Everytime Girl

I have seen
Flat faced mallwalkers
With disposable eyelashes
And painted lips
Sway hipped and spray tanned
With peel away stickers
and peel away clothes
and peel away promises
and self esteems that collapse
at a gentle touch.
I’ve followed legs and pampered hands
And the designer bags that
Hang from them
Plastic nails and
Lower back tattoos
Peeking over
Jeans that suffocate
Their tiny bodies.
They lie.
To each other and
On their backs
In cars and parks and alleyways
And the cheap hotels they’re chased from.
I don’t want a good time girl.
I want an every time girl.
All soft curves and quiet words
Wrapped in sweat pants
and punctuated with
Bukowski and Ella Fitzgerald.
I want a cold hand on
The back of my neck when I drive
And smiles and sweet somethings
on her lips for the taking.
I want snow days full
Of crunchy peanut butter and pomegranate
Movie marathons and belly warmth.
I want a girl full of monologues
And promises that don’t feel like
Promises and can be shown,
Not told.
I want to know what necking is,
And to learn again
And again while we listen
To vinyl all day.
I want timberwolf sweaters
And dream interpretations
That we laugh at.
I want an everyday girl
Who sends me notes in the morning
That read beautifully
About sleepy stumbling
And wishing I was there to see it
And me wishing I was.

All Summer

We climbed through storm drains
Thick with summer air and rain

We held hands and waited for
The scarred nightmares that waited for us
Around every corner
Of the roughly hewn labyrinth
Though all we ever really heard was
The soft rush of the cars overhead

We boosted each other up
And peered through rusted grates
To watch them screaming by all day
Our feet drinking in the soft hum
Of the motors

We were storm drain spelunkers that
Lost their bravery and
Cried out in quiet horror as the
Warm patches of daylight
That played in the tunnel
Faded and the concrete walls became
Cold

We never spoke of it
But you cried
And I cried
That day
Until we stumbled into the last light
That just illuminated
Your mom staring accusingly
At our dirty faces
And dirty clothes
And the clean patches that were
Left when we scrubbed away
the tears

Cosmopolitan

A little girl is looking
at a
Cosmopolitan magazine

No more than 9
I wonder if she skips over
the words she doesn’t know

The headlines like
‘Naughty Tricks To Try On Your Man’
and
‘Just For His Thighs!’

Maybe she
Just looks at the pictures and
That’s almost worse
All spray tanned anorexia
Pulling their shirts open and
Fucking the camera
With their day-glow eyes
Full of an oily horror and a challenge

As if to say
“I know the secret to being
‘Happy With Your Naked Body’
And I can ‘Dress My Curves’
And these things have brought me happi-
ness.”

Someone is at the cash register
Screaming into her cellphone
And my hands are shaking
Until im dropping change everywhere
And every baby is crying and
Nobody will respond except
my Manager is shrieking about
Last Thursday
And how I left thirty minutes early and could
I please explain that to her?

Hi hows it going
Good you
Not bad
That’s all you can ask for
Next

Don't Try

And he’s probably right
In that there is no point-

All the little rules are still being broken
And replaced with more

The standing
Army of letters and statutes
That will make condemned of us all

And my friends all laugh
And they smile at each other
While knowing

That we are all splinters
Of those who came before us.

That we are all sprung
From the same seed
Of cruelty and of ignorance

And we will die-

All of us-

Knifed between the knuckles of
An empty country

Clinging to our possessions
And tearing our inheritance down
On those huddled around our beds.