Children of temptation & sticky fingers

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Relinquish

your proud ways

it behoves no one

to hang tall on faded principle

when last we considered ourselves

it was before life swallowed us whole

too busy for contemplation

we walked off cliffs and wondered

why our broken legs didn’t work

you are not a puppet

but you have grown docile in your strings

when splintered people stuff their suffering

in nameless boxes and march to the kink

we don’t ask why

are we here, what should we do? why do we feel

as we are feeling, what ache inside us?

how do we find, authenticity?

when everything surrounding us

propels toward docile determination

we forget we were once

children of temptation and sticky fingers

unable to resist

opening jam jars, letting flies

coat themselves in satiate bliss

touching with reddened fingers

clean walls in pleasure

where did our curiosity

our hunger

go?

did we really become

stalagmites on sugar

and forget to

make forts in trees

and dams in streams

to catch the next shoal

of silver fish?

Blister

I will not be your blood blister

I will not be so abused I learn to like it and take it with a mouthful of sack cloth

I will not be your punching bag. Held by Devil for you to take your life’s frustrations out upon.

I am injured and talented at self-loathing but there is still fight left. The fight tells me not to submit to become, that smear of inconsequence you so desperately want.

Light is fading and we walk along rivers edge. You tell me to jump in, hand me the locks and chains, swallow the filagree key and cross your arms.

The river is swollen like an angry mother calling her children home. Trees weep into its corners like penitents and the sky drizzles its damp message through closed mouthed cloud cover.

I have lived 32 years and each one seems too long. The locks that separate parts of the river from each other, are black and painted with some type of waterproofing, I wish for a moment I had been waterproofed, painted shut and able to exist beneath, without air.

The dead watch with empty eye sockets from the other side of the river. They stand in unison, quiet and obedient to their demise. A flickering memory of times when they existed and tried to reach out, never quiet enough.

I am a child being baptized without a crowd.

A whore who has swallowed the semen of the river too many times and risen to the surface despite her tambourine sin.

I am someone’s daughter though they have long forgotten the birth and gone about their life. Wounds that do not exist cannot be licked, or didn’t you know?

I am the cross of a woman who alternately hates me, especially on Monday’s, when in her wrath she pitches me from her sight and turns to the wailing wall, the mumble of her faith, her ever succor.

I am your bit on the side. Eaten crumb by crumb, morsel after taste, tasty between mouthfuls. Always spat out.

I am untouched and lying in long grass in late summer and nobody walks past and nobody kneels down and performs the benediction over my sleeping form, and nobody takes their religion seriously, instead raping me there between the sun and the moon.

I am your mother. You hand me the green dress I wore on the night he beat me blue, and I watch my nipples pop through the thin fabric like expression marks, my long neck ringed in roses of hurt. He says he loves me, he says he wants me, he knows only how to harm. And when we fall, together, I hold you in, I stop breathing, thinking if I can press every muscle against you I will protect you from coming out, a long bloody trail across his perfect white tiles and his parents never knew, for crime is the easiest thing to hide.

I am a patient. My bed is starched and folded. I am broken and belittled. My tongue blistered from licking my own wounds. They said I wouldn’t make it. I hoped they were right. You stood at the doorway and clicked your fingers and something in me knew it wasn’t yet done.

I give birth. The child is still born on wasted sheets that must be burned. In the olden days they buried quiet dead beneath oak trees and they nourished the next generation. I breast feed the silence in my head and they all close in like crows, to shut my screaming mouth.

We lie in each other’s arms and you say; “I’m not like the rest” and I never believe that because I can’t believe anything anymore, but the sound you make when you say it and when I am inside you, stays like a long song in my fevered mind.

We visit the grave site and wild flowers bloom over where your bones lie. I push my hand into the fecund earth and think for a moment, you are there, reaching out.

The edge of love can be a broken glass in your jugular. The sin can be a salvation. We are riding buses to the end of the world and you only know how to paint because you have no time for effort.

How are you today? I am finding ways to end my life. I am counting pills in little bottles. I am watching stretch marks fade from pink to silver, each one a cry from you that was never sounded, across glassy water.

Dennis Hopper has a large gun, Keanu uses his hips, Ione only knows plaid and frigging. Lying beneath a wool blanket watching blow up dolls drown, they use their youth like elixir and it’s easy to believe then, it’s easy to wait and apply Chapstick when your lips feel numb.

I’m by the rivers edge and you are with someone else. I knew it ten years ago, I know it now. Instead of a knife I have a candle. It burns its hot wax on my useless fingers and they curl like paper boats when they hit water.

We start the car, the purr like a cat I once had, cleaning her kittens. I feel your hand pull up my skirt, it’s never smooth now, it’s always wrinkled and my hands look like shrieks against my numb skin. Nobody buys cigarettes from tobacconists anymore. We import our vice by the truck full.

I want someone to claim me, to reach in and save me, to eat me alive and spit me back into myself. I want you to fuck me with love and hope. But ghosts can’t smoke and they can’t perform cunnilingus and I am getting older now.

Too old to be your blood blister. We need to burst it and let it bleed, until I see, a way out.

Of my chains and my need

I am all those things your father warned you about

Possessive, I wrap around, not wishing to share, an inch

You are mine, I take you out, I stroke you, I put you back inside

If you feel comfortable dividing until we are absent

Then I fly

Out of the window

And away

 

I have never been able to share when I feel this much

Let others have a portion of

My heart is closed most of the time

Blocked from easy loving

Yet

You came and battered down the door

Tore open my secrets, marching into my throne

Here I lie hidden from everything

You observed and loved me despite

My flayed imperfection and demanding nature

Imploring the kind of devotion few can summon

 

Now if you take those ebony eyes

Giving them to everyone else

I may not be able to swallow that kind of pill

Because I was brought up with bitterness and ash

What’s mine is mine

Or I let go and walk

Straight out over cliffs edge

 

It’s not your fault

I’m a one-person lover

I can’t even divide cards

If I see you out in a party

Hoisted over others shoulders in social

Milieu

Don’t take it personally

When you come home

I won’t be there

 

If I were born to give abundantly

Then somehow that was lost

In translation I found

I could only give to one

The rest had to stay outside

Whilst I built my fire and kept

You warm

hoping you would never wish to

Be free

Of me

Of my chains and my

Need

Statues in the dark

Where do depressed people go

When the entire world suddenly feels as they do?

Back to their room, where one voice says – take them up on their offer

make a phone call

but the other voice knows they will not because

when you feel that down the last thing you can do is talk.

Where do depressed people go

when the entire world suddenly feels as they do?

Outside to empty streets / not reminded of what they fail to achieve

the silence, a balm on fevered emotion

for everyone judges what they cannot see

as others watch Pandemic movies behind closed curtains

the sad roam in search of meaning.

Where do depressed people go

when the entire world suddenly feels as they do?

they’re told it’s a disease as much as a broken arm yet

judgement is always a cudgel just one step away

even lovers rebuke and ask; Why can’t you get out of your head?

Do something helpful for a change, instead of navel gazing?

or worse, say nothing, ignore, over it, worn out

few can handle a season with dysmorphia.

Where do depressed people go

when the entire world suddenly feels they do?

For a quarantined period, it can even feel like fun

nothing of the permanency, nothing of that locked in sensation

pervading senses, shutting down, until all the dreams you had

are dust and ash on floor, you can’t even get out of bed, to brush your hair

or walk the dog, this inertia isn’t laziness, it’s a switching off

of life’s impulse and so the bulb dims eternal.

Where do depressed people go

When the entire world suddenly feels as they do?

This is how it feels every day, you struggle to find a reason, to steady yourself

into faking it, and surely, the falsehood runs its course and you’re back

with naught and nothing comes from nothing we’ve been all taught

self loathing reflects back in the unwashed mirror, a hateful creature

your worst enemy is between your ears, you hear only

the rebuke and chastising of that part of you wishing to be free

break out, break out, crawl, stagger, run get away

from yourself you cannot.

Where do depressed people go

When the entire world suddenly feels as they do?

trapped in a brain that doesn’t sit up and beg when ordered

motivation a distant memory, as much as you want there are

no magic pills or electric impulses powerful enough

to restart what has lain dormant and half alive

we are quarantined by our own demons they

made prisoners of us long before Covid 19

even those who love us, wish we were different

self hate is a woman without rocks in her pocket

yet

she walks to the edge many times each day

her reflection cries even as she no longer does

for tears are wasted after a certain time

fixed in place by broken ways forward

she seeks to drown the madness with one jump

and they sit on their sofas talking about how it will be called

the great epidemic, where we all stayed in place

not realizing for some of us this is

our hell already created and nothing new

we have been here before, we shall again

it is the wordless, grieving place of those

locked down by their minds in situ

watching the world build around them

statues in the dark

to a pandemic long pre-existing

where screams are never heard.

The fight beneath

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.

 

An imprint of harm

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glassy echo, reflecting

repulsion

There, at the turning of your lips

Words you want to say, willing still

Anger swirling behind dark eyes

They walk calmly

Anything but

Appearance is a veil

I saw you once

Unguarded

Without your battlement

The disguise lay strewn

With other stolen objects

Mere indents in a soft bed

Your madness at the surface

Like a Hydra you panted

For release and weapons

None heard this request

All of you is secreted within layers

No one can unravel

You divide and multiply in your apparent cruelty

There is a token of delight

A brand for some and your bequeathing

Some are not set on this Earth for kindness

They live by the stain left in their wake

An imprint of harm

Slow the leash trains unwilling

Gradual uncovering, sin takes her high chair

In the pit of things you writhe nude and tarnished

We make our own hell with toys of old

Those picture books of loss and shame, shackles for the weary

I could pick you now,

a yellow rose,

your nectar just on the verge.

Ransom

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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.

The Wolf

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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.

In my duration

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The man about eighty is unusually jaunty

His wife tries to disguise her pot belly

Glancing at others, thinking loud obvious thoughts

He wears a lapel and gold buttons adorn his cuffs

Head shining beneath unforgivable artificial light

Her forehead is stretched and keening years unspoken

But they are each other’s people

Greeting guests from out of town with the ease of familiarity

Strange birds and ordinary, they each hold up

A piece of their time

As we all do

And it scares me

To see in you, another era

Feel that invariable distancing

As you age faster and I stay

Conning the world I’m still a kid

Something easy to do with a neat figure and shiny hair

You can last in the artifice, make it your own

freckled fancy

Then comes a time

As I have seen in you

veins arching on the back of your trembling hand

When the game is harder

And you become at last

The age of you

Seeing the distance between

Then and now like a well deserved yawn

Dividing and multiplying

I have not the body of a mother

For I was never a mother

I have not the stories of ruling

For I never sought to rule

The spilled ink on my hands

Is the same shade as when

I did handstands on sweaty gym mats

In this time, I haven’t changed enough

While you are edging closer

To that moment when even

Adults as perpetual children

Must relinquish their tenuous claim

I see it stitched plain on your face

As if written with broad stroke

Both shocking and expected

We have so much in common

The years spent tightly woven together

But now you race ahead —

And I am still

Waiting my turn, curling my hair in

My pinkie finger

Caught between young mother’s
Whom I can never be

With my reducing, fluttering hormones

And women freed of children

Launching once again

Their second coup

Whilst I am tiring of freedom

I have stood with you both

Whilst being neither one

And the mask of me is not of my choosing

But a trick of light

Or memory

Betrayed rarely

As I thrive

In my duration

Not yet where you are

Not yet where you are

Salem

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We are not made in the image of our keeper

but divested of iron roots

fly liberated into soaken cloud

joining specter who, watching

sees our folly

silly human toil

petty argument, for the sake of greed

 

What the corn, what the seed?

Shall save us from subversion

by our bashless vanity

this possessed nail

dispossessed pleats

betwitched vein

Salem itches without choice

if bewitched, innocent

if possessed, invited inchantment

strange sexual undertow in all

 

Maypole season fitting in grass

grasping poker of control

children accuse stiffling, starched adults

who pinched their playtime to pieces

power wielded in fragmentary follow

no power! I have no power!

I’m a child!

 

So dunk, dunk, burn, hang, get it?

Get it? We’re the Tarot

the pigs fat marrow taking over carnival

with pantomime sriek

you witness, see us, take seriously

our untethered play

 

I spin

Witch, wizard, gargoyle, goblin, phantom, spectral

girl in bondage, corset of metal

what lurks beneath this town’s sheets?

white and starched

so violent, so lush

like saved up passions, positions

monsters lusting after our darkest parts