dummy

I sold
self-confidence for empathy
ambition for ease
and now I complain of my own mediocrity.

oh, but it hurts

curdled

Tell me again
As I sit
with my knees pulled up to my chest
with my chin on my crossed arms
and my eyes on my unpainted toes
As the stars move across
from one end of the horizon to the other
As the smoke drifts lazily
curling up from the tip of your lit cigarette
and from your pursed lips
As stray breezes
tug at washed clothes hung out to dry
nose at the newly shorn head and the baby curls
slide across my back and make me shiver
As extremities freeze in the cold dry air

As I tell a stranger things never put in words before
and as someone I know not seems to know me
anyway

Tell me again
What am I doing here, exactly?

lunchtime requests

Wish I hadn't
Said I wouldn't
But what kind of girl
would I have been
saying yeses to kisses?

clumps

hot evening baths
and tears in the shower

standing in glaring fluorescence
with wet hair, fresh washed
before red mirror spotted with
blood of dead mosquitoes
big blue scissors
in one anticipating hand
quick, clutch handfuls, snip snap
floor littered with clumps of curls

barefooted
spinning sufi style till
whirling reeling giddy

clad only in
sweatshirt and damp towel
Jefferson Airplane
in the middle of the living room

drowsy days

Meet new people and babble
Laugh as they tiptoe around
so-called sensitive sensibilities
Push back where it tells
Tweak and prod till satisfied
But afterwards wonder
And wish i could ask them
was it good for you?

Stand at bus stands
Waiting for rides
Watch the sky turn to twilight
the world steeped in deception
Feel the world slip surreal
through my fingers
Let the throbs in my heels
take over my tired head

Think of duplicities
And lies and pretenses
Revel in guilt and complications
Find perverse pleasure
in placing the blame
on the right person.
Me.