Let Her Explain

It feels like ice
And a claw
And chalk

And it feels like

Wearing a life vest 
But you don’t pull the string
Not yet
Because you’re still deciding
Between sharks
And fatal impact

It tastes like bile
It tastes like steel
It tastes like your father’s words

That nothing bad can ever happen to you

Not while he’s alive

And now you have to taste blood
Because he wasn’t there
And neither was anyone else

It smells like wet cement
It smells like sweat
It smells like
You can never again
wear that scent

It ruined sunsets
It ruined your favorite street
It ruined your kitchen
Your sister’s favorite song

But you’ll be damned

If you let it ruin the one place
You thought you’d always 
Belong

But didn’t it?

You throw away the sheets
Your mother bought you for Christmas
And think about the way your Dad
Used to tickle your neck

And you would laugh until you screamed

And now you just scream

It feels like a ghost story
Like you’re in the woods
Just a wolf licking his wounds

Wondering

If time will bring a day
You will no longer have to explain

What it feels like

Is this a love letter or a eulogy?

Why don’t I feel it anymore when other people’s eyes are upon me?

I used to experience desire so vividly

And now it’s

I’m too tired
I’m not in the mood
I guess I’m not feeling so good

And that’s on the good days

Because on the bad nights its

You’re too fat
No one wants to see that
I wouldn’t fuck you
Even if I had the chance

And I say these things to myself in an effort
To justify and understand his want
or lack thereof

How he can just fall asleep next to me
Whisper “goodnight baby”
and his dick isn’t pulsing or any wiser
Of the rhythm between my own thighs

He just lays there and doesn’t realize

And even if he did

He’d probably just shut his eyes.

“I want my lover to drag a finger

Down my spine

Whispering into the gentle blue of morning

Mine

Mine

Mine.”

earth;

let the earth under your feet uphold you,

blanketing the soles, hugging the toes,

you’re inhabiting where lustrous lilies grew,

where humid summer air now blows.

“It Couldn’t Be Done” by Edgar A. Guest

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,

But he with a chuckle replied

That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be the one

Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.

So be buckled right in with the trace of a grin

On his face. If he was worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

-

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;

At least no one ever has done it”;

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,

And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

-

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

There are thousands to prophesy failure;

There are thousands to point out to you one by one,

The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start to sing as you tackle the thing

That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.