Flower Girl

In all the moments
of every hour when our
clocks were crushed together
until they beat collectively
within the gears of time forever,
I only remember the hue
of your skin,
white earth as the ever encroaching
garden burst into full bloom
and shredded its petals down, out
across your cheeks,
flooded your lips and blew
the winds of summer fever
down beneath the surface of
your eyes.
I can only breathe back the scents of
the sole time you let yourself
blossom, flower, grow heavy
while fruit ripened upon the vine
and turned to seed,
despite the fact that these memories
can't spread your taste out upon
my tongue, ease my longing for your flavor,
as I lean forward with
the intent to kiss you.
For I know, in all
the rational content of summer madness,
it's foolish to fall in love with
an annual girl.

Find You

I have come back to you
and I am sorry it came to this
before I returned,
his name still a bruise upon my lips,
my smile weak and wavering, my fingers
stained red with shame
as the blood oozes out from under
the corners of my nails.
I have turned to you and your desire,
my body open as I spread myself wide,
heart thudding
as you turn off the ignition of the car,
lean over the console and kiss
me hard back into my seat,
the combined heat of our breath
leaving a delicate fog that spreads
across the panes of the car windows,
as I finally allow you to take me over
the edge and swallow me whole
beneath you.
I find you in the back roads,
leaning against the stop sign
of an empty four-way stop,
arms bare beneath the pale sun and boots
muddied by the rain of late November,
grinning with a promise of a secret
and a bite, something more
each and every time I come to you.
Now, as the days peel back slowly,
I find nothing else matters but this,
my body and soul unraveling, limp
and saturated with your scent,
your mark wrapped around the angles
of my skin, the kisses trailing
up under the fabric of my sleeves,
the bite of your teeth imprinted beneath the collar
of my shirt, your ownership of me hidden
from the public's eyes.
I have finally given myself to you
in hopes that you can fix me
now that he is gone.

panty snatcher

short hair, worn jeans, rolled sleeves with the hint of tattoos rolling down the length of her forearms. preferably riding a bike, or driving a truck, cigarette between her lips even though i can't stand the smell of smoke. some one i'd let fuck me in the back seat of a car in public, her hand clamped over my mouth so i can't scream when i come. she'd leave me on the corner of a street downtown, my panties in her pocket, red bruises trailing down my neck and my cum on her lips as she drives away.
even after all that i don't think i'd be capable of loving her.

Choice in the Matter

There’s not really much of a choice in the matter.

I’ve been drinking,
the bottle open on the left side of the desk.
I will have one, one more than I ever thought
I would when I was in high school.
Eventually I am drinking for the sugar,
not the buzz, the rush, the anger,
for I’ll get that when I start brooding,
my arms in the air as I dance,
my mind a whirl as I try to sort it all out,
lift my body open, bite back the sensations
of being lost, of being empty,
that I need someone to break me
in response to trying to heal.
But I never asked, so he never did,
and neither of us will never know,
whether it would have gone down
just as softly as vodka.
I am twenty, with less flesh on my bones
than before, and now
I am starting to finally recognize the reflection
in the mirror, jaw square, eyes blue
behind the frames of my glasses,
moles trailing down the right side of my chin,
the inside corner of my left eyebrow
that has been going white since I was fifteen,
my hair just brushing the tops of my ears
but enough to cover one end of the industrial piercing
punched through the top of my left ear.
I no longer avert my eyes, smile bitterly,
and turn my back in an attempt
to persevere through it and ignore
the scent of fear, longing, and uncertainty
that seemed to perpetually cling
to the corners of my skin
and follow me through the empty seconds of the day.
That is over now,
but I am still angry, moving forward while
looking back, for I will need more therapy than this
before I can come back to it.
I do not wish to make it back there unless
I am a visitor, a ghost of a smile in those memories,
but even that will never be enough.
I will become what I can’t see,
a riot in the streets demanding access,
the open scream across the public forum
when you attempt to shut me down,
the voice that propels them forward with their questions
as we sit at the kitchen table, homework open before us,
and when you tell me to shut up,
that I have no right to talk, that I have already been heard,
that the issue has already been addressed, solved,
is over and done with, that feminism
is knocked up, queer rights on the way down the aisle,
the two solitudes of this country already
melted together between our flags, along with the economy,
the voting rights of citizens, my national identity
and my promises of paradise
that I have been given without any confirmation
that they do indeed properly exist,
you better have the ball gag ready,
along with the restraints,
for it won’t be easy.
I will become everything and anything I must be,
everything you have denied me
when I needed it,
in spite of you, because of you, against you.
And I will give it all to them
as I watch them grow, in hopes that we
will do a fucking better job than you.

There’s not really much of a choice in the matter.
Not now.

Being Yours Part V: Soft Smile

You have a soft smile, that's the first thing I notice, the first feature I like about your face as I see you from across the room.
I check my watch, twice, while I pretend not to be watching you from across the room out of the corner of my eye. I think you're it, though. I think you're it, so I move, sliding down, down off the greasy stool next to the unwashed counter, and I walk over.
You smile and I want to kiss you. Kiss you hard, soft, or whatever your preference is. But I don't. Not yet. I smile, introduce myself, and ask if you're my blind date for the evening, hoping you'll say yes.
I'm hoping you'll say yes.

Being Yours Part IV: Her Majesty the Fool

I carve the doors open and walk the same floor I've been walking for these past weeks, days, moments of a million hours as I lay tangled with you. But I'm dreaming. It's only been one week, one single week with you.
I'm waiting slowly, drunk on the sensations of coffee. I'm drunk, I'm drunk, I'm totally drunk on you. I revel in your taste, the ghost sensations of your hands gliding over me, remembering the first time I felt I was yours with all the overdramatic flare of modified history. The natural progression of obedience for the king. You are my king, and now I belong to you.
I'm yours, I'm yours, I hope, I hope so. I hope that you know this, that you believe it with the same conviction I do. But still, I'm waiting, breathing the steam of bitter dreams in a third-rate cafe that's crowded with the memories of too many blind dates to count.
But I at least can trust this one, I can trust you, trust you. Trust you with everything I have.

Being Yours Part III: The King is Dead

The table is round and the chair is square, as the two of them fold together, fold together, mingle slowly and form the base essence of your throne. For you are the kind, with your mad eyes, your soft smile that's often pressed to mine with a feeling I'd like to place as possessive desperation.
But I'm often wrong, though. I'm often wrong.
You smile like a madman and kiss me like a false fool, trapped in charred love. Because something's wrong. Something's wrong.
Your shirt is green, forest green, a poison that makes me want to scrape it off my tongue and bury it. I need to bury it down within the confines of the fields.
And I know the words before you've said them, because your body has done all the talking for you. Even though you don't know it.
You sit bored, slumped, chewing your words like an animal as you prepare to spit, hold it back and chew again while trying to phrase it all in a semi-polite manner. But you are the king, even if you don't realize it. Even if you don't care about your own immortality and the power you carry over me.
You are the king and you are bored, finished, tired of pretending you are an actor to match my pace as I stumble, trip and find myself sprawled out beneath your feet, ready to lick your boots, kiss your lips, and scrub myself raw in an attempt to clean my skin to your pleasing. I am always ready, I am always ready, I am, I am.
But you don't need a fool, a jester, a submissive of a lover crawling at your feet. You are the kind, and the king needs a queen in a faerie-tale book of sexist romance. Romance of first love, special love, love you've never held for me.
So I leave, I leave before you can tell me what I think you're about to say. I leave before you can tell me the truth.