celapham

Memories cascade down into nothing new. I see her back to me, a hand held out in front as if she thinks I can just take it without a problem.

The Iliad of my life starts at three in the morning. Without bra, without makeup, without food, without water. Without love, I wouldn't make it on the Iliad of my life. I wouldn't make it past the door, past the other door, past the stairs, past the bathroom. The Iliad of my life starts when he says, "Hello." It's timid and beautiful, and cliché love poems run to the forefront of my mind, dashing, pushing, clawing to the Iliad of my life.

Every detail, like glue or sharpies, is pressed to my nose. At three in the morning I wonder if tomorrow I'll know the answers. I wonder if I'll remember my pre-programmed words and smile and mascara - "Dark lashes are a blessing," they say. Well, I wanna be blessed with love, I say. I wanna be blessed with truth, I say. I wanna be blessed, be blessed, be blessed with smarts, I say.

By the time I was nineteen, I was dangerously in love. Succulents sat on my windowsill, a sign of hate explained earnestly. I was perturbed by screaming voices, silent hills. And He showed me how to grab life because I'd never been allowed to grab it before. His words, letters printed on the page of my dreams, a finger scrolling away. I show him how to feel rage, to let go of his inhibitions, expressway only. I grab his cane and hold it up, he shows me his collection of stories, bad-lucked. If he were to abandon me at this point, I'm sure love would take my sanity, sip it up as a diss, licking, hiss. Iron tastes good in my mouth, profaniti

We move like dancing beats, like bad-lucked stories shoved into laundry pile heaps. We trust like strangers, easily; smiling in pictures taken on a day when the river runs funny.

I'm in love, I'm in love / There's no denying my heart's singing, its midnight / preambles or murmurs. He's in love, in love / I think. He's in love with me - I think - my heart murmurs, a wicked twist, knifed. Where did my child go? The one stuffed into my neck? A bump, line, wrinkled / flawed by my mother? Where did my teen years go? My / infancy, delicately laced, my mother shows me how to pack it up and ship it off. Did she learn how to ship hers off too? When will it / return, as a gift, raw and un- -cooked, saturated with strange blood? That's how women work - we martyr ourselves for evil men, pack our- -selves away with fake lea

I never thought I’d see him again Hanging from that tree, he smiles, A rope beneath his armpits, a cape from his toes. A rainfall in his eyes Like the ones I used to know. Deliciously expired. Ripe and rotten at the same time. I’m giddy.

Pond's cold cream, take it and wipe away the clumpy, seven-hour mascara from your eyelashes, dark or light, brushing against the top of your brow bone - you wash the night away.

I can no longer see you Like I used to, Atlanta skies, burning bright with music, flies, food - I can smell everything as if I were there again But I can not see you the same Cannot see your face, your blue eyes I can't remember what you looked like that night, Maybe I'm just growing old I said that three years ago And now I'm older, blinder than before