Feral

Girl with ire, for you are woman, though you are still

a girl

dark skinned girl, like a fruit grown in midnight

richer somehow, distinct in a world of lost focus

something in movement deliniates this, hones in

brands you ageless in ways

only few achieve

it is your saving grace and why

my jaw hurts from grinding

all the passion I have to pieces of

confetti, ready for your marriage to

status of unattainable.

I had a rule once, don’t fall for girls

who cut their fractured eyes at the world

ruled with upturned, defiant chins

don’t succumb to the delights others see

in that girl who brightens the room with her

brown-eyed glare and gnashing smile

she is merciless, she is cruel at times, cutting

in that barbed way of the magnificient, used to

her fawning subjugates

she is unaware of you and the depths you swim

for she exists only in the light, that hot wattage

her skin, her movement, set on high to drive you

to distraction, as you watch her skirt hike

just slightly above her knees as she talks with her hands, unknowing her own unfurling

not to want anything, not you, not solace

where radiant and hot she stands, fuming

diety, showered, sharp teeth licking

what it feels like to carry that long tongued weight of desire

with adulation and never

all those shuttered years with trembling

closed lips

for some secrets cannot be revealed

save they render you victim to the

longing you want to bear, a willing nudist who buried her unspent confessions, aching for release

she is everything you are not

and yet in a hesitant moment you can pretend

you have the right dial and tune in to her song

that will lull her back from her gleeming audience

claim her yours

surely, surely, in all the years spent thinking of her

you found some way to make her your own?

Some method, spell, isn’t there a means to every wish?

Wordless, you know there is not

the unattainable sit just out of reach

lingering in their fancy of being regarded

untouchable.

And she? She is one of those fine

creatures you read of in novels, who make men

mad and women? Women are not mentioned for

our ardor is pressed flat along with the flowers from

the marsh we collect, I would if I could, string them

outside your house until the perfume woke you

from a dream about me, and you ran, barefooted along rail tracks like urchin dancer,

into my waiting arms, and as I think this, I know

you will no more run to me, than I could hypnotize

a snake not to bite, a feral cat not to scratch, a

pain not to hurt and cripple the daydream.

I don’t have mastery over you, nobody does,

you chew on rules for breakfast with black hot coffee and make

scolding and conquest a daily thing, in the brilliance of your

caramel-centered bedroom eyes, I see only an acknowledging

of control. whilst I, think of ways I might

stand out, be different, have something going for me

that could mark me worthy

it is of course, an impossible thing, a poison dart captured in my throat, quietly

hybernating or dying in drips and drabs

as you will never lay in my arms, molded to my shape and I will

not know your taste or how your lips part

with the first of many sighs, I cannot even

imagine touching your hand or pressing myself, small and hungering

close to you and knowing of what you smell, there in the stymen of your flushing bloom

the myriad ways you breathe in and out, the chorus of your existing, I

stand far, even when near, too far for comfort, perpetuate rain, disguising distress, I told myself as a young woman, do not

fall for the Siren’s call, she is merciless, she will

cut you without meaning, your futile search

for the key to her blistering heart

no closer

could last a life time and you’d stand, unpacking your fools errand, as a beautiful gown will

invariably spoil in predicted monsoon

she is ferocious and untame

the elongation of her beauty

a thing you must only weep over

when alone and inconsolate you imagine

a life time of wanting

what you can never, ever

capture.

Advertisement

Heed

I resent

No, I am angry

It is my regret that

You steal my thoughts

every day

even as you do not really

exist

damn

you.

Is it my wield to wake and smell the coming

of Autumn, her combed wild intruding on Summer’s

last heady retreat

and with her, all the memories of us

tumbling like leaves of every color.

You are a shade of me I cannot forget, nor

am I able to extricate your taste from my soul

as if you were the darkest liquor and I, the thirsting

sinner.

We do not know one another, yet in this russet world

where people step out with reddened cheeks and think of

night as a place to venture deep and become lost in

the reflecting faces of glasses brought together

I recognize in you, someone I need.

It is foolish then, that you will never know this,

as time reveals a betrayal, thick in coming like smoke

from a burned pyre

I see you there, in the crowd of onlookers, your

shoulders thin in a cardigan, eyes dark against

flames, a smile on your face as if

without my saying you knew

it was my heart that burned with longing

and your hands

putting out the fire

with the coldness

of disregard.

You steal my thoughts every day

as if, possessed of confidence that all should

fall at your knees, you hold the world and its

caprices in your little flowering hand

sometimes I want to ask; How did you become

so fat on yourself? Who gave you that belief

you were worthy? And bitterness might add;

I am better than this, better than you,

not someone used to, or wanting to remain

subject. Inhaling your sugar pill …

Instead I say nothing and spells

boil off like alcohol leaving nothing but

clear water, I plunge into and try to

forget the nagging impulse to find ways of altering

your hooded intractability.

I live in the crossword puzzle of your

eyes, the bewitchment of your fruiting mouth

as you open your lips and speak, drowned

out by time and distance

I think nevertheless

I hear.

You steal my thoughts

every day

I once wore self-belief like a rosary

around my wrists and counted every

subject. You took on the role as if

those clothes had been yours all

along and I had been carved from

the wood of your ancestors tree

some type of mango tree or

something as bright and hungering

as your skin when sunlight bathes

your full cheeks and I forget how

to swallow. Our fates are written

in secret alcoves we may never find

the chapter, until it is upon us and

falling in line, we play out our part

in this incantation you master me

because you feel nothing and no

words I possess will fill that

empty place and fetch from it

an urge to dive with me

into the wet of my angry tears

perhaps this is karma

it could however,

be just, a passing cruelty

like so many other things

forgotten by those, who do not stop

long enough, to

pay heed.

She told me, don’t worry about it

We’re sitting talking about how we know

You’re making me laugh at jokes, about Hannibal

How I only like Gillian, because she’s a bit like you

And I can’t tell anyone, including you

You reminded me how I knew, I was still alive

In the video of you dancing, uncaring and wild

That’s how I’m reminded why

I know beauty

How women

Are the possessors of

All that is beautiful

With your downcast eyes, the color of absinthe

Hair falling in your pale face, cut cheekbones and grace

The switch of your merciless, marching intelligence

The sorrow, the humor, the passion lines

How you make me laugh hysterically and blush

Pouting, pulling on your cigarette, getting me aroused and nervous

Without trying, you command all attention

Your wit is sharper than a sword

When you didn’t talk to me

It was like a blonde flower, turning her lights out

The night was darker

Still I heard

That song you made immortal

The sway of your slim hips and secret smile

And I’m speaking to you in a language, I outlawed

Because he dirtied it for me, forever

But you sound so lovely talking in the fog

I know I have to stand at a distance, or I’d reach out

Grab the concentration from your lovely brow

But to be in your blazing aura

The tiny, angry, intelligent, firey soul

You inhabit like no other

You were the girl who woke me up

I’d give anything to dance with you

To that exact song, in those same clothes

Your then blonde hair, a chaotic wisp

The crunched concentration on your francophone face

There’s classic and there’s disheveled-perfect and you’re both

I’d take your hand and say

Don’t worry, I know the rules

But for fucks sake we’ve both been here long enough

born the same year

You got the small chest I always wanted

And you said you liked my eyes

Same color green as yours

Not narcissism

But sisters

Lovers of

Pain and hard living

We only trust those like us

Who smoked and drank and have to show on our tired faces, the weariness of living

Where boundaries are never crossed

But fantasy is free and inked

And you like being adored

I am good at loving

Sad, happy, gorgeous girls, with crooked smiles

Who hold my attention with their spark

Catching in the darkness like a skinned rock, thrown out to sea

On Brighton beach

Where we’ll always be young and beautiful

Me chasing you in the cold sea

You disappearing into green waves

Thorns & roses

Hunger

Today I couldn’t eat

and the malnourished body in the mirror said

it’s okay I’m better, fill yourself another way

opening my mouth

I drank the depths of

you

and you said

why are you always so thirsty?

 

 

if I walked from now until

you understood me

it would take us both

too long

and I would again

be hungry

Wounded bird

I tried with you, I really tried, and then I let you go

you flew out of the window even as it was closed

panes securely fastened

latch tight and unyielding

because you had never quite been

 

it was you see, a failure of mine

to find you flailing beneath yourself

with a few choice words you could

nourish from my adoration and mend

your rapid fast airy heart

containing only string

for what you need and not

enough for love

 

I was a clay maker

thinking fitfully if I put enough into shape

if my structure were sound and whole

if I poured water to prevent cracks

moistened over the thin spots

despite not being what you wanted

despite being a girl

despite having tired fingers

you would relent and

let me hold you in my lap

as crickets drowned the rush of air in hot melt

 

you were after all

used to mistreatment, I reasoned

surely a bird who had been injured

would long for peace?

the passion of sincerity

a terribly naive hope

when we all know

those who like the wound

will return to their abuse

not the arms of one who

is boring in her devotion

I never thought I should become

that very tedium

you strike against with mended wing

the one you answer last

when bored or idle

not they, who burn in your throat

wakefully lusting

whilst I feel already the part

of spinster and milliner

hemming your spare parts

 

it would be easy for me to

dress like you, smell like you

gather a flock of admirers

play midnight dalliances with

camera and music

cue ..  lights ..  pose ..  fizz

and now that you have shown

your true feathers

I see a little of why you prefer this slovenly approach

it suits your downturn

your denial of yourself

and I feel embarrassed that you had me so hot

as you pulsed beneath my wonder

with practiced charm

so used to hearing the false words you live for

 

I do not own

a penis

though my strength and my passion

would have surprised you

I do not possess

a penchant for games or

the worship sufficient to be

your follower

your worshiper

so little bird

when you escape

please do not

return when the skies fall

and he stops calling

or insults your honor

because my fingers are burnt dry

from believing myself

needy of you

 

 

(Daquin, 1997.)

Children of absence

The world is strange

how for some death is a petite mort

for others, not pleasure nor hell

just a slice to be taken out and left without warmth

they can with their approximating whole

continue without sore heart

while others

they are vigil in grief

nothing mends what is broken

I was told once this is weak

it is the substance of survival that we let go, move on

those who are able to open their fists

those who feel less or brew sense of senseless things

I am therefore not strong

for death stings like it has

pressed its poisonous quill deep

my heart lays heavy in its fur cloak

nothing really aids grief

but the passing of time and memory

ushering us further from the moment

like a worried parent seeking retreat

though we know

as with all circles we will return inevitably to completion

and I wonder since I do not believe

in Gods and Devils

but occasionally I am convinced monsters may, be an exception

where then, shall we find ourselves?

after all our pieces have fallen and the board is emptied

will I feel you next to me still?

as dust, we strive to rejoin star light

or will a wink be simply a wink out?

and so gentle light is drowned

for a time it worried me until

I saw this as a curtain fall, something peaceful almost alluring

what hurts us is not our own demise

but the loss of others to the other side

where shade invagels night and the smudge of life

for none of us

not even the preacher

who believes he sees the face of Jesus in the sky

can truly know what happens

when those we love die

it is the ache of their absence

even if that love was filled with holes

incomplete moments where like a colindar 

we saw more water fall than keep

I know loving me was at best a fractured and intermittent thing

but real love is not how you felt, it is the emotion I had

Stirred into my rise, even as you walked away 

even as need became a habit, not a desire

I may have always been

following you, looking for breadcrumbs

and you may have rarely noticed

your child who wanted so badly to matter

but I find time changes those emotions

it is ultimately the love I bare

irrespective of your own

that will hurt the most

when you are not around to call

hoping you pick up the phone or

send me a postcard ‘I am having a wonderful time’

and my only regret will be

just one more day I’d like

to know you were on this earth

a feeling of being as secure as you can

with nothing underfoot

we get used to little, us, children of absence

we learn to eat what we are given

and from nothing comes so much

it springs up 

around emptied houses and abandoned lots

like red weeds will show

vivid and wild

in a landscape of naught

we are the tender feelings who labor

in spite of all

and that I believe is the depth and mercy

of a full heart 

 

Consume my hope

If we leave the letter unwritten 
saying nothing

deer leaning in the window salvaging for morsel of night 
grimacing when we stir, wind chimes with pointed feet 
dancing awkwardly in ill-fitting clothes, vindicating a 
suspicion of absurdity

turn from me then, until you stop being and I sit alone
watching faceless walls communing with plaster
you shape my days and can as easily, burn me standing
waiting for a word, a finger-tip, a smudge 

for when you strike, you are a panther, encased in skin
charboiling my heart over wilting blossom 
it is not possible to deny you
the switch of myself shivering electric 
in that, we are alike, the one who loses her hair in bunches and you
who cook longing on high flame 

hang yourself up on the back of my hook, let me catch you wriggling 
in my wet fingers made into a cup
like rounding moons with promise will become fairy circles 

when you emerge, dry-eyed and hot-skinned, let me lick the burn 
ringing your throat like the words you will 
strike out again and again in every ink
catching river stones in your mouth 
under my tongue
stretch out, beckon me, consume my hope 

Unrequited love longs

I didn’t know you felt that way

just as the golden-haired girl

with bleached French roots

didn’t know I felt for her

(or worse, knew, and felt

less than dismissal)

we are ebony dominoes

pass the plain papered parcel

our affections whittled and sharpen

by the smoky knowledge we can never

confess ourselves or pardon

to objects of secreted passion

so remote and out of touch

the girl who falls for

a woman who loves men

the heterosexual who has a crush

on a flamboyant boy

things get broken without throwing

why is emotion so deluded?

I will never tell her my secret

just as you will not reveal yours

in our actions and what we do not say

there is the truth

explaining the easy pain of social discourse

masking itself behind awkwardness

when she talks about the men she dates

I dare not say … choose me you fool

I could make you dance

in a way you have not yet discovered

some people hang out of reach

even for sailors

leaning into the confessional surge

I can empathize

I would never have said yes to unwanted

dinner guests

so why should she entertain a cliché?

girls who like girls fall for those who

cannot be reached across life boats

better I hold my green tongue

admire from afar

the provoking shape of her

the way she knows

people are watching

her sway to

unrequited love songs