she had tried meditation before
sappy swirls of new-age sucking
away at her soul
a cosmopolitan fixed it up all right;
sophistication stirred with
a sour olive (she wished her lovers
could be as sweetly contradictory)
--
sometimes she felt eyes on her back
on those lonely nights with
nothing but cable for satisfaction
it was her shot of novocaine:
take once daily for so long
you forget when you started
--
he had called her Delilah
traitor, bitch
SLUT
and even though he closed the
door behind him
she still heard footsteps
--
and every time, she wondered
if the people she imagined behind her
were real
--
they never appeared when
she turned around