Six years old, she climbs onto the counter-top, peering into her reflection. “Mommy!” She gasps! “Is that me?”.

Beautiful.

Another late night out

It was after the show

on the strip

Cliché to say they’re gone, wings pinned
behind the supple backs, longings fled
with the Steller jays’ flitting from porch to branch.

I find you years before you become admirable.
You were given to me without choice.
With force I tried to hide the weakness,
arbitrary rules, the double edged blade that you came with.

what happens when
you discover that
when I yell
I yell
really really loud

Girls made of thick thread,
with hearts that chase desires

Come to drum this metal roof in sixteenth
and thirty-second notes, to puddle, gouge
a dirt road that spins the tires’ worn teeth.

I sit with the girls that hide behind their books,
and hurry through the hallways hoping no one would look
The girls that stand in front of mirrors

someone has fashioned me
with a wretched beehive
and left me to tend it

If she squeezes me any tighter
I’ll burst
I was just a pink water balloon,

I am
salt and pepper follicles
an antique framed
limited edition preserved
treasure
unique, among
the ebony and ivory
of life.

legs thinner than sipping straws
supporting a body too frail for words
strength and shine
will settle in those eyes of magma

I exist in mid-air.

I will hit the earth 

I have something I need to get off my chest; it arrests my body up and around the curve of each breast. It is a lacy prison I will detest, I will debase, I will deplore – It’s the place for the boobs you abhor.

From a sky of Payne’s gray
hail stones collect on a patio.
Inside a clutch of women rise from their chairs,
open a sliding door, reach out their hands

After thirty-four years of being carried
from house to house
she is nearly too heavy to lift.

You were born as small as a mustard seed.
You grew and wore your battled torn scar-filled skin marked premature like it was made from cotton.

My quaint courtyard apartment in the heart
of Hollywood overlooks Capitol Records,
your old label -- you and countless others.

She stood at the altar,
veiled and waiting,
but he never came.

Let me tell you the freedom

in making peace with frown lines
etched scar-deep into my forehead
in neglecting to shave my legs
in eschewing drugstore hair dye