You are dark and sultry

You are dark and sultry
Like the shadows under eyes
In deep bars with the thick
Smell of the past wafting in between
The smell of wine and spilled
Liquor memories that
Slowly take over
The tones and incantations
We try to stay
The night with.

Deep deep down

Deep deep down
Pounds a beat, beats
Drown in sound and sand
As I fight to stay above
The fray, frayed and beyond
My capacity to see
Beyond each second that passes.

I want to take her home
With me and tell her it will be
Okay and though I am
An honest girl, that would be
A lie.

I do not know, what
Do I know? It's no
Thing I can't handle, she says,
I say, we insist and yet
We can't because we hold
The lion's share of all
The things that
Buckle people.

But we do not buckle.
We stay.
We fight one more day and hope that
Deep deep down
sounds a beat, beats
Strong in sound and sand
Keeps us above the fray, frayed
But beyond the things that
Keep us down, deep deep down.

One Day

The silence is my enemy
It tells me what I want to see
The emptiness, so near to me,
You're far from me,
You're gone

Into another world that isn't
Mine to have, the home that isn't
Who I am, or what I want
With you, a part,
I'm lost.

So sing me songs of here and now
The things I long for and somehow
I have because we're powerful
And we'll get there
One day.

Cooption

And we know what we must do without.

It's what we, as women, know,
What we are told,
Our communal strength,
To deny what is right
For what is wrong.

Holy, almost, depending
On what you've been taught --
It's holy;

My whole life
Spent perched
On a ledge of waiting
For self denial
To reveal its treasure
And not once
In my whole life
Does it ever come.

Gone: where?
Why am I no longer here?
Day in, day
Out of myself somewhere else
And wanting more; the wanting
Feeding the money flow,
Feeding suicide.

So why
Is it so hard
To see something you want
And touch it
When it's so easy
And yet,
So hard?

Into the ground

In your deaths I see mine,
My resolve erode under that hand
We know too well
That comes when our back is turned
And "They're doing so well"
Is the phrase of the day
And pushes your face into the cold
Hard dirt where no one
Can survive.

Why do they take us? And am I
Next because I am tired
Of running so hard
In the right direction, I am
Afraid I'll find
It's off a rooftop
Six feet into the ground.

She has this smile

She has this smile

That I pray is mine

When she holds her hand

Over her mouth

And breaks my heart

And laughs -- the sound

Breaks me and rebuilds me

And I pray it's mine

And it's the same as

When she breaths into my ear,

Undone,

Not nearly as much as I am

Every time I hear her name.

Slow burn

Slow burn fire
In my chest that
Flares and sears
The years I best
Held in the
Fears of feelings
Again
And what is right
Is what is wrong
And both before us
Melt in flame
Alongside
Strength
To save
Ourselves.