Who am I? Not who you think.

He doesn't love the public me,

pinstriped, pinned up, buttonholed me
or the decked out deshabille pimped out me
or even the "I can do anything" uber-competent me.

He loves the baaaad me.
The one splashes in puddles and loses her keys
and rips her clothes and breaks her nose,
and stamps her feet because she wants it RIGHT NOW.
The stuck at eight-years-old, mud-smeared, gap-toothed, scabby-kneed me,
leaving a trail of broken cups and crayoned walls,
hiding under the bed, afraid of the monsters she played with in the morning.
The me who bites her lip so no one will see her cry.
The me who stole a chocolate bar because she was hungry.

Yeah. That one.

Anywhere But Here

"Not everything is an omen. You don't have to ascribe meaning. Let it be what it is." He reached out-oh, that's a symbolic choice of words, maybe I can use it somewhere- and pressed me against him. I was limp. "You have to stop this. You're going to make yourself sick again. Why won't you let me help you? Why can't you trust me?"

Eyes closed, I breathe short, shallow breaths, willing myself away, anywhere but here, anywhere but with him and his ardor. I am afraid. His intensity makes me afraid. It is easier to go back to what I was, to the evil familiar than to believe. He pulls me onto his lap and rocks me, face buried in my hair. I can feel the heat from his palms against my thigh, against the slope of my hip.

"Do I need to get a mirror? You are the only person I know who can lower their temperature at will, still their heartbeat to almost... Don't do this to me. Don't stop your heart beating. Don't go away. Baby, please, you're my joy, you're what I never dreamed of, you're my fantasy girl in every way I know and in ways I didn't eve know were possible."

I feel the wetness on my cheek, where his face touches mine. I used to cry all the time but he doesn't know that. He cries more than I do, at least, more than I do now. Hell, he does everything more than I do. Intense, plunging with his whole self, an adrenaline junky, tempting me with caves full of bats and fool's gold and diamond dust, hairpin turns and double parachutes, while I hang back, hover at the ocean's edge, salt to my ankles and no more.

Until the hurricane force of him drenches me, flays my flesh and leaves me clean, raw, new.

"I can't. I'm afraid."

"You've been afraid your whole life. Me, too. Now, with you, I feel right. Please, baby, I am yours, I am so yours, all of me, anything you want, anything I can give you. Let me be yours. Let me give you an iota of what you've given me."
He is so hot against me, hands searing my open wounds. The cynic is back and tells me, "Its hormones and madness, hot flashes and confusion," while the child crawls under the blanket of his heat and falls asleep, safe in his arms. I open my mouth and he salts the cinders on my tongue.

Hobgoblins can be a Good Thing

If I could do something every day,
If I could actually stick to it, a la Julia Cameron,
If I did... because, to be honest, I can. I'm quite capable, I've done it.
I've buried myself in it, in the past.
If I did, still, where would I be?

Sounds easy?
Hardest part is what is obvious.
The time.
Finding the time.
Oh, observer says, you've got time, you've got nothing but time!
Looks that way, right? You, there, examining my life, here.
But think.
With all the time in the world, all I have are empty hours and dripping fangs.
It is at the door, gnawing at the baseboard, prying at the hinges, talons tripping lock cylinders.
Time cedes to terror, passes the scepter and disappears into a tornado,
leaving rubble and shards of vision, shovelfuls of debris.
I bend down, pick up a scrap of paper, struggle to read the faded ink, water smears.
Find part of a CD, a fractured keyboard, another scrap.
This one is blank.

I close my eyes, draw the blade along a vein and leave bloody fingerprints where words want to be.

Modern Labor Saving Life

How did they do it, get it all done, before all the labor saving devices came about?

Did they have a more integrated life, living more fully in the here and now,
different sets of priorities, fewer priorities and calls on their time
or was it the half-empty bottle of tequila on a high up shelf
that got replaced every other Thursday?

Chef Salad

Hunger spills over, wraps around strangers, eager to respond.
Waiting to take a bite, taste, chew, press against the upper palate,
smooth or gritty on the teeth, thin as water, thick as an oil slick, bubbly,
sweeping up to shore, covering random pelicans and otters.


Sauces, meats and tofu and vegetables all diced into interchangeable cubes,
heated surface a rumpled, now-neglected bed wondering who'll be next,
so ready I can see the waves rise up to me, beckoning.


Nursing my drink, I watch the chef, thinking,
He doesn't have to do that. Not for me, anyway.
All I need to feed my hunger is already here.

Pain Killers

The train whistle smears numbing cream on my abdomen, massages it in. Each clack clack clack is a knife.
I swallow, panic clawing up my esophagus from somewhere below my ribcage.
Its coming, its coming, its coming, each clack says.
The whistle blows again and rolls on, crushing me into the railbed.

Night on NOBT

He pushed back his hair, or what was left of it, and admired his profile in the mirror,
the contrast of tanned skin and pale scalp, shining through multicolored fingers.
"I feel pretty, oh so pretty," he hummed.
Another flick of mascara, some metallic eyeliner, gloss.
Lycra tank tucked into shorts, oversized ostrich boa trailing down his back.
Dangling hoop earrings to complete the ensemble.
A double shot of tequila over crushed ice.
It would be a night to forget.