Friday, March 25, 2011

The Waist Land



The Waist Land

My curves are bad tonight. Sloppy, ugly. Sleep with me.
Comfort me. Why must you leave the lights on?
Quiet. Say nothing more.
Are you thinking of my bruised breasts? My paunch? My ass?
They fill your hands like pudding, like wet rags.
I never know what you are thinking when we touch.
I think we are in some B movie
where the actress has lost her mind.
Why there? Why my hip? Don’t grip me there.
I feel nothing.

The cuts on my arm.
They quit bleeding minutes ago. Why touch them? Why try?
Nothing, again nothing.

Do you understand why? Why I can’t let you inside?
You don’t know the disgust. The horror of my body.
Don’t you see these things? Don’t you remember how we saw
that blonde girl, and that skinny girl, and that girl with slim ankles?
The perfect ones. Don’t you remember?


I remember well.
I remember well,
my brown eyes like bronzed cinnamon,
you asking “Are you okay? Are you okay?
Are. You. Okay?” No, no, I mean, yes.
Just stuck in the drawers of my brain,
always these papers in my head,
ready to blow through the room like rotting leaves.

But

O O O that Elliott Smith waltz--
It’s so saddening,
so maddening.
I shall not dress. I shall not paint myself as a doll.
What should I do now? What should I do?
I might rush out as I am, breasts, ass bouncing.
I might walk the avenues and curse the streets,
my hair showing so. What will I do tomorrow?
What will we ever do?

A hot shower at ten,
and, if it rains, we fuck at four.
I shall lie there naked,
pressing printless thumbs in fatty flesh,
waiting for you to come.

4 comments:

  1. I love your poetry. So raw and emotional and honest. (And I recognize that photo!) :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. So funny...I was just about to make a comment that said "Photo Credit: Amanda Morris." Ha ha.

    Oh, and thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. You are beautiful, inside and out. Thank you for being the woman that you are!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm tempted to print this out and tape it to my bathroom mirror so that Robert can see it. He doesn't understand when I say things like this to him, but your poem just beautifully captures the disconnect I often feel between his wanting to touch my body and my utter disgust for my body.

    I remember that photo, too! :) I was there! Hehehe. (Scary damn house....lol.)

    ReplyDelete