stephanie

where are you
these days
stephanie?
are you still
eating beans with sour cream
and listening to sergeant pepper's?
or are you
(as i suspected)
the stripper
from the spearmint rhino billboard
overlooking santa monica?
8th grade best friends
don't always keep in touch
but i still think of you
and when i do you're
cutting yourself shaving
pulling out the hair
between your eyebrows
rubbing your cheek raw
with braces

you taught me
all beauty
requires suffering
and you practiced
what you preached
the loveliest wound
on the block

stephanie
are you still?

Losers Weepers

I draw your face
again and again
a charicature I perfected
with years of practice--
hair curly and dark in a widow's peak
glasses square and scientific
lips thin
smiling only slightly--
a face only vaguely you
more my idea of you
I paint you
create you
remember you the way I want
Not shut away in a room
like my father
Not denying me closeness
like I'm a simple silly girl
Not keeping your heart
slightly out of my reach
like a bully
with the only ball
I ever really wanted
knowing all I could do
was beg and cry
as you dangled it over my head
saying
You want it?
You want it?
Too bad; it's mine
and I'm keeping it.

one divine hammer

this song
reminds me of a party you threw
when your parents were in vegas
we turned off the lights and turned on a strobe
you put in the album
and everyone danced
bouncing up and down
on the beige shag
drunk enough to stop pretending
that we were too cool to dance
i kissed your best friend
then i kissed his best friend

hurtling out of control
fourteen and flying
with a woman's body
and a girl's heart
that's what this song sounds like
to me

go ask aesop: moral or martyr complex?

men come to me
like lions with thorns in their paws.
they rage ceaselessly
take swings at me
insist i stay back
and growl at my touch
but never turn away
until i have
coaxed out
their burdens
and applied love salves
with the tiny fingers
of a mouse

then
they return to the jungle.
there's no eternal gratitude.
no golden mane for me to ride in.
only a pile of morals
and thorns.

just a few more
and i'll have enough
for my crown.