Photograph an evening sunset
of a lake, wide and long,

one thousand times more
blue than the morning star,

and vulnerable, like a late
October Rose of Sharon

blossom, minutes before
fall’s first killing frost;

hold the picture close, as
it is your life, our lives.

i am the shattered glass, cold on the ***** floor
swept and disposed of because i can't be used anymore.
my pieces are scattered, ruined and cracked, unable to be fixed, unable to revert to intact.
i am a tainted shard, scratching and severing all that i touch
with jagged edges, i seem to pierce and graze the ones that i love.
pieces of me have dispersed left and right, pieces of me that i cannot retrieve nor can i rectify.
and after you swept me off of the cold, ***** floor
you simply selected another glass, so you could break it once more.

Some are lissome, jowly,
blossomed or pocked,  teeth

of old horses—eyes white as flour,
a few clubfoot with sisters

pregnant as October gourds.  Not
Norman Rockwell’s Americans,

but they are us and live in lopsided
bungalows with leaky roofs,

heaved sidewalks, bare
refrigerators.

Throwing daggers at the mirror
Hoping one might motivate me
Disgusted, hoping to be just a little more...
Just a little more...
Maybe then...
If I just...
I. Can't.

Nothing is going to satisfy self hatred
It takes and takes and is always wanting more
Funny thing that after a while we are left feeling like nothing
Not enough
Never enough
We believe it too

Eyes glued to our idea of what's "wrong" with ourselves
But what's really wrong is our eyes
Blinded by the lies of society

I cup a Pall Mall, it is 10:30 p.m.,
December & Montana
frigid.

The store’s back window is unlocked,
I take white bread, ham
& mustard.

Hunker curbside, make sandwiches
& eat, I am less

hungry, cold
& 14-years
old.

I was never the type
of child that obeyed
much  of anything;
not even the many
times  I was told
not to stare into
the evening sun
when I felt
alone.