Why yes sir
Of course I can assist you.
It's my job, after all.
Oh, you need to be measured for your suit?
Well if you insist.
I seem to have lost my tape measurer
I suppose I'll have to use my hands
For your inseam.
Your thighs are so thick and strong...
Oh, you're a 34.

Flip. Fold. Straighten.
Flip. Fold. Straighten.
Flip. Fold. Straighten.

The same
Ugly embroidered cotton shirts.
The same colors
Fabrics
Stiff stain-proof pants.

Eight hours
Of flipping
Folding
Straightening.

This is my life now.

I'm going on a diet
Of three poems a day.
My water will be ink
Black, blue and gray.

I'll get nourishment from stanzas
Calories from rhyme.
No more food shall I eat
Not at anytime.

I'm going on a diet.
I'll lose a thousand pounds.
But it's unfortunate that enchiladas
Are now out of bounds.

----------------------------------------------
He was older.
He paid attention to me.
Years of being alone
With no sense of self-worth
He noticed.
I knew he was short
And chubby
And had a strange face
But he noticed.
I knew it was strange that
He was interested in one so much younger
But I craved someone to care for me.
A reprimand from my mother
My brother
A teacher
And it was over.
Then months past
I needed it again.
I was slipping
Again
Into somewhere I didn't want to be.
A secret rendevous
With his mother asleep in the next room.
A lost shirt
A gained shirt.
Months past
It was over again.
----------------------------------------------------------­--------
A year passes
The boy I had a past with
[Secret hand-holding in a football field
Stolen glances
Nothing serious]
Shows renewed interest
In the dark of night
In the backseat of a car.
The first time
I noticed an *******
Against my backside.
The first time
I saw one
In real life.
Months past
I never cared for him
But he told me he loved me.
I told him I didn't.
Eventually I couldn't hurt him anymore.
I wasn't getting anything from it anyway.
Just experience.
-----------------------------------------------------­---
Now I have him.
He is mine and I am his.
But really, I am mine.
I'm too independent for him
But we share our awkwardness.
Three years have almost past
Many more will, too.
From him
I have gained a family
A patience
A sense of self-worth
And love for others.
He is the end of it, I guess.
I had to get through the others first
(And I honestly wouldn't mind going through more)
But with relationships, you grow.
--------------------------------------------------------

I don't think I slept last night.
Listened to country
Hoping it would lull me to  sleep
Until two.
Took a pill at three.
Laid there

waiting

waiting

waiting

For hours.
I may have slept at some point.
Four or five in the morning?
All I know
Is when my alarm rang at ten a.m.
I was half awake already.

How can you tell if you've been unconscious?

Tyra Banks was the first person
I touched myself to the thought of.
I didn't know what genitalia was
But her *******
seemed
so
inviting.

It's amazing what you don't remember.
I don't remember
What his ***** tasted like.
I have an impression in my mind
That his groin smelled bad.
I remember how it started.
I remember that it would never have happened
If it weren't dark
And I hadn't been so lonely
And my self esteem hadn't been so low
And I hadn't already given up.
If he had been facing me
When he tried
It wouldn't have happened.
I'd I had seen his greasy face
It wouldn't have happened.
I don't regret it.
I never cared about him
But it was just another
Part of the past.
What's the point of regrets?

I think he knows.
But there's so much
Of those months
[or was it weeks?]
That I have no memory of.
Most of what I recall
Involves a stained skirt
A little truck
And him parading around like a proud ****
With his naked ******* in the light.

It's not entirely positive.