Sub Rosa

Sub Rosa Dec 2013

It's back and forth,
not too fast nor slow,
be the wind, be the calm,
be the strong, be the kind
starve, trim, nip, tuck
a perfect vessel
we pick you apart,
no matter.
and then I'm skinny and sad
and sliced up and over
and the sun rises without me each day
and then

I am quiet.

Sub Rosa Dec 2013

To the girl at the drive through (with the burns on her neck)

You walk like your shoes are made of coals.
Restless,
dancing on your toes as you waltz
between the window
and the kitchen.
chiseling a weak smile between sallow cheeks.
You're wiping loose strands of auburn from your lips,
tucking them back into your greasy visor
and praying for 2 a.m.
And by the time it rolls around,
and you have been sick from the smell
of angsty undergraduates
and overcooked, pre-frozen meat patties,
you could collapse in the parking lot
and let the snow bury you till spring.
Marching across the lot,
into a grimy liquor store
purchasing your poison at a questionable bargain.
supper that warms you inside out,
takes you blissfully to sunny dreams,
leaving you in heap on the kitchen floor
every ******* morning.
Moving through your woozy wake-up call
of sprinting to the bathroom to surrender your shame,
and wipe away the traces of a cold night on a linoleum mattress,
your fingers slipped
while you attempt to piece together this china-doll visage
that you shattered every night
and the curling iron caught you on the neck,
a perfect metaphor for the day-in-day-out
that roasts you on a spit,
slow and searing,
wrinkled and
wrung out into the flames,
crisp and blackened
like the very meat you served me
between stale bread
this evening.

Don't succumb to our fires,
not in a place so fried by it's own hand.
Take your tips, little lady,
and climb aboard a Greyhound
Use those legs and skip to a different coastline.
breathe new air, kiss a new shore
and roast over the fire
somewhere with better *****
and a nicer view.

because that's the only difference, isn't it?

Sub Rosa Dec 2013

Better to Burn Out Than to Fade Away

And so we lit another cigarette
and drowned ourselves
in the Wild Turkey.

Kissed till we asphyxiated
and fell to the ashes,
our matches still lit
and our fingers
still clasped.

Sub Rosa Dec 2013

How I Came Here (How I'll Leave)

We walked through high desert.
High,
and feeling deserted.

We sped down the interstate,
barefoot and dodging oncoming traffic.

I guess it's a miracle we found our way,
never strayed from the path
as it wound through swamp-land and quicksand

And soon we were strutting up the driveway
proud, our mascara running like warpaint
our feet had blistered and cracked.
But still, we arrived.
and still, or journey never came to a close.

After the crippling exhaustion of finding my way
to the threshold of home,
the maps were being drawn all over
so I fed myself with the knowledge of bandaging wounds
and repairing a flat on an empty road.

I will come to terms
and hear-out the voices of ****** and despairing,
who tell me with voices like roadside ditches
that the destination
is to become a memory.

to be a worn out engraving on a marble stone.
to be rotted beneath your feet,
deserted
and maybe high
up in some sort of heaven.

Sub Rosa Dec 2013

I'll unchain myself one day. (A personal little rant about this sinkhole we call home)

I'll miss the day we were crawling down main-street at 4 a.m
after we slept in the guest house and danced to CCR.
Tossing our beer cans in the neighbor's trash,
and singing with every molecule of our bodies
at the passing train
that deafened us from 20 feet away.
We ran wild beneath the overpass,
climbing the engines lying dormant on the tracks,
pretending we could fuel them up
ride across the nation in a rusted box car
write our names between the colors of illegible graffiti
and shout against the wind as we rolled through the hills.
And what a shame we didn't chase that passing train the way we could have.
What a shame we didn't let it carry us away
with nothing but our flannel jackets
and cut off shorts,
the lighter in my pocket,
and the thirst for a nice adventure.
We sauntered back to the diner,
exhausted by the scenery and faces,
our buzzes vanishing to the neon signs
of bars, seven bars on one street,
and the smell of coffee
as the elderly hobbled in with the morning paper
clutched between arthritic fingers.
Tomorrow, and everyday after,
a train will pass through town at 4:45 a.m.
and I can hop on the caboose any day I desire.
Each birthday slithers by,
flicking it's tongue in my direction,
tasting my youth.
And I glance again at the disintegrating old man
sitting alone in the window booth
wearing the face of a jailed old bird
with clipped wings and the grievous expression
of an ***** gent.
He would pass one day,
leaving a dusty, crumbling shanty to his children,
a box of crinkled newspaper clippings full of obituaries,
and an empty seat in the booth by the window,
where someday I will collapse in the a.m.
take my coffee black
and cut my husband's name from the paper,
wishing I was on that train
shedding this loose blotchy skin
for the rough hands I had
the day I chased the engine to the edge of town
and regretted the moment
that I turned around
and came home.

Sub Rosa Dec 2013

Honey and Roses

We found the table overcrowded
with empty wine glasses,
smudged with lipstick
and fogged with
mid-sip laughter,

You sat across from me,
staring disinterested
at the bustling table,
a drunken lot of babbling,
over-dressed, under-clothed women.
They were a swarm,
a cluster of buzzing worker bees
enjoying a loose night in a filthy bar.

Like the good lady I am,
I crossed my legs
and watched the purse of your lips
relax
into a grin.
I was ******* down the champagne,
sick with envy for the lipstick
that clung to your pout
and furious at the curtain of caramel hair,
begging my fingers to smooth the knots
and then mess it all up again.

When the table cleared,
and we were left,
calling cabs in the reaches of dawn,
you stole glances at my jewelry
and the jade of my irises.
They absorbed your aura
as you strode clumsily towards the blue taxi,
while I was busy imagining what your name might be
if you thought my dress was pretty,
or if you thought my perfume
would taste like berries
if you kissed it off my neck,
your heels had clacked all the way to the street.
and maybe it was
the curves under your silk purple dress,
or the smell of spilt wine on my black one,
or perhaps a combination of both,
that led to my overactive imagination,
or maybe you put them in my head
when you hesitated at the door of the cab
before beckoning me over
and pulling me in beside you
onto the cold leather
and your lavender fabric
where your perfume permeated the backseat.

It tasted of honey and roses.

Sub Rosa Dec 2013

RX

You came to me tonight,
for the first time in six months,
with wit and glamour,
and the fruit of your tongue.

My ship
is sinking,
the ocean,
a diabolic swell,
is spilling overboard.

I've known it was capsizing
since you first opened your mouth
and asked my name.
I watched you steer that wreckage
right into my stomach
and pull me aboard.
Humming, solemn,
my warnings unrecieved.

I've gotten the help I need,
a life boat,
shaped like a bottle of pills,
a chemical chaos
in my head.

I told you the waters
were unforgiving
that Poseidon's tantrums
would pull you
under.
Fueled by rattling orange containers
with a printed label reading:

KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN

with the side effects of

SUICIDAL THOUGHTS/FEELINGS
NAUSEA
DESIRE TO DROWN SHIPWRECK-SURVIVORS

You were right

You spoke,
as you held me below the surface.

You're sinking again,
in little powdery ovals
jammed in your throat
with all the wheezing frogs.
and the taste of a stranger's lip gloss
is washed away
with a glass of water
following
your recommended
daily dosage.