Two Weeks Into the Break
I have become courageous
with my solemnity
face like a dried peach pit, the set
jaw I show
off in the brackish noisy public I
have come to disdain
like a vampire shopping for milk,
eyes like red-rimmed lasers
gut-wrenching cramps from
unintentional fasts and snot rags
avalanche from the couch as I twist
in my sleep ?
I burn like a skinless fish on the
frying pan
dance, little minnow, dance like the
dead thing you are
I have acquired the bravado to
become a true martyr
I crack my knuckles like peanut
shells, I make nonsequitor
jokes at the television and cry when
I masturbate
this poem isn’t even funny
and I tried
two weeks into the break then fate
said,
“Here’s a healthy dose of menstrual
cramps
a week earlier than you expected.
Bleed mammal.”
I cried when I saw the blood on my
panties
it was about to get worse before it
got worse
I am talented with this game of
pyrotechnics
a close cousin to chaos, swimming
with needles
burning sage like a cosmic hippie
trying to
smoke away his figment of bad odor
two weeks into the break and I break
the lining of my uterus unfurling
into another
reminder that I will never have his
children
that you can’t take back abortions
but nightwalkers don’t carry wombs
with them
only restless midnight grocery
coupons, fangs
sharpened on another life they never
lived,
the last body they sucked clean
they idle in the shampoo aisle, pay
their
bills behind two-sizes too-big black
sunglasses
a Jackie O. before she turned
Marilyn
a Marilyn before she fell to sleep
for always
the first week of break up is a
serial killer
the second week is a post office
shoot-up
the third a new abberation I will
sink myself into,
next week proudly flashing my badge
waiting for the sun to burn me awake
BACK
NEXT