Spring

Seven suits of suffering
paraded through fluorescent lights
render me a sniffling
insecure mess of cellulite.
Need I even state the reason?
Grab your so-wrong; it's swimsuit season!

So-wrong = a sarong that is used to cover up what is so-wrong

For Izy's prompt at Real Toads

Engraved

She's marked
as his
with diamond musk
and pearl piss.
Her dog collar
noose necklace
displayed.

And should she slip
the leash,
he'll burn the beauty
to beast.
Erase her
remake her
engraved.

For Open Link Night at dVerse

Mother Time

Time was slow coming,
and I labored long -
drop by violet drop-
until the water clock
tipped and spilled her squalling
from my birthing squat.

Her cries brought
the first sunrise
climbing

up from between my trembling thighs
to hourglass my breasts and suckle
sand

till I withered
to ash
without ever knowing fire
or the touch
of a man.

My take on Kim's Violet prompt at Real Toads.

The Radio

The counselor says
that my attitude is the problem.
The way I see it,
the problem is the constant creeping
of my step-dad's fingers toward my twelve year old cooch.
But, you can't say things like that to a counselor.
So, I tell her about my radio.

It's big, and it's badass,
with dual speakers and bass boost.
Ever since I learned that DJs
(unlike God)
take requests,
I haven't turned the thing off.
Down low, it's the heartbeat
of my room womb.
Up loud, it's the beat
that boundaries me and mine.

Well, step-dad told me to turn it off.
I refused.
He told me to turn it off OR ELSE.
I turned it up louder and sang along.
He actually threw the breaker and cut off the power to my room,
and I . . . switched to batteries.
Whatever came next, that one moment was worth it all.

The counselor says
the problem is that I
want to be the boss,
to be in charge,
to have power.
The way I see it,
she doesn't know the half of it.

For Marian's radio prompt at Real Toads

Her Dying: A Review

In her dying, there is no poetry.
No pretty words to honey the hemlock.
No form to give grace or soft artistry

to the rattle and rasp of the lungs locked
leaden in the brittle cage of her chest.
Shallow, unmetered breaths the pen forgot

to flesh.  But, really, what did I expect?
Barren brevity and brutal endings
are the kinds of work the Author does best.

A rough Terza Rima for Form for All at dVerse.

Kinks

I'm a complex girl
in a complex world.
Of complex thoughts,
I can't get enough.

But, complex sex
just puts your kinks
in my neck.
When it comes to getting some
I'm just a simple fuck.

For Open Link Night at dVerse

In Those Days

Castel del Monte by Edward Lear

In those days of book fed burning,
I was just a girl still learning.
Churched, but unschooled to the yearnings
waiting just beyond the stone walls.

I turned to prayer for curing
in those days of book fed burning,
but it could not still the stirring
and shivering each time I saw

you out in the wheat field working,
hands to the earth for your earnings.
In those days of book fed burning,
rosaries rubbed my fingers raw.

And, the sweetness of that hurting
was the ache of a child turning
to woman with no returning
in those days of book fed burning.

For the Birthday in May prompt at Real Toads