She wanted to pull him
tight to her body.
Like warm Sunday morning
covers in the winter.
But these covers
belonged to someone else
at the laundry mat.
Why is that?
The perfectly colored,
form fitted duvet
she had looked for
her whole fucking life...
of course she'd find it
while she was someone else's wife.
So she kept geography,
and geometry in the way.
Parallel unilaterals of
hurdles between their bodies.
But every moment
her eyes found his,
she melted into a gooey mess
that screamed "YES"
on the inside.

That booze is a beast,
right when you expect it least,
it slashes your throat
bleeding you to the floor
always taking more than
you're ready to set free.
Is it best to part ways?
That booze is a beast
that eats you alive
from the insides of your gut,
dumb fucking luck
pretending its not there.
Coursing through the
bloodstream..fucking up
all of your dreams and
ambitions.
Letting loose, stripping
societal inhibitions
and destroying families.
That booze is a beast
and it wakes the kids at night.
Shags em out of bed
with visions of Mom's head
banging on the walls.
Disturbing baby's sleep
with drunken bullshit
that screams and calls
for fucking up their halls
of precious memories.
Responsibilities?
Booze has but one...

She sat on her porch,
all knock-kneed and fruitless.
Her skin was folded
with edges of not so nice
tomfoolery of time.
Flesh like origami...
without the pretty swans.
Her freshly pressed
garments hung
from her bones..
flying buttresses of
days gone by.
The city folk shuttered
the walls her long dead
daddy had built.
Sticky notes flapped
upon her doors and
window panes - declaring
her departure,
but she wouldn't read them.
The chaperones came.
Parcels neatly stacked
by her feet,
draped with a sheet,
looked easy enough to move.

"We can only take two"
the chaperones said.

She believed differently.

"Oh, then I have one for
each of you" she stated.

Her lanky arms reached
tenderly under the sheet,
and drew double steel barrels,
the ones her long
dead daddy used on the farm.
Many a head of cattle met
this fate,
landing on the family table
in slabs of steak mixed
with potatoes and gravy.
Ah, that was memories ago.

"We can only take two"
the chaperones had said.
So there, on her porch,
she shot them dually dead.

Wet and stringy webs
that cling to our faces
as we dance.
No matter how fast
we clear them off,
more pile on.
Our maid skills will
never be enough
to remove them.
We continue our waltz.
We salsa through the webs
with our trusty Sawzall,
broom heads and dusters.
We can do this.
We can meringue well
enough to help our
children grow,
well enough to help
them know
that we love them...
and show them
how healthy love can be.
You and me.
We dance, our
Samba so steamy
that it melts the webs away.
Someday our kids
will be grown, and we?
We will grow old
and continue the rhythm
gifted to us by chance.
We will dance.

I am not a pampered girl.
I'm not in need
of the finer items
that make others feel
important.
I am not riddled with
fairy tales and runway dress.
Every single morning,
my hair is a mess and
I dare not speak till I've
had my fucking coffee.
Feelings will get hurt if
I blurt out decaffeinated thoughts.
I am not a pampered girl,
and I do not filter well.
But I love immensely
and I can build a fire
like nobody's business.
I can turn wrenches
get muddy
digging trenches
and build benches,
the kind that last forever.
I am not a Barbie doll
that hangs upon the arm.
I can carry heavy loads
and kiss warty toads
without complaint at all.
But I am not a Barbie doll.

My heart weeps for her.
Stiff legs and a cane
under a scruffy navy blue parka.
She hobbles, more fragile now
than ever before.
She has no one left.
No one that gives a
good God damn.
Cold nights, no lights,
all of her cats dead and gone.
Time can be such a bitch.
It slips away and takes
all the love and memories
with it.

Familiar souls staring out
through frosty windows
that face each other.
Aching from the inside
out.
Longing to make the leap,
but the tethers never break.
So they exist, only inches apart.
To see...to watch and listen.
To feel that kindred warmth
disembodied between them,
radiating.
But they never touch.
Dimensional bliss is
someone else's twisted
dream.