We both love things like creeping ivy
we swallow it all whole

I once broke your jaw in my sleep
because I dreamt it would make you soft-spoken

and I feel like a bull barreling down a thin hallway
and you are sleek black paint jobs

and I am just your unexpected ****** nose
spilling out onto the pavement and
dripping on your pressed button up shirt

I am this acid on your tongue slowly melting
and you wish I’d do it quicker
because I leave a bad taste in your mouth

and im sorry for that

I never meant to step on your toes with my
heavy boots
and this 35 pound heart

and this skin that seems to grow and fade from view
because I am in the midst of becoming invisible

and just last Thursday I walked through my first wall

But I guess you would know a thing or two about that

because I haven't seen you in over two months
so would you tell me where you disappeared to?

I was born in blood
and I have a tendency to like the darker things in life

I ate my twin in the womb
and I broke free into life with that victory

and ever since I have felt like a caged animal
all gleaming teeth
all bite
all bone

I am partial to the boys who have a side sweeping gaze that seems to say
“I could shoot you if I really cared enough to”
because there’s a little bit of danger in us all
and sometimes I just like the obvious

my heart isn’t on my sleeve
my heart is a long black drip
a charred line

my heart is an empty fireplace waiting to incinerate
whoever thinks the flames won’t really burn

I was born in high relief
and have spent my life keeping others from whittling me down

I am not a sculpture
I am not yours to mold

and here’s this boy putting the barrel of his loaded gun in my mouth

and here’s me saying take a walk on the wild side
wondering if my eyes can convey how badly I want him to

pull the trigger

Suffocation
The walls of culture are closing in
Ready to stifle the flame of imagination
They can't control it so it scares them
In that flicker is the possibility for a bonfire
That could burn down their fragile empire
It could illuminate the darkness
they have tried so hard to create
By surrounding us with the weight
Of daily monotony
They've instilled in us
A desire to fit into the social norm
A fear of any tangible form
Of creativity
They have made it foreign to us
To question
The boundaries formed to bind us
This is my rebellion

Let us go now into the forest.
Trees will pass by your face,
and I will stop and offer you to them,
but they cannot bend down.
The night watches over its creatures,
except for the pine trees that never change:
the old wounded springs that spring
blessed gum, eternal afternoons.
If they could, the trees would lift you
and carry you from valley to valley,
and you would pass from arm to arm,
a child running
from father to father.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my *******,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

At 14 I was sent to the hospital twice because
I was hallucinating which is a fancy way of saying
hey, you’re batshit crazy so we’re going to pump you full of medication

Turns out all of the walls I had been seeing crashing down
and the fires that were never there
were always just a side effect of my depression medication
because I was on too high of a dose for my weight

And I told my ex-boyfriend this when I was 16
and now, 8 months later he is telling everyone I am schizophrenic

like baby there’s a lot of things I am but that’s not one of them

Like there’s a lot of things you are
but a good person was never something I would use to describe you

you're more of a waste of space
and I really wish you had never left Chicago

I wish I never even met you

I wish I hadn’t been so desperate for the way you moved
your thin body like a train down the rails

I wish I had never agreed to play with your hair in class
or sat in your lap with your arms around me tight

or caught sight of you in my eyes
like a glare through a window there was nothing else

My mother used to believe in things like
fairies and
angels and
good spirits and
me

and she uses every available context to remind me of just that

and the whole world is making a huge deal about how
Pope Francis dropped the “F-bomb”
like it least it wasn’t an A-bomb
dropped in a country we can’t pronounce

or maybe even our own
because who would alert the media then
if we were all dead

I’m feeling a bit cynical tonight
and maybe it’s the result of reading too much
Poe and Shakespeare for homework

and if I’m honest I’ve really never felt much in the way of
inspiration from either of them
after being forced down my throat since the third grade

and we had a small play once
and ever since then I’ve thought of you as Romeo
and I’ve always felt a bit more connected to Edgar’s “Annabel Lee”
in that ****** sepulcher by the ever moving and sounding sea

I just wish I had someone pining over me

I was born again the first day I ever laid eyes on you
Right there in the doorway

You in your little blue dress and white diamond smile
and me a little sad and scared and looking for something in your curves

I had been warned about you
I had been told you were
a snake
a plastic *****
a lunatic
a ****
and you were all of those things

but I worshipped you
as did everyone else
we kissed your golden feet

I listened to you like Eve in the garden of Eden
and I took a bite of that apple
and nothing has ever been the same since

for that short time I think I found a little bit of heaven in hell
and it was always bliss in your arms

and how you scraped your lips against my teeth in the dead of night

and dear lord who art in heaven hallow be thy name
I have prayed for you

I have prayed and I have called out your name

I met you on your eighteenth birthday
and they say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree
and you are my roots reaching down into the green earth

you are the queen of all queens
you are made of divine intervention
you made me bleed