TheCourtRose

Bailing out my life with a bright blue bucket The drain is clogged, you see and now I'm strong-arming the waste Left to fester and mold, the floor becomes slick and dark There's no standing in the fetid water Can't wait for a plumber Each day I grab the bucket, a plastic, robin's egg blue and bail a little out at a time I could be somewhere else, with drains that work and plaster that isn't crackling inside the walls But this life belongs to me and I will bail out the mess, ounce by ounce No one can take this bright blue life from me

angry tiger stripes ripped into skin dewy childhood flesh coerced into maturity now scars and spider silk, trailing behind these knees, over these breasts, across these hips ivory road maps

1 Nymphaea caerulea , like pale blue smoke hanging from your lips, and rivers running beneath your skin A dab of essence oil at the hollow of your throat, or the delicate lines of your wrists Such fragile wrists You would protest in pain as I tugged and tugged, wanting you to play with me No hand could pluck you from your watery rest An Egyptian sacrament, a divine province There was no room for me 2 She has freckle on the middle toe of her right foot I had forgotten that, but saw it quite clearly Boney toes grappling anxiously with lush grass, soles so dry they crack against pervading sunbeams Watching her feet is easier than seeing her face She can't sit still again We both know what that means Coming down, going up One or the other, and far away from me The truth hanging, an unfinished game between us Upturned checker boards or cheating at Hungry Hungry Hippos It's easier to play Solitaire than to lose to her My eyes hang onto her toes like crook

Familiar Discontentment like acid in my bones. Eating, gnawing, chewing from the inside- out. Thoughts, wondrous, dark thoughts, intangible and useless without manifestation. Lamenting the false promises of others, but nothing to give but empty dreams, too. So hungry for a life of purpose. Starving. Nothing so far can slake this appetite, eating me alive. Old plans trickle heedlessly to the floor from a mouth slack with indecision. No matter where I go, who I love, where I live, eventually the Discontentment opens its gaping maw- swallowing me away, crunching my bones and smiling, with my ragged flesh caught in its teeth.