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Sub Rosa Dec 2013
Our brains are jellied by the surreal.
Wires disconnected, rearranged,
our circuit boards frazzled.
The reflections of human faces and bodies
scrambled signals.
Eyes not looking past the crooked fingers
or freckles.
All you see is the dirt, the rust,
you can hear only the creaking joints,
and the groans of your muscles.
But your audience, your lovers and families,
they don't know about those awful sounds
they only see the flowers, hear the music,
a melody of glowing bare shoulders
and a chest filled with life,
a hundred systems,
working in unison to hold up your head.
I never liked the way my hips stuck out,
my ribs, flesh pulled taught against the bones.
Or my pale skin,
I glow in the sunshine.
Baking soda, salt,
awful tasting elements alone,
but they both get mixed into the batter,
overpowered by golden eggs,
sinful sugars,
and the cake itself,
baking soda and all,
well,
it's ******* delicious.
Sub Rosa Dec 2013
Do yourself a favor and keep scrolling.
Our first snowfall began at 9 a.m. this very morning.

Down came crystal ice, lacy clouds, and with it came the seasonal side of human troubles. I found my self transformed into a filthy romantic, gazing longingly out the window, wrapped in a wool blanket and holding my little brother who smiled at the Frosty the Snowman cartoon on TV. With the cold always comes the chills. The ones that shimmy up your shirt as you stand in the bathroom, trying not to look in the mirror while you undress. The chills that creep into your veins through open wounds and wind themselves around your rib-cage. I couldn't feel the warm air shooting from the vents while I sat beside them. I couldn't taste the Jack-In-The-Box daddy brought home at midnight. He put on an old movie and slowly everyone drifted to sleep. That's when I stole a few hours for myself. Taking my little doe-eyed puppy out into the yard, tossing him into a snowdrift for the first time. He cowered there for a moment, before darting back onto the deck, staring in awe and terror down at the snow. I lit a stolen cigarette and plopped down into the freezing mess.

I had a little too much to eat and felt like sleeping right there in my dampened jeans and Joe's Crab Shack t-shirt. I thought about putting out the Pal-Mal stick and being a straight-laced little girl for the holidays. I thought about the stinging of my latest stress-relief therapy (a bit of a home remedy) and also about Robert Plant's hair. Soon enough, after endless replays of my favorite music videos, my mind had emptied. The frigid air had ****** all my thoughts and memories from my head like a vacuum cleaner. All that remained was a sense of impending doom. A needle in the base of my skull, every nerve-ending in my body was pinched by icy fingers. Someone was calling my name from inside me, My own skin was shifting and rippling over my muscles, trembling and tingling. There was somewhere I had to be, something I should be doing, someone who needed my help. I sat up and looked around the yard, from the chain link fence, to the gorgeous view of the valley and the city *******, to the ugly siding of my manufactured home. My eyes darted back and forth, my puppy, the chicken house, the dead rose bush. I was alone, alone with my dog in a white miracle. Every snowflake looked like a stray bullet, raining down on me from the gods, but kissing my cheeks and melting on my feverish skin. I wished i could fall like that, and drip onto someone's lips or cling to their eyelashes.  But i was here, alone in the darkness with smoke-scented gloves and breath, in a yard of dead grass frozen in a flood.And then I started to cry. I didn't know why, I still have no idea what kind of madness washed over me as I shivered, my *** soaked and my nose running. But I sobbed and sobbed and put my head between my knees. The snow had gathered on the shoulders of my woolen pea-coat and sprinkled down as I shook and gasped, I must have sat there for half an hour, listening to a train go by in the valley, singing to the empty streets, trying to pull myself together. I'm still shivering even sitting here in my warm bed. But at that moment, I was as fragile and fleeting as the very dust that had settled across the entire town.

I managed to dry my eyes and stumble back through the front door tailed by a whimpering brown pup. Everyone, still crashed on the couches and floor, unaware of the scraggly disaster crawling through the living room. The Christmas tree twinkled in the corner and the TV played static. I kissed my baby brother on the forehead and slipped my lighter back into my coat pocket. The season had set in, the snow was here to stay. I was left wondering about the madness of  the season and the sanity of the skies.

Every year,  water freezes mid air and falls onto the earth in heaps of cold white heaven. It's a ******* miracle. It happens every year without fail and yet somehow it surprises and amazes us every time.
What is it about the cold that chills us so?
I sound like an angsty basketcase.
Someone throw me off a cliff before I do it myself.
I always thought a good ******-ending would be a nice touch to my biography.
My night was awful.
Sub Rosa Dec 2013
winded and chilled.
did your feathers get ruffled
as you flew in from the storm?
molting on my carpet
take a bath, birdy.
cleanse those wings
and wash your bony knees.
I don't want to see those nasty bruises
so cover your skin
and fly away again.
let me see those eyes, birdy.
have you a cold or
did the bitter cold
leave you blind?
better for you,
to see not with eyes but with frail
birdy fingers.
don't hate your world, birdy.
you're no more
no less
than any other ******
who shoves past you in the supermarket.
we all came out of a filthy ******* ******
so climb off your high horse
and get in line.
we're all just waiting around
til someone digs us hole
or lights us on fire.
so birdy,
if you can help it,
don't be a *******.
out you go,
into the cold.
smile birdy,
be glad for the sun in the mornings.
Sub Rosa Nov 2013
We all wear the skins of our worst enemy.
Sub Rosa Nov 2013
Mama can sing lullabies to the baby
for 18 years
and daddy can come and go,
leaving the garden with a message
for baby:

'You have a river inside you.
white water and grizzly bears
chasing salmon.
the world is wild, baby.'

Green-eyed child stumbles away from the nest
with a head of butterflies,
soft hands.
She didn't see the meteor
when it fell form the heavens
and struck her baby face.

She saw clearly
for the fist time
a world without mother's song.
Millions, billions
of men and women,
digging a pit in the cold earth.

'To the world, dear baby,
you are but flesh
and working arms.
So pick up a shovel'
said the man in the suit.

'Start digging.
We're going to hell'
Sub Rosa Nov 2013
I recall those cosmic brownies from my childhood
and the little kool-aid drinks we picked out from the 7-11
with coins from the belly of our couch cushions.
Watching Judge Judy in the afternoons
on grandma's squishy sofa
thinking that 'law' and 'court'
were words you used when your room-mate
didn't pay her rent on time
or when your boyfriend used your credit card
to take out the ***** from down the street.
So we plucked the feet off the daddy-long-legs
and lit ants on fire
when the swimming pool was closed.
Names like
Charles Manson
Ted Bundy
never sparked fear in our bodies
never bred anger or sadness in our hearts.
So we crawled through our tunnels past youth and adolescence
awoke to a world where
men and women
who slaughtered dozens of innocents like cattle
are being served breakfast by the men and women we trust
to keep us safe at night
while we sleep in our soft beds
more vulnerable
than the devils who leave us in fear.
Sub Rosa Nov 2013
Death is a filthy temptress,
but a beautiful one.
Anyone who disagrees
is either dying,
or in denial.
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