publish mc spluhblished.

I got published in the Ames Progressive, a paper I will most likely be writing for next semester, due mostly to my feminine wiles.

http://amesprogressive.org/2007/12/22/communist-in-red-lipstick/#more-95

12/29---Scholarship

Solicit me, I will wear a miniskirt in winter.
I was raised to comply
to cooperate
to smile when told to scrape a plate
to lie on a bed of nails
to look into your eyes when you told me
"This is not what I asked for.
No, not this."

I was raised to accept things
offer it up to a god made of plaster
(it sounds pagan, right?
but I think they just wanted to give a face to the name.)
I was raised to swallow, to avoid a mess
and destroy the evidence.

Like everyone before me, I was chosen to get fucked by America.
But I saw no amber waves
no purple mountains
no america! america! fuckme.
It didn't need to be told twice.
I was filmed and changed my name
into something more comfortable.

12/29---Like Dreaming of Cape Cod in a Red Lobster

You pried me open
in order to eat my heart in it's crustacean form.
Where it stared at you from the glass
piled on top of all your other casualties.
In the pseudo clambake anchor-sweater rich grandfather decor
you spotted me.
Too poor to afford the choicest, you saw me perform
my little jig across the death-arena
and under my smokescreen you slid.
a little shelter
some hot soup and a soft bed
(lean down on me)
Garnish the plate with a bottle of Xanax
maybe that blue fairy will turn you into a real boy.
Remove all that negative space
so you dont' notice the portrait at the center
it is you
it is her
it is her
it is not me.
The only god I knew was the promise
that you'd be gone when I woke
fork lodged into my chest
and you in the shower, dreaming of the sea.

burglary on hayward--12/7

Burglary on Hayward

So you've made me the ashy divorcee.
Cleopatra applying snakes like lip liner
in the gold hand mirror.
You brought with you ten years
and chisled them in as I slept with your pick axe tongue.
Ever the vampire, you sucked out the ink from my fingertips.
Ever the marauder, you took every bag of gold
that I'd hidden underneath the floorboards
and in safes beneath portraits of my ancestors.

You bit every coin and turned them to moonshine
that you would tip down the throat of every girl thereafter.
Cassanova in your lion mask
crunching on candy hearts
in the drive thru, flirting with the waitress
knowing better than God that you'll fuck her the next day.

So you've made me a chain smoker, have you?
(Is that the reason why my throat burns when I think of you?)
You've m ade me a wriggling fish
flip-flopping and gasping in the sunlight.
Now I crunch ice in my teeth and pass out feet first
but only because I've been persuaded
then left hitchhiking my way back.

Dolls---12/7

Dolls

After some chemical mischief
some acid alchemy conjured by the fairies of our addled minds
("hmm" he says "let's make this interesting
shall we?")
So in top hats and togas they performed surgery under the influence.
They removed us, the trees that had grown around their legs
and twined all eight arms together
we thought we had them bound for sure
but they sawed us off
with the intent that we'd whittle ourselves to nothing
but a few wood shavings spelling out the crude nicknames
they made for us when our backs were turned.
In the end, there was no rabbit-footed man
to bring us back to life.
No fairy king laughing to himself
no comical, smeary-eyed queen.
Just two girls lost in the muddy forest
where bears and wolves watch for the opportune moment
when we would turn into dolls
(eventually, girls always do
one way or another.)

groceries---12/10

I wrote this on the back of a test outline right after I was through with my women's lit final. I then had to hand it in to my professor, unbeknownst to me.
Oh snap.
Let me try to recreate it. Instead of studying for my french final, which I will inevitably fail.
-db.
***********************************************************

Groceries

Let's get green tea, babe.
I've been wanting your tongue to taste like lemon
even though it's cold outside.
Besides, it will help your throat, raw as blurry photographs.
I swear I saw old films flicker on your tonsils
(don't pretend I don't know
I saw it clear as 3 a.m.)

Let's get some hot chocolate, babe.
And for that I'd dress up naked as the mountain on the box
if I can wear your sheets like snow.
I'm all kitsch this time of year
sentimental and necessary as marshmallows.
(don't pretend you don't like it
I saw you smile even though you were told not to.)

And will you find my hair the next morning
trailing aimlessly on your pillow
whispering to you "I will not tell,
I will not tell."
Will you find an eyelash and blow it into the crevaces
where the cold creeps in like white mice?

Let's get you some vitamins, dear.
for I cannot bear the bitterness the pills leave in your mouth.
I'd like to wash it out with soap
I'd like to scold you, " never take those things again
never say those vulgar medicinal letters, the R, the X."
Let me fill you with C and E.

Let me pretend to be your wife, dear.
Just for today, let me sweep up the mess the dog left
when he scratched his way through your door.
Let me wear the apron today and cook the peppers we bought
those parrot-colored waxy skinned bells
which will curl up like November.
Let that month and it's shrivled days
like the Chinese restaurant and it's malformed chiles
like the Chinese restaurant and it's polyurathane Buddha
never be ours.

Leave me to sleep in the basement inside of you
where I will read the directions to old board games
and let what heat my body can produce
rise up into you.

pawn shop boy--12/10

People shouldn't fall in love this way.
But then again, everyone does.

-db.
********************************************************************************

Pawn Shop Boy.

I should have left you at the corner
of one night stand and friend.
I should have let you sink into your vaccum
of broken CD's and flashing numbers
(the credit card companies are calling.
I should be very afraid.)
and cold blankets that reached up
to meet the curtains of our eyes
smeared black from last night
and all it didn't mean.

I find you strange as bread mold.
I want to put you under a microscope
as easily as you slide onto me.
I want to adjust the lens and see your white fibers
tremble under my green eye.
The little black pods, considering me
considering how my organs must resemble brass valves
and my throat a plastic reed
from your third grade recorder
full of spit and knocked-out syllables.

I want to freeze onto you
like a tongue on a flagpole.
I want to sniff out the sunshine in your hair.
I want to feel the magnificence of your piano hands
with which you rocket me skyward, running into birds
like a flying windowpane.
I want to cradle you like snow around the dead crow
that I know lies where your heart should be
(but it is beating.
it is still beating.)