le jardin

i am a strange little poet
who pours out her soul to you
and slashes her wrists
just to watch the roses grow.

at night there is a strange little boy
who kisses me with paper lips
until my face is streaked and my mouth is riddled
with a thousand lacerations of love

that paint my lips a strange, clotted glaze
of rust and ebony tears that drip off my chin
and stain my pillow
until i don't need lipstick anymore.

this little boy cries out in his sleep and tears
at the sheets that imprison both him and me
and i am claimed, in the darker colors of the rainbow,
by his thrashing limbs and grasping paws.

gulping back sobs, he caresses my throat with his long fingers
and i find it hard to inhale or think without my stolen breath
and always next morning i have a new necklace
of garnet and amethyst ringing my neck.

after the little boy leaves, the neighbors ask how i can have
such beautiful flowers blossoming on my cheeks and eyes
and feet and thighs and i am not a rhyming poet,
but i haven't had a garden in such a very long time.

the strange little boy lives in a strange little house
with a strange little girl who i think i used to know but don't anymore
because she's been crushed under the weight of the little boy
who rolls over in his sleep and whispers, 'i can't wait to grow up.'

but the strange little girl knows the strange little boy is older than he thinks he is
and when her head meets the wall in his agony at dawn
she's glad she won't see more of grown-ups for awhile, but i wouldn't know
because i don't know these strange little people anymore

for i am a strange little poet
who knows nothing, not
where she is nor what she's doing
nor whom she's hiding from.

-

12.14.05. inspired by eire rain's equinox --go read it!