By Misti Velvet Rainwater
Date: 7 May 1998

Moonlight & Roses

remember the purple & gold g-string
 the pale, pert breasts
crowned with luscious, rosy nipples
    you would suck on greedily
for ecstatic minutes at a time
remember the table dances
     you would witness
  from a distance
me crawling all over another man's
  lap to the beat of the music
teasing him with my supple
  twenty-two year old body
the same body that would undulate
    and writhe beneath you
 on winter nights beside the fire
  you, my notorious warrior
   letting me lick your battle scars
   with my eager pink tongue

remember the nights you wanted
      to die
and I wouldn't let you
   I clung to you relentlessly
a battered, broken angel
   I couldn't fly to Heaven
 so I made myself at home
  in your happy Hell
of innocent illegal entanglements
    and pain pills
  and soft prostitution
I laid myself down
  in the midst
     of your chaos
I rubbed your silky lies
 against my skin
    and gladly impaled myself
  upon your deception
  and rode it hard
  and rode it home

when I was drunk
 or depressed about eternity
or shivering from the cold
  I was your little girl
  I crawled up inside your
      masculine assurance
 and said Hold Me Daddy
 and you did

when you were overwhelmed by
the desolate mess we had made
      of our lives
  or when you awoke from nightmares
  or were besieged by your demons
you were my little boy
you hid away in the maternal promise
    of my loving arms
and said Love Me Mama
and I did

now those memories are mere shadows
left behind in a forgotten midnight
  our love has been burned
         to ashes
     and thrown away
  but I live on the moon
      of that midnight
   a warped waif
      far from home
  damaged beyond repair
   feeling your baby
   the one you signed away
     on a sunny Sunday
  growing inside my womb