By the guppy
Date: 2 March 2000
slurry
do you love or do you leave?
do you tough out the scratches when the bed of roses proves most uncomfortable to sleep upon?
did i interpret something wrong?
i need a mattress pad, or some pillows, or a brand new posture-pedic non-anemic refreshing love affair
a girl, beautiful, equipped with clippers, bandages, thorn removers, and a green thumb
and maybe a thought or two about it all
the pale signatures of small-talk vixens have faded from my autograph book
my brain has episodes like vietnam
flashbacks of emotional napalm raining
i'm sick of seeing them all
i'm adding laughtracks here and there like i'm a seventies sitcom writer
i burned my love-poem-prone typewriter
my teeth are white, but they could be whiter
i have a charcoal grill igniter
i never knew any lady who swallowed a spider
i knew one that tried, she defied it to bite her
it bit her, she died, and i tried to hide her
she wore daisy duke jean shorts, but a little bit tighter
no wonder that nothing ever moved inside her
she smoked four packs a day, but never owned a lighter
she depended on men to be her providers
she went off the deep end when they finally denied her
she had thought they would all forever abide her
when her spell had worn off, on the train tracks they tied her
she was rescued by an ex-middle-weight champion fighter
on whose back was engraved the marks of the savior
and whose image excused any fault in behavior
he saved her from death, then he enslaved her
brainwashed her 'til she thought he had made her
he relished the sounds that fell to the ground from her lips, and her hips, and her brain, and her pain, and her whole being calling him "creator"
he idolized darth vader
he made seven dollars an hour at cracker barrel as a waiter
if she didn't worship him, he promised to hate her
she cried when he lied about being a cheater
she didn't shut up, so he started to beat her
that kept on for some time, the sun didn't shine
the birds didn't squawk, the neighbors didn't do anything except offer rude comments and small talk
darkness loomed heavy each night when the '57 chevy rolled up the drive
turned off the lights
her staggering god mumbling curses at the shrubbery that got in his way during his ascencion to the front porch
slamming doors
who could ask for anything more?
the beautiful mixture of the dive-bar-bourbon flowed stale on his breath
she just kept holding on, and thinking a lot about death
and what it would be like
her distant trains would howl like wolves in the night
she did what she did because she was too scared to fight
and too scared to leave
she knew that he had other tricks up his sleeve than just coat hangers and belts
she knew the abuse had to end
all the crying and shaking and squiming and screaming and kicking couldn't get her loose from the noose 'round her neck
it was a full blown dive out the back window onto the deck
avoiding the crash of the t.v. set at her heels
taking her fresh wounds fast as she could to the gentle womb of the emergency room
she got treated, she got out
and she got another chance to rearrange her life
to maybe be an actual wife
and not just a potential knife holder for a megalomanic
maybe someday have children and buy them legos, feed them eggo waffles for breakfast with orange juice
some nourishment
she needed some herself
and accidentally fell into the same dilema as before because she was looking just a little too hard for something perfect
someone eavesdropped on her dreams, made it seem like he walked right out of them
poured himself into a fabricated mold, just like his old man had done
the benefit of having a cold heart is that the warm ones are easy victims
things are lost in translation
Back to the Heart-on-Sleeve Corner