tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34890395934189058072023-11-15T13:01:45.562-05:00i like you so much i could eat youStephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-13641158330022962282008-05-25T19:02:00.001-04:002008-05-25T19:03:41.804-04:00mary bell<i>all that mattered was to lie well,</i> lay near the well, lay quiet now. she presses on his neck. what happens now. <i>do they die?</i> what quiet curiosity in children. now: grass and purple weeds and he. a playful discovery--broken scissors tearing, her initials lazy and scraped. <i>it isn't that bad; we all die sometime.</i> she cuts his hair. she leaves the scissors behind. she leaves the boy behind. he has not taken a breath in some time. <i>i couldn't kill a bird by the neck,</i> she says. <i>it's horrible, that,</i> she says.<br /><br />in a possible future, police do not catch on and the town quietly forgets. the tear in her dress has no meaning, now; there is almost nothing to regret, now. hear the birds here. hear the train near here. hear the school letting out for lunch and she among them here. what happens now. shouldn't he be here.<br /><br />a possible past: wait now for a terrible gentleness--fingers on his neck and press. he is small and still. he still believes this is a game. mary bell knows not why she wraps his neck. but <i>what happens if you choke someone.</i> where will he be next. now: a bird lifts and, startled, she loosens, he runs away.<br /><br /><i>murder isn't that bad,</i> ripping your dress isn't that bad, staining your knees isn't that bad, breaking the scissors isn't that bad, tearing his skin isn't that bad, hiding away isn't that bad, blaming another isn't that bad, and now a confession isn't that bad, and your new home is cold but isn't that bad, mary bell, murder isn't that bad, mary bell, ten years old, isn't that bad, mary bell isn't that bad, maryStephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-79893390893123586982008-04-01T04:13:00.003-04:002008-05-25T19:04:09.507-04:00Ted BundyTed Bundy<br /><br />I.<br /><br />Before sweat gripped crowbars, three strands<br />of blonde, the boat imagined, or plaster<br />of Paris,<br /><br />Stephanie, the first to touch Ted's wrist, skin <br />purple with vein, stops courting. <br /><br />II.<br /><br />Now teeth pocketed skin, blood<br />in the carpet grain. Brain, too--<br />red and yawning.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">I feel like a<br />vampire,</span> Ted says. <br /><br />III.<br /><br />The picture shows a raised palm, the start<br />of a smile. Now even the attractive<br />fail--how unnerving<br /><br />to look at Ted and think<br />lust.<br /><br />IV.<br /><br />A chair. <br />A crowd cheers when the hearse and Ted pass.<br />And fireworks, <br /><br />lighter fluid, a barbeque pit, somewhere a first kiss, <br />fruit sticky fresh, children circling in play.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-16876343386338994252008-04-01T02:42:00.001-04:002008-04-01T02:42:55.988-04:00also using endosymbiotic.tumblr.com for inspiration purposes.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-88502919793068276862008-03-04T16:53:00.001-05:002008-03-04T16:53:32.960-05:00let the shower warm the pipes. do not undress.<br />sit in the damp room away from the mirror. it is<br />warm and quiet. do not cry. or go ahead and cry.<br />choose the option more difficult. breath holding prevents<br />crying. eye pokes provoke it. ask: could this<br />make things harder? if the answer is yes, do it.<br />gather from the kitchen vodka or beer. wine is for<br />quieting sadness; whiskey, anger. no ice.<br />ice is for parties and this is silence. remember:<br />the crowded cab ride along central park west,<br />feeling that it would not be the last.<br />it was, but at the moment it was the first of many.<br />when the steam makes wet the toilet and walls<br />and skin, empty the glass in the sink. but for now<br />make no phone calls. touch the grout in the tile.<br />any hair found, throw away.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-53556827239007213552008-03-04T16:51:00.003-05:002008-05-25T19:04:21.307-04:00Ian Brady and Myra HindleyThe shortest day of the year has come<br />and gone. It is lighter from here<br />but colder, still. The woman writes for six months<br />about the man before he touches her neck<br />where the hair is soft and<br />sparse--<br /><br />like the young girl's, tempted away<br />from the fairground, her hair so<br />blonde and thin and lit by the flash<br />(-ing lightning, the night stormy)<br />of the camera, her skin bare her mouth gagged her<br />arms bound and an audio tape recording.<br /><br />I've lost track of how long it has been since.<br />Your charcoal hands touch mine and flinch<br />now. But I will do as you ask. First, you must ask.<br />First, pour yourself a drink and tell me <br />what you like most and do not be scared when <br />I become it.<br /><br />The woman meets the man at work. <br />She cuts her hair and wears lipstick<br />careful and red. The change comes slow,<br />then speeding. She finds the girl<br />to help bury in the moor. The woman discovers <br />not love but something close. I find<br /><br />your hiddens: the girls glossy and small.<br />For two weeks, only oranges. My hands<br />smell like a grove. My ribcage becomes a toppled<br />branch. Ask for blood and I will give you blood,<br />the woman said to the man. <br />I said to you.<br /><br />People say the woman was polite and<br />still, always, an animal waiting to dart.<br />How tiny, those hands shaking as she touches the<br />girl's cheek. As she passes her to the man.<br />As she hits record. When the cassette runs out, <br />the girl's still screaming.<br /><br />It is silent now. Snow falls slow and you are gone<br />and I apologize, I was never as dedicated as she.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-88697708050197999912008-03-04T16:33:00.002-05:002008-03-04T16:35:08.398-05:00hearnow the quiet grows in the shape of people. the touch goes unappreciated. the touched leaves with out exchanging good-bye's. here: the absence of scent. maybe flowers, maybe dirt. the city dulled my senses, but a bird lifts, becomes a dot, and i notice. a dog runs free. his ears move as if to join the bird. now the bird is gone but the dog remains. there is winter and then spring. the mourner becomes the mourned. here: i carve a picture of your back into the backs of trees.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-57739109993198873892008-01-30T00:33:00.001-05:002008-01-30T00:33:53.948-05:00Facadism, or Cutting Off My Nose to Spite My FaceThe pipes froze so the water won't warm. <br />I get back into bed damp and hope you reach--<br />you don't. You roll over. You leave. You don't call. <br />I eat toaster waffles alone and write a list that includes<br />snoring and how thin you want me. It is now<br />possible that everything was a lie. By everything,<br />I mean your mouth and the hairs that reach<br />your eyes. By everything, I mean all ten fingernails. <br />It is very late at night and I sneak to your house<br />to leave the iron on. To run up the electricity bill, <br />not burn the place down. Small victories, <br /><br />your lips. Nothing in this house smells of you. <br />You've only changed a few dirty glasses and <br />a sheet off the bed. To clarify, I have <br />nothing to miss you by. The things here are not yours<br />but not mine either. Not my contacts<br />by the sink, or my stale bread, or my shoes <br />by the door. I consider putting everything <br />on the curb. I want only things you touched, <br />please. My legs can stay, my breasts can stay,<br />my nose must go. <br /><br />I am trying to hate you. So far I kind of dislike<br />your tired mattress, the duplicate books on <br />your shelves, the laughter of Mexican children<br />through the walls, the walk from your home to mine. <br />The old courthouse halfway between looks old only from the outside. <br />Inside is all marble and gold, inside is spit-polished<br />clean the way I too am washing the sand away, rubbing <br />shoe wax into my joints. I'll take a lover, leave the faucet <br />dripping, get to work late, start drinking. <br /><br />You don't walk me to the door. You appear in dreams,<br />almost. What strange systems of sadness have we arranged. <br />I look at a picture of your ex-girlfriend and her body is<br />like mine only more; your mouth, a finish line. <br />This could be relief.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-43695005797516625672008-01-30T00:32:00.001-05:002008-01-30T00:32:47.823-05:00I KnowI know the shortest distance from my house to yours.<br /><br />I know the shortest distance from my house to the house that was yours until you left and a stranger painted your front door red.<br /><br />I know this city better than the one at home, but I can't help missing 12:30 at 3:30, I can't help missing the heaviness of fog and the smell--stale fruit and smoke.<br /><br />I know you wouldn't have left if I hadn't left.<br /><br />I know the smell of St. Mary candles and truck stop matches from you. I know the taste of cake batter and whiskey.<br /><br />I know the sound of September--the bustling of trucks on the highway behind my house and your laughter. The leaves are still on the trees and the sky is yellow.<br /><br />I know the lies we both tell and how we want them to be truths. There are strangers where I once sat.<br /><br />I know gravity exists and jet engines and time zones.<br /><br />I know the day seems too long. Remember driving home on highway five and the sun low and large.<br /><br />I know this song by heart. And your voice chiming in and your mother at the door saying shhhh.<br /><br />I know the figure on the hill is you now and always will be. Early fall and there are leaves everywhere and you are seven hours North. I squint my eyes to look for your cigarette's glow.<br /><br />I know the door against my back after goodbye. I cry delayed--I'm sorry if you thought I wasn't sad.<br /><br />I know your small hands and all thirty knuckles. It's raining, now, and you don't mind.<br /><br />I know everything is not how it seems. We stumble on the train tracks and share a pack of smokes. The red mourning balloons lift. You reach for my hand and fall short.<br /><br />We know the backseat and the pull of the engine. Town limits are half an hour back and a pop station blares.<br /><br />I know the sand we drag home. I find your hairbrush in a drawer when I visit for Christmas. I find a picture of you standing on the beach and the sun flares.<br /><br />I know the sound of lift off and your tiny voice on the runway, praying.<br /><br />I know you like the back of my hand. That is to say, I know you like you are a piece of me, which you aren't, and never have been, not even close.<br /><br />I know you know what comes next. The days only get longer from here, but colder still.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-36018940421354025162008-01-17T16:58:00.000-05:002008-01-17T17:35:58.208-05:00Newton's ApplesThe cake falls in the oven.<br />The boy falls off the ladder on purpose and lands on his neck.<br /><br />There is a construction-papered jar on the desk with<br />three dollar bills inside so he can get surgery and learn to walk again.<br /><br />I wake up and forget how to tie my shoelaces,<br />momentarily. I feel guilt all down my unbroken back when I succeed.<br /><br />The congregation falls to its knees and the boy prays<br />to the patron saint of do-overs and the preacher preaches on.<br /><br />Things fall at once.<br />The apartments down the street catch fire;<br /><br />balconies fall onto cars and start a jazz band of alarms.<br />The boy. Across the country, skyscrapers. Plums fall from their branches<br /><br />and the crows dash. Summer becomes fall.<br />The cake I baked for you and you alone falls and<br /><br />tastes dense, chews tough. I'm sorry it fell and left me<br />nothing to wish you a happy birthday with<br /><br />but my own two hands, which are falling to my lap <br />like wingless birds still learning the limitations of their winglessness.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-3720435840571420962008-01-17T15:31:00.000-05:002008-01-17T18:02:01.024-05:00Dirt Roads, Detours, Duck Ponds1. <br />Arrows. I know you as arrows. I know you as arrows know the air.<br /><br />2. <br />Bluebells, baskets of berries, big open spaces, <br />bees, and tiny blossoms in your mother's backyard.<br /><br />3.<br />Come Back from San Francisco on the car radio, <br />calling from California to say: I can't miss you more, come home.<br />Think of cattails in the creek and our clever hands under the comforter. <br /><br />4. <br />Distanced and drowsy and days apart and disoriented again <br />by the lights of this dark city. Don't say you didn't warn me. <br />Don't remind me of dirt roads and detours and duck ponds <br />at dawn, or the dancing in your room or the dark of mine.<br />Instead, recall the dumb fights.<br /><br />5.<br />Early winter we sneak out to search out snow. <br />We find Elms and Egrets and mistletoe in the Maple trees<br />and stories of early childhood. Like, the scent of eucalyptus <br />for me and eating pebbles for you. <br /><br />Enough is enough, let's let go of these memories, each <br />with our own good-bye's, remembering that <br />endosymbiosis exists, evolution exists, endings exist. <br />I love you as endings. I love you as endings love the start. <br /><br />6.<br />Forget missing me. I won't forget:<br /><br />Forest fires along the freeway and family drives<br />and finding feathers everywhere. <br /><br />A best friend's kitchen far too late, faking sobriety<br />and late fall's early nightfalls.<br /><br />I love you as friends love foes, <br />I love you as--<br /><br />fruit orchards in September, fallen fruit everywhere,<br />frozen over lakes, and foot-long grass, and fruit flies,<br /><br />and falling in the vineyards from running too fast<br />and following the longest road.<br /><br />Forget the way I cried in the airport,<br />saying finally. Forget my fingertips.<br /><br />7. <br />Getting on with it. <br /><br />Going home to grainy wood floors <br />and a growth chart in the kitchen's doorjamb, <br />where we dyed eggs the color of gumballs. <br /><br />What I don't recall, I'll make up: <br />a grasshopper trapped beneath a glass, geese on <br />the wallpaper, and a gasp for breath when you touched me. <br /><br />Gravity exists. And the Grand Canyon and <br />the Great Lakes and your red guitar. <br />God, we are bad at forgetting. <br /><br />Go whichever way I am not. <br /><br />Remember me by the gold ring you bought and never gave. <br />Think of grey eyes and goosebumps and <br />the things only we know and <br /><br />lakes green with algae and our bodies green, too-- <br />remember geese and small groups of ducks, <br />your mother's garden and the girls who came before me. <br /><br />God, we are bad at forgetting. <br />God, we are bad at forgetting, but good at glances. <br />God, we are bad at getting this right and keeping our mouths shut-- <br /><br />Don't ask the pilot to turn this jet around. <br /><br />8. <br />Have faith. Have open hands and homeward thinking. <br /><br />Have heroic tendencies and hallelujahs and <br />drawings of houses on the fridge. <br /><br />Have pipe dreams of moving to this hardened city and <br />home cooked meals and hopes of winning me back and <br />hard rain and pruned fingers. <br /><br />Remember what they say about hindsight. <br />Remember that night on the overpass watching headlights <br />and touching my palm and asking that I stay. <br />Try to remember the song on the radio--call <br />late at night and sing to me. <br /><br />I love you as I love grey herons and hometowns, <br />fishing without hooks, the lights of <br />Hollywood, and honey-soaked toast. <br />I love you as one loves hospital hallways and <br />hotel room sheets and rented houses by the sea. <br />I love you as a childhood home--the unfamiliar, the habitual, <br />the places my hands once touched <br />when they were smaller. <br /><br />Have faith in a time when you won't trace <br />every airplane's path across the sky. <br />Have faith in history, like: <br />summer, we are halfway home on highway five, <br />looking at hay and hills in the distance and <br />the sun spots in the rear view mirror. <br />Have faith in things like helicopters and <br />horse races and horoscopes. <br />Touch your hand every place mine touched: <br />handles, doorknobs, the highest shelf. <br />Remember games of hide and seek <br />and hypnosis and whispering holy holy holy <br />in the dark, holding hands, and honestly-- <br /><br />you are still and quiet and home and <br />I am always moving, like the smallest humming birdStephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-84072272700617948662008-01-16T17:31:00.001-05:002008-01-17T17:38:21.670-05:00Search and RescueMy mother brings home an <br />owl with a broken wing and winces<br />when she wraps it in warm towels, <br /><br />like a part of her is broken too--<br />maybe there is. I make the bed <br />like you will sleep there: no sheet.<br /><br />It takes three days for your<br />lingering scent to stop lingering or<br />for my nose to adjust--<br /><br />either way, it's gone.<br />The owl dies over night and<br />my mother begins planning the funeral. <br /><br />Two birds build a nest on our porch.<br />I say ours but it was never ours,<br />now was it? <br /><br />A ferry sinks on the evening news.<br />the water is warm and thick,<br />like breast milk,<br /><br />so they decide to swim. <br />I remember the skin behind your ears<br />and loving you,<br /><br />violently. I want your blood on my hands. <br />Dirt in carpet, shovel in sink,<br />and the owl is still wrapped,<br /><br />swaddled, on the kitchen counter with<br />the cat pawing the back door and<br />mother in the yard,<br /><br />whispering our father in heaven hallowed be your name.<br />I make up my mind to <br />swim to you but by the time I<br /><br />make it to the Atlantic, <br />the notes in my pocket are too wet to read.<br />I forget if they were<br /><br />love letters to begin with. So I swim home. <br />Dear mother, did the deer join the prayers<br />at the owl's funeral? <br /><br />An obvious ending:<br />The men and women on the ferry later say<br />the search was better than the rescue. <br /><br />The less obvious: <br />The owl unburied himself<br />and flew away.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-75257097524701702862008-01-16T17:31:00.000-05:002008-01-17T17:37:56.268-05:00The Consequences of Fearing LonelinessI fall asleep in the bathtub to be closer to the ocean.<br />I invite others to sleep near me. Their bodies<br />keep me warm like water: cold, cold, cold,<br />and then you adjust.<br /><br />October becomes November and I can't distinguish<br />my breath from smoke. Think of me next time<br />you drink lukewarm soup or touch a girl<br />who can't stop shaking.<br /><br />I am sorry for thinking<br />the wrong people are wonderful,<br />for thinking I am wonderful, for thinking<br />of he and me as we.<br /><br />I’m sorry for holding his shoulder when he tried to leave.<br />I apologize for the kiss on the mouth. Don't remember me for that.<br />Remember me by all thirty knuckles and strands of hair<br />in your mouth and Sunday mornings.<br /><br />Let me get ahead of myself now. Let me think of<br />sharing a grocery cart and doorman greetings by name<br />and waking up under flannel and down.<br />Don’t ask to know what I am thinking.<br /><br />Or, teach me to stand still. Teach me to be quiet<br />and steady and comfortable in this moment alone.<br />Teach me to stop expecting the best for me<br />to be what I expected.<br /><br />I apologize for lingering too long. I apologize<br />for kissing him when I tasted only like beer.<br />I woke up with his elbow in my face.<br />I licked his elbow. I am sorry for this.<br /><br />Touch my thigh in the morning. Think of the last bed<br />and its inhabitant— think of her short hair and lazy mouth.<br />Teach me indifference. Kiss my mouth and<br />go home and stop answering the phone.<br /><br />Go back in time to a favorite moment.<br />The winter at the beach—the way my feet<br />sunk into the sand. Choose to stay here;<br />claim there has been nothing worth returning to.<br /><br />Consider my ribcage and wrists. Consider<br />coin tosses and drawings passed back and forth<br />and the tops of my feet in the cold.<br />Return to me.<br /><br />Stop missing the small things: toes and teeth and eyelashes<br />left on the pillow. Or miss them more.<br />Go back with me to that beach. Breathe only fog.<br />Reach as far as you can reach. See if we can touch.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-85618996356958870612008-01-16T17:30:00.000-05:002008-01-17T17:37:33.522-05:00Peach PitsA girl is found by the highway<br />two towns over from ours. If her hair<br />was knotted with <br /><br />brown blood and thorns, the<br />police report didn't say. I killed a <br />butterfly and rubbed the color from its wings, the saddest shade<br /><br />of magenta I've ever touched, <br />and I'm thinking of the tiniest grass cuts<br />on my shins and mud beneath my nails<br /><br />and the top of the world after dark--<br />the highest hill in town where we swear, with<br />held breaths, that a bus driver drove<br /><br />a school bus full of weeping, screaming, or, maybe, laughing children <br />off the cliff. Say, with held breaths, listen<br />for their laughter on the leaves<br /><br />of trees we will never learn the names of.<br />The leaves are changing and I name<br />this season Orange. <br /><br />Later, I watch fireworks alone from the third floor.<br />In the window, I look at my reflection and<br />then past me, or through me, <br /><br />across the river, where the fireworks<br />explode and fall and seem<br />so small,<br /><br />like the smallest crumbs of toast with jam or <br />the pits of peaches or the way the sound<br />of tap-dancing would look in the sky<br /><br />or UFOs. They fit in the hollow of my eye,<br />when I stand just so.<br />So I stand just so.<br /><br />Remember what they say about hindsight.<br />The girl they found regrets not <br />wearing clean underwear that day<br /><br />and peeking when they kissed <br />for the first time in the linen closet. <br />Only because he opened his eyes, too. <br /><br />Her mother doesn't stop crying<br />for three weeks--<br />until she starts to laugh. <br /><br />You have to understand,<br />I killed the butterfly because I thought<br />it was a moth. <br /><br />Or, I didn't know it would die<br />so soon.<br />I carried it into the house <br /><br />and by the kitchen, it was dead. <br />I wanted to lick the dust from its wings, but<br />you came inside<br /><br />and I forgot. <br />I have also forgotten about the girl when I'm driving down highway five<br />and see a cross on the side of the road;<br /><br />got out of the car and shut my eyes<br />and laid down in the dirt.<br />The cross of flowers looked blurred, like<br /><br />fireworks, when I peeked through matted <br />eyelashes. The worst case of child <br />abuse known: the girl<br /><br />bit through her own lip<br />to stand the pain. I bite down on my lip 'til blood. <br />I wake to a police officer<br /><br />dusting dirt from my hair. <br />Homebound, I remember the way the butterfly<br />struggled against my hand,<br /><br />wings like a heartbeat in my closed palm, like a <br />seizure, a rain dance, a swerving car and its<br />passengers praying.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3489039593418905807.post-88434245248955819512008-01-16T17:29:00.001-05:002008-05-25T19:05:17.499-04:00Jeffrey Dahmer, or I Like You So Much I Could Eat YouThe most startling of all is the quiet and<br />the fingerprints we leave on the glass.<br />In the morning, there is snow and thin circles of ice in the shape of my hand.<br /><br />I think, momentarily, that I could fall in love with him--<br />he touches the tops of my feet and wants me,<br />terribly.<br /><br />There are footprints to the edge of a cliff.<br />I walk inside of them to leave none of my own. Please, honey,<br />lick my wind-chapped lips and tell me<br /><br />not to love him<br />as violently as I know I can.<br />The first lover I had bit until blood filled the spaces between each tooth;<br /><br />the serial killer kills out of fear of<br />abandonment. He eats a hand and then an arm.<br />About the victim, he says, If I could have kept him longer, all of him,<br /><br />I would have.<br />I drink warm tea and miss<br />each of his fingertips individually. I want to dunk them in milk.<br /><br />Under the porch, a praying mantis kills her mate.<br />If the phone rings, I don't hear it.<br />I touch my fingertips and pretend one hand,<br /><br />the left hand, belongs to him. There is no name for this.<br />Let's call it cannibalistic tenderness. Let's call it<br />what it is:<br /><br />ILikeYouSoMuchICouldEatYou.<br />Apartment 213 is raided. Police discover<br />a skull in the closet, elbows in the icebox.<br /><br />The pelican eats her young,<br />maybe. Women everywhere describe a desire<br />to chew on their infants.<br /><br />The serial killer is up to a new man a week.<br />My feet fall off the bed. In the morning<br />my toes are frostbite cold.<br /><br />He refuses to cut them off and I like him less for it.<br />We woke up in the dark and he overstayed his welcome, but<br />still I want him closer.<br /><br />Like, move in next door closer and<br />tear down the wall between our kitchens closer.<br />The praying mantis has great regret for her actions--<br /><br />I know this. The serial killer says I wanted him to stay with me so<br />I strangled him, he says, I still have guilt, he says, Please try to<br />understand. I'm sorry, sir, but if I understand,<br /><br />I will not admit it.<br />The police discover a body in the valley beneath<br />a cliff. Inside her smiling mouth,<br /><br />a third lip, the sharp tip of a tongue.<br />I walk back home and the ice under my shoes crunches<br />like the smallest of bones.Stephaniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15973462784524280841noreply@blogger.com0