LOVE

Eat Me, Drink Me

Eat me, drink me
swallow me down
take me with water, bottles big or small
make me dizzy

Partydresses, Mary Janes
throw me down a hole
smaller and smaller, make me smaller
curls untwirl, unfurl

Socks held high, up my thigh
each sweet, let me eat
gluttony, vanity, and violence down my throat

Technicolor indulgences
and doe-eyed tea parties
of dirt, acid trips, and the perfect Lolita red lip

Eat me, drink me
swallow me down
take me with water, bottles big or small
Make me dizzy.

Heartbroken

The best example of fashion as art, RIP Alexander McQueen.

eye contact has avoided me since you

hair, hands, bare skin, lips

i stare

over a right shoulder

that flurry aura over a left

fuzzy city streets

elbow patches

faded flannel

old sunglasses

the soft glow of rain on cobblestone

illuminated by street lights

not from lack of trying

my eyelids heavy from wine

and lack of sleep

or emotional encumbrance

no one welcome in my bed

i can't look as deep into

soul searching

life connecting

earth shattering

intimate raw

eyes

not since you

I sat across from her on the L train to Brooklyn. Her hair was dirty and stringy, sticking to her pallid face with a mixture of grease and the tears that streamed down each cheek. She wore thick, black-framed glasses, but not in an ironic fashion. They sat on her nose in a way that made you think she couldn't see at all without them. Her sweater was thick and pea soup green, murky like the water that sloshed under my boots. It was the elephant in the room, the sobbing girl in the subway car.

On either side of her sat a boy, both of who snuck sideways glances at her, with looks of both voyeurism and awe. Who was this girl who couldn't adhere to the code of the subway? One must look impassive, bored and submissive, maybe stoned. Don't cry. The army of the underground. Who was she?

The wet humidity made my joints ache, and I shifted uncomfortably. My lips were glued in a thick straight line and if I could see my eyebrows, they may have been furrowed. Not in worry, but in that bored impassiveness. The armor. I noticed one sock had fallen down around her ankle, like the blanket around the bottom of a Christmas tree, her trunk leg sallow with small dark hairs leading up the trunk. There was no noise, from her eyes, no gasps from tears. Just drop after drop rolling into her collar as she clutched a torn copy of Vogue in her hands.

lulled by the car alarms

and winter smoke

the trash filled cigarettes

paper bag princess

keeps watch

from the west side

to the east side

village to village

eyes darting

fishnets flashing

paper bag princess

dive bar to street car

the dizzy smell

her crinoline skirt

frostbit toes

caked with dirt

paper bag princess

under bridges deep

fire wings flap

under her feet

the rats keep track

and sew her dress

before she sleeps

princess

She kisses boys in corners

but she never takes them home

The three black walls and she

are enough to heal the burn

her lipstick sticks to t-shirt collars

and then she sends them home.

when she was a little girl

there was a flower that

it always seemed to love

it had yellow lips, a sunkissed tongue

it reminded her where she was