And Stretch.

Paradigms

Scaffolds

Frameworks

Contexts

Houses

Brackets

Trackers

Arms

Containment Fields

And Fences.

I can’t hold my neck up.

Without my rings

Bindings

Bandages

Bras

Trusses

Braces

Cases

Dressing down

Stopping up

Finger Dyking

Waiting staunch

Button up

To the neck

With

Soiled hands

From

Busy work

Hair growing

Springing and

Merging

Bursting forth

Headway

Forging

Airing

Venting

Arcing freely

Curling

Unfurling

Stretch to the

Outer limits

Of the edges

Of

Your body.

Keep Going

Into the

Echoes of

The Echoes.

Run

Run

Run.

SKINNY

Skinny wafer

Paper dry

And Sunken.

Shiny, stretched

Animal skin.

Drum like,

Waxy.

Concave shadows,

Bones and angles

My breath whistles

Through

My depleted body;

A tumbleweed

In a ghost town.

What embodies me now

If not flesh or blood?

Everything is retreating,

Shutting down.

My mirror image

Laughs cadaverous,

Unconcerned,

As I hollow out.

Cavernous holes form

On the landscape of my pelvis.

The hills of my breasts retreat

And retreat again,

Much to my delight.

Is there a space for my spirit?

A receptacle for my essence?

Will my personality step out for a minute

To buy some milk and cigarettes

And not return?

Perhaps leaving me

Desert like devoid

Voided and depleted.

My ovaries are tiny nuggets

Fossils showing the life they

Could once supply.

I hold that golden key,

But here on in

I am Mussolini.

Nothing alights my tongue

Unless I give permission

And I don’t give permission.

Is my smile hideous

And crazed?

A laughing skull?

I am at one with this.

Good better best,

Never let it rest,

Until your good is better,

And your better

Is best.

PANDORA'S BOX

The end of the world

Will not be fast

No explosions

No kind, quick finish.

Biblical and spectacular.

Look out the window

Of your climate-controlled

House.

And witness it now

As the birds sing

The sun shines

And pop music plays on the radio

An apocalypse is happening

With every straw found

In the gullet of an aquatic bird,

With every metre of greying coral

With every striking off the list of

Another extinct species.

A rheumy bloom is spilling

Edging forward and encroaching

The planet looks sick

A vulnerable

Preciousness, pleading

And we pull down the shutters

Don the Aviators

Put our hands over our ears and sing

La la la la la

And enjoy the mild weather.

It’s easy to ignore.

Listen little human

Who has inherited the world,

You are entitled to nothing

This gift of our evolution

Has rendered us maniacs

Killing, marauding, pillaging

Taking.

When we have come to our senses

Too late,

And the leavings of the party are strewn

We maniacs will expect the Earth to

Open her arms to the prodigal son

Allow us to prostrate ourselves

Demand forgiveness

Bandage gashes

Sing a lullaby.

Too late.

I fear,

Too late.

Will we be orbiting flotsam

Universal waste

Washed up,

Guilty?

I pray there is time.

But I’m frightened

That there isn’t.

I look down

At my perfect five year old

And look for the answer.

And know there is always

Hope at the bottom of

Pandora’s Box.

https://soundcloud.com/user460194194/dysmorph-depleted-body

Cross-Pollinated.

I let you whisper in my ear when we’re out

And I smile conspiratorially.

Together we are untouchable.

My heart rattles the beat of us

In the sun in the car

With the beach and

Our music speeding toward a house full

Of towels and sundresses

We smell of sunblock

And my sunberry skin

I, slicked with salt, I

And a spattering of sand

With sunned in strap marks

On my neck.

You peel away my

Still damp bikini top

 To see my tiny cold nipple

And warm it with your mouth

Everything is there

My whole world is inside your

Warm mouth.

As the sun sinks our

 Sunburn ascends with

Prickle warmth, itchy

And memory laden

I haven’t been burnt

Since childhood

It is a good pain

I slip between cold sheets

And we lock legs

You palm my belly

My body arches and we slide into a knot

That reaches all the places

And we knotted find

Our own rhythm

The back and forward of love, of lust of

Pleasure of need

And we gently increase

Our speed our muscles harden

I notice a bead of sweat

On your brow

And I think about

Licking it off

I let you quicken

I feel you fatten and plump

You open your mouth and your

Cry coils into mine

What is this moment?

This coming of us?

How loud and unabashed

We are never more vulnerable

Or more beautiful than

When locked in fleeting ecstasy.

My skin is perfumed with you

I have scented your hands

We have cross-pollinated

And we lay

Basking in that

Ancient ache

Dropping into a satisfying

Exhaustion.