My grandmother’s bathroom
was where I got it—
with red circling to pink
in the toilet water
Hugged by a pink box
of a room
My feet on a sparkly pink
toilet rug
Staring at pink towels
against pink floral wallpaper,
pink soap by the sink
and a pink conch shell
behind me
as my grandmother knocked
My grandmother who
snapped the back of my
first bra and secretly
nailed a crucifix to the inside
wall of my closet
She would tell passerby on the street
and all her white haired friends—
they would clap their hands together
and purse their lips into a wrinkled smiles
At fourteen
I emerged scared of my womanhood
and I decided
only the walls would know
Caught
You said it again. And I look at you
with my eyes trying to get you to see.
My heart pushes them as we
lay staring in bed.
With my eyes trying to get you to see,
I think about all the things I love about you:
your touch and laugh, and your love for me
that never seems to fade. And while
I think about all the things I love about you
I cover up the other things, the other people
that tempt and taunt my heart by trying to get in,
even when I sometimes invite them;
but I cover up the other things
and I show you what I want you to feel
and it burns me sometimes, inside. The voice
that wants to sabotage everything good.
And I show you what I want you to feel;
My heart pushes
that part that wants to sabotage everything good.
You said it again. And I look at you.
Night Driving
Looking up into the glistening white
stars in the blank night
I would sometimes let go
of the sticky steering wheel and drift
along with the sky as I stared out my sunroof—
my eyes melting into the ceaseless
blackness between the stars and dancing on each light
Flecks of daylight, brilliant; creating rainbows in my
gaze
like oil on water
Lucid and velvet smooth,
swimming up to the wet glow and losing the edges of my
body
I would curve past Orion’s Belt and grasp
the wheel just before
the dew-wet blades of grass
would hit the tires
I would fly for a while
and leave it all below me
as my conscience soared up
to the tempting taunt of oblivion
