The Girl That Was
The Genie in My Genes
morning
sandpaper lids open red, sharp as tacks
the Qareen, my evil Jinn peeks out of her bottle
through sly-slit, glassy eyes and waits
patient as a cancer cell
she picks at the threads of the memory reruns
that bind her straight-jacket tight
the stitches lock away our madness
we are slow and we are sad
we are a thousand broken promises as our knuckles grow white
pick by pick
lie by lie
drop by drop
we unravel
to rub the lamp, release the Shaytaan
born of phenol spatters and smolders from an ancient fire
she floats easy like oil on water to breathe the whiskey air
and a husk of me runs heedless black-out free
until morning
when salt drops quench my sandpaper lids open and
I run to hug the babies, sing silly wake-up songs, flip pancakes
and pray one day’s balm-sweet syrup can turn it all over
can one afternoon’s snow angels
soothe the burns
branded in the tender hearts
and wide eyes, wary and watching me
God, grant me one magic wish
let me speak heaven’s name
loud as a thunderclap slap
until it fills my empty core
let me seal the cave where she hides
let me kill the Genie in my genes
let me drown her whispered lies in yellow blooms
so at last I hear my children laugh in sunny rooms
amid the scent of daffodils
Gone Crazy - Back Soon?
I’ve never much liked this carnival lot
in life the shrinks prescribe for me.
It’s not their fate to shiver and shake
when the iron gate swings every which way
and all the pins and loose screws in this nut fracture
as I become unhinged.
They can’t slip past the turnstile to my wonky world
or get lost in the madding crowd
when I break out for another spin.
For it’s me; I am the clown who endures
with a free ticket to crazy town stamped on my DNA
a freak of nature by design
hell-bent to climb the clickety-clack
to ride the roller-coaster, mood-swing track –
the bipolar whirligig
up to heaven then hell and back
over and over and over again.
Spectacular MDs, they spectate
but they can’t clutch ticket stubs
for they play one game:
whack-a-mole, whack-a-me, whack my dopamine
epinephrine, serotonin and GABA.
These snakes in the grass
make me swish and swirl
to watch the crazy girl slither
through her leaky gray-matter soup.
They tailor the white cotton tight
to keep the sane in knots.
My silent vow?
Do not, do not, do not
tilt a whirl or loop de loop
or this ride may never stop.
It’s too late to flee the midway faces,
the ambulance smiles, one red eye flashing,
at me behind doors that frown inside, upside down.
“Set me free,” I plead through my keyhole mouth
but it’s no use.
Time to say, “bye-bye, free will,”
time to take my cotton-tongue, fuzzy, dead-head pills.
For when they lock your dreams in a bell jar
no one can hear you scream.
The Girl That Was Trilogy
Hunky Dunk Drunk
Did you know her?
Before. The girl that was …
there.
Perched atop the barstool with the
pink-on-gray, sprayed hair?
The silly little thing
in that black-and-white ribbon bra.
Our young Alysa, inside-out, entitled,
the girl that saw vast vistas
through jaded-green Gizo eyes
then slipped out of focus, rose-petal soft
for the cynical, wicked and wise.
Tripping high in her Louboutin knockoffs
A rainbow feast made up for the jerk-off, hungry hunks.
Yes, the girl that was, was OMG so lit.
Thundering going nowhere she’d sit
blow through each lazy day.
blown-out,
a shimmering, spinner-bait lure. Shiny crazy, on the edge.
“Hey, cutie, what’s your sign?” she’d giggle, then demure.
“I’m Sagittarius A and you’re sublime.”
Do you recall?
How she wore that @i_am_kiko avatar chic
IRL, just a click-bait amulet?
Yet no one dared to call this baby on her bullshit.
Do you recall the girl that was?
One hair-twirl, giggle fit from losing it all?
Step by step to crazy town, we'd watch, she'd dazzle, no one dared bring her down
'cause the girl that was made our happy hours
and nights, high-noon bright,
though we sniggered trash about her
when she was out of our spotlight.
Night after gnarly night
the girl that was held court,
swatting barfly boys like a Samurai,
Onna Bugeisha, our nubile noble, cut them short.
Fresh-faced, on the countertop, dancing free-reign
or hunky dunk, off-the barstool, drunk.
She loved us all until last call, her get-lucky chime, that turned our
heads each and every time.
The Girl That Was Trilogy
On the Dive, Taken
One night six shots past stupid
the girl that was aimed her Geisha fan
at a freak of a faux-gangsta, viper man
who’d slithered through the ganja wisp,
playing chess not checkers
to make her action his.
That astral spider spun his whirligig web
full of roses, kisses, sweet gin fizzes.
He locked the girl that was in a glass-pipe haze,
until she crumbled in a spliff-laced blaze.
Hand in hand they walked away.
Caught, bought and sold, the girl that was did as she was told.
In the no-tell motel that Romeo razed her hard as hell.
His drag-silk spinnerets spun the girl that was, dizzy down
then he tattooed his brand as her ascension crown.
The girl that was answered to her street-regal name
all tricked out to play his game.
Pumped up with cherry Chapstick lips
cuffed tight in pimp-slap bracelets
and a Chiclet choker
from the man who broke her.
The Girl That Was Trilogy
Going Down, She’s Out
Bouncy in a halter top and spandex mini-skirt
the girl that was zig-zagged the stroll
fingernails chipped, edged with dirt
smiling wide until it hurt.
How she rolled, rubber-souling, stinking of sweat,
smoke, and greasy dub-wads stashed beneath her floor.
Spinning round-and-round, a wound-up trick top.
Do you recall how we spilled the tea watching the girl that was
peek through Amy Winehouse rims
from her spot on the lizard lot, lost without him?
The girl that was, aching to hear his spider, ring-tone chime,
longing for her man to call her tune
one last time.
From the window, we watched the girl that was
pace the five-corner devil trap.
Where her tears can’t trickle.
Her nods don’t nap.
But don’t hang those pinprick scars on her fickle bar friends.
We’d long seen her direction - Zugzwang - the girl that was, was doomed to end.
Me? I still see her soft eyes turned green coralline algae.
And think of her flying through some never-ever-after dream
where a lilt of the girl that was, lives fast, fetching and free.
But that’s just me.
I’m not the girl that was.
I’m the girl she was meant to be.
Fly Bye-Bye, Mean Girls
hear the chit-chat, chatter of the mean girls
the ones-who-matter-most-on-the-scene, girls
the ones-who-always-gotta-be-seen girls
who-suck-up-so-much-air- it’s-obscene, girls
looking down from their designer lives
strutting their hottie-tot, hot stuff
so sleek, so chill
always ready and dressed to kill
logos, labels and neon-pink hair ties,
the mean girls turned whisper-gossip into giggle-gospel lies
throwing shade and shilling shame
laying waste to all the fresh and new
in an age-old, ugly girl game
hear the hanging-out-tight-in-a-pack girls
the ones-who-know-they-always-got-the-knack girls
the ones-who-always-stab-you-in-the-back girls
tripping so fine along the gauntlet, locker line
just in time for the dismissal chime
until one freak-of-nature girl
broke the chains and the pain of their mean-girl world
a geek with a brain who took a stand
grabbed the upper hand from the meanest of the mean
the mean-girl, queen bee - how she cut her down to size
so every girl could see the lies
on that geek-girl day of victory
all the geek-girl, hand-me-down, four-eyes
shone a laser light, geek-girl, eye-bright stare
free at last from the mean-girl cage
no more mascara in a trickle trace
with all them mean girls in their place
she slapped them down and burned away
all that salty, mean-girl,
lit-dope, Gucci rage
My Mom-Bomb, Zombie Shell
Like mercury, she rose and fell
her wrath burned
a sun-stricken child
entombed in icy sorrow
and touched by an evil fire.
My mom-bomb, zombie shell
carries me inside
a cutch bag of crazy.
I still measure memories
in the temperature of a life run off the rails.
My mom-bomb, zombie shell, she kindles with each season
there ain’t no rhyme or reason to my mom-bomb, zombie shell.
Under a bright-as-the-light-before-a-mushroom-cloud sky my mom-bomb, zombie shell and I
stroll through waves of wilting heat.
She struts with wings beneath her feet.
as saucy hips swell and swing
for all the daddies cat calling
across the street.
As she shimmies, each stiletto step
brands the steamy concrete, wet with willow flesh that sweats and swelters.
How I long to build a mom-bomb, zombie-shell, fallout shelter.
When red leaves fall the time is near
she’s reached the end of days, I fear.
My mom-bomb, zombie shell too soon,
too late, lost at twilight’s gate in hell.
Drip, drip cheeks, a flood of tears.
The sound of madness growing near.
Hush her hurt, please stop that sound
or she’ll drag the whole world down.
She moves like molasses, leaks a gray-robed, ratty cry
and for the season, a blessed burn-out bids goodbye.
When snow blankets the gray grass
my mom-bomb, zombie shell sleeps
a pillar of ash.
I wait lonely until spring when, once again, the coffin bell will ring
and my mom-bomb, zombie shell, she’ll grow wings.
We’ll fly into the firestorm rain.
And my mom-bomb, zombie shell?
She’ll rise again.
Daddy
Daddy, once you were a mountain
I could not move
yet had no desire to climb.
Even volcanoes crumble
with time.
Daddy, you turned my bedrock to ash,
laughed at my tears lost in your quicksand.
You left this woman with a tiny heart
marred by your turtle-back brand –
the imprint of your hand.
I think I was born shell-shocked
locked in a war with you.
Time to lay my weapons down
though there are fossils of you
embedded in my heels.
So watch me, watch me, Daddy,
watch your little girl stomp your memory down to purgatory.
I'll fire-walk a bed of coals
to burn the skin smooth
and heal all I cannot forget.
Sweet Babe Lost
I know she wasn’t broken born
those coal-black warrior eyes
could always pierce my green-greed perjuries
and now I’ve awoken, weary, worn
her truth trumps all my lies and in
all ways she can’t love me
she drank from a sippy cup
laced with ghosts that I set free
my fight to lock my poisons up
still screams across her memories
do her demons ever sleep?
the ones I tried to bury deep
inside but could not hide?
or is she lost adrift
in nightmare nights
when the wicked witch took flight?
wielding promises like broken shards
a mommy-sweet turned latch-key guard
who locked her babe in a twisted land
where up was down, and easy
so damned hard
it may take years to stem her fears
maybe one day, maybe never
for now, my wish
is her command
my sweet babe, lost forever
forever, my sweet babe, lost
lost forever, my sweet babe?
Little Red Riding’s Tears
I am
a poet, a liar, a slut, a nun, a soothsaying seer
who no longer comes undone
reared in a body with a mutton-penned mind
looped in an endless glitch in time
my little-lamb ears, stained and sheared
by the tint of pictures from yesteryear.
I was
a woman who rocked babies in a lambskin, leather coat of arms
safe in sugar-spice layers from little-girl harms
until I gobbled up all the big-bad-wolf nights.
Ate the jutting jaw
and spit out the fist that warped
all reason and insight.
Now I sing a new lullaby at night.
Goodbye, baby bunting,
let Daddy come a-hunting
to fetch his little rabbit skin –
I’ll unwrap his baby bunting sins.
Sisters
Secrets locked up tight.
Dark whispers under covers.
Two souls fight for light.
How the Bough Breaks
above the bedroom door, the black strip slips
to show
the leather he will pitch in a fit
of fire out the corner of his evil eye
two ladybug runaways
fly away from home
to flee the
“Don’t you worry, there’s more where that came from.”
winsome shoots pump
chubby knees push precious pistons hard
on a rusty green trike’s race to be home free
from the lusty looks
that hide undercover in tales from nursery picture books
apple cheeks, wet
sweat runs down ribbons of regret
and drips in dirty drops
on the run from whap-slap welts
and the red-rim rings around
the black-hole eyes
from the night before
three prisoners
captives in a secret war where Mommies bleed and cry
breaking, brave hearts
such tender sweet peas
breaking brittle, fresh
flash-frozen in time
breaking brittle
waiting, ripe for the day
they’ll slip the leather vines
and fly away past
his punish line
The Chair
that day lanky, long-limbed you
broke through my back door
in smeared jeans, caked with streaks of red
and blue
like a king, unaware your world
was hanging by a string
to pitch a patchwork on my floor –
your quilt of guilt squares from a scattered,
shattered mind
a murky green raven, a zombie bare-bones skull, shimmering white
with fangs that dripped blood from one last bite
the broken eyes of a long-departed soul
who peered through a black-pitched haze, unholy, yet still whole
a slip of a dusty-rose, skin-blistered dancer
lost in lunatic desire
her will, chaotic within a widening gyre
the squares you tossed on my floor shook me
to the core
your far-too-nimble mind was lost, locked in an inner joust,
an endless race, in a world defined
by painted lines
I knew you thought your steps to hell were paved with sane intentions
no mother’s love, I knew, could stem the tide of delusion and deception
that gripped my two-hundred-pound, too-quick-to-bruise bruit
caught in the curse of a maddened mind
in the grip of its gale
I knew
you’d long left me behind
that day I made my no-win choice
a bite-plate, seventy to one hundred
and twenty volts, in unilateral zaps
to fry the crazy moot
Shall I wear a crown of thorns or doctored devil horns?
Sophie's or Hobson's? The choice still haunts
when the eyes
of my part-zombie man taunt.
The question.
Did I trade a spirit for a life
to end my torment
or to ease your strife?
