Choke

I choke on my words.
They pool up in my mouth until I can't swallow them
and then they block my throat and I can't breathe.

I squirm and scream and struggle
but they continue to choke me
and they begin to pour from my mouth and wrap around my neck
and they form a rope, a noose
and tighten around my neck like a great snake.

I stop fighting.
I can't anymore because I'm weak against the power of suffocation
and my muscles relax
and my head stops spinning
and there's a sudden warmth over my body
and now I feel like maybe it was for the best
and then everything fades...

and all I see

is darkness.

Bitter Truths

When I was little, I tasted baker's chocolate.
I snatched it up greedily,
with stubby, sticky fingers
and devoured it whole,
before realizing, with a gag,
that it was nothing like the chocolate I had known before.
It was bitter, and dark,
without caramel or nougat
or peanuts or almonds
to weaken its sour flavor.
I had envisioned the sweetness
the sugar that would linger on my tongue...
I was met with a strong, ugly taste--
a hideous taste--
I couldn't swallow.
I couldn't bring it to my throat.
I chewed it quickly
(I had to finish)
I chewed it, my eyes squeezed shut,
my nose pinched between my pointer finger and thumb.
I gulped it down and flushed out my mouth,
with water, with milk, with soda, with juice, with a spoon of pure white sugar,
but the taste never left; it was there the next day and the next week and the next month and the next year
and the next year, and the next year, and the next--

And the next decade, and the next century,
until I was rotting beneath the ground
until the worms gnawed at my decaying flesh
until I dissolved into dust,
until the dust became earth,
and the Earth became nothing,
and I was nothing, too,
and I simply ceased to be.

But that's how we grow up.

Little Girls

Little girls, little girls, little girls
Have something to offer in the form of skirts and flavored lip balm
They don't quite understand but they follow the example
Of their high-heeled, lipsticked mothers.

Little girls get older and stop crying over scraped knees.
Instead crying over boys once they see that they possess
The ripe red fruit that is never meant for them
Daddies guard their precious treasures but daughters give out bite sized pieces
In the form of chaste kisses.

Teenage girls are the troublesome ones
They are a hot commodity and they know it
They are pretty and ripe and tantalizing
They're allowed to be gazed at and groped for and wanted
But never, ever to be picked
So they play the dangerous game of cat and mouse
Until they're finally captured.

Little girls don't stay little
They become women whose greatest possession
Exists folded neatly between their hairless legs.
They become mothers and wives
And keep on showing, but never telling
Because this isn't their game to play.

Cavities

You were a stranger with promises of caramelized affection
With a smile so sincere and a smooth, warm voice
I was a child with a sweet tooth

You were the Novocaine, numbing the ache
Of the last man to drill a hole in my heart
I was desperate for relief

You went down like a packet of Sweet'N Low
Saccharine, syrupy, pleasant, til that awful aftertaste
I was left with a bitter reminder of you on my tongue

You crumpled me up like an empty gum wrapper
Spat your experience on me 'cause you'd been chewing too long
I was thrown aside

Now you lure another girl in
How long will you go this time
before you start to make her rot?

Black Market Bodies

In my head I see your rosy cheeks
And taste your fat lips, gritty and sweet like unrefined sugar
While your warm hands rest on my heavy hips
And your heart holds up my brain
Exchanging fantasy for a reality that bounces
Between your ribcage and my skull

Dust

Let's just stay here forever, loving each other with unrestrained
passion and blind devotion until we burn away our flesh
beyond recognition and all we have are our bare,
ugly bones with no eyes to see or ears to hear, 

just dull white skeletons that cling to one

 another so tight that we
collapse into a pile of 

homogeneous 

dust.

Virginia Summer

Humid, sticky air presses down on me
While the sun is high in the sky
Sweat soaks through my shirt
Mosquitoes gnaw on my exposed skin
There's no escape from this oppressive heat

Wind rips at the trees greedily
As rain pours from an unforgiving sky
Lightning illuminates the world for a moment
In a bizarre bluish haze
Thunder rumbles in the distance, an ominous warning

A gentle breeze teases me
The moon shines down kindly
As I lie in the wet grass
Humidity keeps me from feeling the chill
Of this cool Virginia night