Are you really under everything that I touch?
Or are you just pretending to exist in my world,
as I have done with so many others.

Layer upon layer upon layer,  it is too cold for skin
and my sunkist days pull away, while I reach and grab for a hand to hold.  

Missouri is a surprise party for someone who hates surprises.
Missouri is a cruel joke, handing you the ripe-to-the-very-second
sweetness of a strawberry summer and snatching it away at the
last second to watch you fall to your knees and beg for mercy from the
biting wind and your stinging lips, no chapstick to be found.

Layer upon layer, sweater under coat,
socks over socks under boots made of steel.

If there is one upside to this brutal chill, if there is
it would be peeling back this extra skin, this shield of
fabric, to reveal steaming pink underneath.

It would be that
cold weather
makes ***
even better.

all the razors and rough edges and
clean teeth as well as
***** socks and
shoulders all shoulders,
be they scrawny or broad, be they above or below
eye-
level.

some have ****** hair and books
some bring me hats and framed vinyl
some have early mornings and
most have late nights.

they all have futures
many have fantastic
dreams and the others have their work
instead, but most just want a place to lay down for awhile.

all sweatshirts and quiet words and the ability to
stop my mind from blistering in the warmth of them.
then in cars, screaming at other cars and anger
that I won't admit
frightens me.

the different walls and the posters
and paintings plastered
on them in an effort to
belong,

eyes that tell me not to look too far into them
for fear of growing down. for fear of
becoming a bore.

those closed eyes and sleep talk
to open minds and cheap dates and hands that are
larger than mine.

I know them to be true those
eyes those chins
those men those boys

those
hearts.

push me!
listen just

show me where it hurts
or do I have to
start
like
always?

words that gnaw our bones
aren't enough anymore and
names and slang and angst
aren't enough

show me
what it's like
when you're
naked
with a
fist

we can't dance the dance when
we haven't even gotten up
yet

It may be a man's man's man's world but
I'm glad I'm a woman, not just
a girl

in your eyes
anymore.

Every morning I wake (It's alive! It's alive!)
I wake with a sense of new. A sense of old and
a sense that I'll do something minimal today,
at least, before I return to my cave and sleep or
read until the sun has made the rounds of her everlasting day.

Through the motions, in the motions,
on this boat in this vast ocean of 'HELLO MY NAME IS'
and an abrupt goodbye to something I hold very dear.
Or held, should I say.

Well, hand in hair ( I have so very little) I will go on.
Not too proud, but not shameful that I have something
to gain yet.