"The After"

Shards of scarlet embers remain untouched in the hub of the hearth,

The once familiar comfort of the warmth has since departed,
Leaving only slivers of longing in it's path.

The morrow shall bring deafening silence,
So devastatingly honest and yet so apathetic in its outcome.

Ebony ashes descend from the air leaving the occasional passerby lightly dusted with memories of what was,
Salted sorrows float through the atmosphere leaving nothing untouched; nothing forgotten.

A single flame remains,
Guarded by none yet protected by all,
Unscathed; it burns on.

Crisp residue has left the once delicate walls squalid and unforgiving,
The elegance of the before has turned tawdry,
The after is all that remains.

*This poem won me $350 in a contest back in 2004 & was published in an anthology of young poets.*

"Pretty"

Such a pretty body,
Wrapped in such a pretty case,
But should she speak her pretty mind,
He'll surely break her pretty face.

"Iron Fist"

She wears her hurt upon her wrist,
With perfect scars she will insist,
Her breathing surely will desist,
Once her face meets his iron fist.

"At Days End"

At night when she returns home, before she goes to rest her head in preparation for the coming morning, she breaks open her shell & peels away the layers of skin that cover her, exposing her true self. Open & vulnerable, she lights herself on fire for you. If there was ever a question of her devotion, now it has been presented & proven. She was filled with doubt before, but now open to new opportunities. Not quite whole yet, but slightly closer than the day before.

"Putting My Thighs On Strike"

Beaten, abused, neglected, molested, rejected, starved, deformed, injured...malicious intent. My thighs have been through a lot. Harassed, assaulted, blamed, maimed, torn apart, wounded, set up to fail. They’ve weathered more than their fair share of disaster. Tortured, bound, detested, arrested development. I never let them grow the way they should have; I never just let them be as they wished to. Mistreated, defeated, shattered, battered, denied, defied, lied to. How many times have I told them they are worthless? How many times have I told them they were FUCK personified? If I spoke to a person the way I’ve spoken to & continue to speak to my thighs, I’d be incarcerated. If I threatened a human with the defamation that I direct daily to my thighs, I’d be in a psych ward. The abuse of my thighs is long winded; a trail of sweat & tears lay in their wake.

If I could cancel my thighs like a stolen credit card, I would do it without hesitation. I think that’s the problem, refusing to view my thighs as a part of my body & instead as a foreign body, as a parasite that’s locked onto my being & refused to depart. I refuse to accept that these tree trunks; these monstrous beings are part of me. At the same time I struggle with viewing my thighs as an extension of myself, as if to say the shape & state of my thighs depict how human I am, how worthy I am of love & life & all their pursuits.

If these thighs could talk, they’d serve me the greatest verbal bitch slap imaginable. If these thighs could talk, they’d kick my ass on a grand linguistic scale. If these thighs could talk, they’d rebel. If these thighs could talk they’d curse like a sailor, spinning hundreds of careful “Fuck You, You Stupid Bitch” webs. If these thighs could talk, they’d try their best to speak but end up bawling.

If my thighs ruled the world, they’d be the dictator to end all dictators. There would be assignation attempts, terrorist acts & mutinies. If my thighs ruled the world, the world would defect.

I stare at my thighs; standing in 500 different poses before the full-length mirror until I find the one where I detest them the least. I pinch & I push & I pull until my skin feels like rubber between my fingertips. Secretly, I hope to awake the next morning of every night that I go to sleep & find myself to be made of Play Dough. The opportunity to mold these bastards at my whim is all too appealing.

I tell myself that every woman feels the same way, that every woman wants to be her own personal plastic surgeon & slice away the layers of ugly. I tell myself it’s normal to want to murder a part of your body, to want to end the life of a part of yourself. I validate my self hatred by telling myself it’s normal to abhor your form. I make my madness out to be okay behavior by repeating: “Remove the wrong from your body”. Because I tell myself that that’s what every woman wants.

Last week in the multiple person dressing room I saw a woman, plus size & unapologetic. She gracefully pulled the dress over her skin, gently brushing her fingertips and then her palms across her thighs. She posed her body, but only twice as opposed to my 500. The first time she looked at herself, view over her shoulder staring back. The second time she turned around, smacked her ass with her palms & smiled, taking ownership of her thighs & loving every second of it. Her thighs, they were hers & no one else's.

My thighs are wrong, to me they seem angry & volatile. To me they seem to grow & try to take over as each day passes. I hate them for their insurgance. Though now, after viewing this aforementioned woman, I begin to wonder. Why wouldn't they be angry & bitter, when they've been so egregiously abused? Why wouldn't they fight back after years of supression? Why wouldn't they demand more attention after being silenced for so long?

My thighs, well they are MY thighs. My own & only mine. I can do to them whatever I wish, it's my call. But my thighs, they are just that. MINE. They can only belong to me, never can they be someone else's. Nobody can take them from me, not ever. My thighs, they are my unique battle. My thighs have changed me. I respect my thighs for their defiance. I admire my thighs for their rebellion. My thighs, just like my personality, are spitfirey. My thighs are my thighs. For once, for today & possibly forever, I'm allowing my thighs to go on strike.

"I Did It"

Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that I deserve this and whatever else is to come. Hate me and tell me that its for my own good. Kick me in the ribs so the pain is less emotional and more so a fiery, burning new bruise waiting to form. If I can see the scar, maybe then it will ache less. Tell me anything that could possibly make me hate myself more so the guilt goes away. If I can fool myself into thinking I'm a villain, if I can lie to myself and make myself believe that I'm a vindictive, spiteful, terrifying bitch, then maybe the disappointment that I feel for myself will fade. If I can expect myself to do something to violently awful, maybe then I won't have to suffocate on the thoughts of my betrayal.

I did it, and at the time I wasn't sorry. I won't lie to you now. I did it and it felt right. I did it and the wounds healed and the burning stopped. I did it and the echoes of my past ceased. I did it, and right then everything fell into place and for one single moment I felt alright with myself and the person that I was at that exact moment. And afterwards, when I should have felt sorry for you and angry at me, I felt okay with the choice that I had made. The fantasy was over, I had experienced the reality and it felt perfect.

I did it and it took a good while before I felt even the slightest twang of remorse or a lack of self respect. I did it and it took days before I saw any error in my actions. I did it and the walls didn't crash down for at least a month. I did it and when they came crumbling down, I felt every brick. I did it, I didn't think I could do it but I did it and now I've done it. I did it and I thought that it was only me in the doing, only me who was done. But it did it to you, I did it to me, I did it to both of us. I did it and now I'm alone, having done myself in for the doing of it. The it that I did, it did me in.