Becoming an animal is not so bad
when your wings are humming, singing,
when the passionate mane is yours,

There’s something you have of me
The memory of dark skies
Trapped in words faded, unspoken
And a letter soaked in tears
Burn that soft paper return me, o what is mine

Sixteen years after Buggles’ one-hit wonder,
we were still smacking snooze-buttons on clock radios,
jarred awake by Top 40 and traffic on the nines.
We listened on the bus going to and from school.
We listened in the locker room.

It happened beneath a picture of a saint
The night HE showed no restraint
HE is a common coward, a rapist, a diseased pig

It’s not about those who get flushed out surreptitiously
as a scarlet blob between thighs 
Neither is it about those who are scraped out of wombs
With rusty tools of quacks in back alley 

Stomach 
divided from itself,
a walling off of that most 
primal of desires. A journey that will take her
through scalpels and recovery rooms, leave her body

Women are silent flowers
Prettiest when quiet
We do not wilt

She is shiny
with accomplishment,
easily mobile,
made up and done up

My body of water 
is the Pacific, 

a fluid flow expanding, 
receding,

Dopamine blocked 
Hindering you 
To tremble 

each mouthful a creation, of
chaos + war + destruction
within.