’t male, they’re

created by men for stroking

and controlling like canes can

be weapons or lovers

language shifts like time in grief

now as a grown ass woman

I dream of fellatio as a lesbian

women with penises torturing with

confusing potential

I carry the fetus who didn’t make it

like a scar across my withering chest

and my hormones shout

you haven’t got long left!

Get out there and strut your stuff

before you are truly as invisible

as a ghost

my grandmother if she were living

would tell me to bow to Jesus

because The Old God of the Jews

let us down

and was too angry

and it worked for her

she chain smoked on her way

to saving souls

and chucked the fag butts

out the window

at 80mph

because she knew

her Mormon friends would never

smell the scent of tobacco on her lips

because they didn’t get that close

nor the perfume of vodka

just an essence

I learned to like too much and recognize

drunk women and distant woman

the black and the white queens

chess pieces ravaged by their tendency to torment

as a way to even the odds

cultures eaten by death

I didn’t complete the act

it disgusted me then

as it does in my sleep

step out into a full moon

my other grandmother said

her hands are holding

red books of communism

and when she puts them down

her hands remain red

because she, like the girl in Brothers Grimm

her crime cannot be rinsed

it is found in the pigment of her abetting

the shape of a key burnt into flesh

guilty, guilty, guilty!

I loved her until I knew that

more than you should ever

love anyone

wanting to tell someone how

the ache approximates a bomb

in your heart when it grows large

but the Shrink left her post

abandoned our discussion

she didn’t have the teeth for it anymore

so many people broken

her dance card was full

mine was empty

what a fool I made of myself

for the fiftieth time

lighting candles with my rage

causing shadows to catch with flame

I still burn beans because

I forget I’m cooking when I’m thinking

of all the people who have come and left

now you’re getting married

and I wish you horror

because my bitterness isn’t all used up

the potential for regret is endless

here we waltz to the music of time

made of stars, wrought of cigarettes

and dark bars

I wore black since then because

the shape of knives can be hidden

better in velvet and if you try

to sink it in

I will have the last laugh

one more card to play

violence

dress yourself carefully

pay attention

just so, just so

here we go

The Wolf

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.

On the chapped lips of lovers

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

Fantasy girl

She

has a fantasy girl

her fantasy girl

who is not hers at all

doesn’t know she exists

because existence is

overrated

like a star struck teen

or perhaps not at all like that

more a wreckage that has refused

to completely destroy

that last ember that says

please have some hope

things can be different

she climbs outside of the

mistrust and inability to believe

all the lies people have told her

in such a short life OH how many there were

she puts aside this giant reality

which of course in the real world she never could

because it’s proven itself too many times

to be the most real thing she knows

in this fantasy land

she trusts and believes words people tell

which of course would be suicide

if she wasn’t making it up

but here she is untouched

by the horror of trusting a promise

having it burn through your skin

into your oily marrow

as a lie

here, she controls the fluted outcome

and it is golden

…

her fantasy girl

you may not look at twice

walking down the street

she isn’t the beauty some of those

she shared a bed with were

she doesn’t have the tawny hair of girl 2

or the azure eyes of girl 5

or the coltish legs of girl 3

she doesn’t even possess

a particularly pleasing shape

or long neck or soft bottom lip

but she is incapable of deception

won’t lie even under pressure

isn’t going to tell you what you want to hear

or feel pressured to appease your query

she will

take you in her arms

and honestly give a damn

if she had scars

missing hair

ingrowing toe nails

threadbare clothes

faded underwear with stretched out elastic

and an unflattering sag

she’d be the best girl she ever let inside

where once there was only bleach and scouring brushes

from cleaning out heartache

now, she can open

the latched window to the garden

smell the chasing breeze of fresh air

knowing she’s not going to be burned in some

unguarded moment

like you feel when

you put everything into a bag

give it to someone and say

here, here I am, TAKE ALL OF ME

but be gentle, I am breakable

the person nods and promises eagerly

because they have yet to

try you out

but once they do and it becomes

an old thing, a worn thing, something

already accomplished

you are the yellowed paper

of yesterday’s fish and chips

tossed into a cold fast running river

sinking … sinking … sinking

she will take anything

even a sharp knife or a thick rope

or two fistfuls of pills and a warm oven

over that kind of destruction

where you feel scouged and robbed

of any ability whatsoever to

believe a single WORD

about love and forever and promises

they are the sticky gooey false

stomach sickening lies

that close your wind pipe

keep you vomiting over a dirty toilet seat

in your pretty dress you stupidly bought

thinking it would be such a lovely day

…

no let’s not return to that place again

even if it means giving up on

all of it

living instead

in the barrel of a gun

when you fire

you turn to

silver