ItsPoison

I crave lemons - with salt, or drowned, driven down to the the bottom in glasses of water. Sliced, whole, or halved and quartered - I crave lemons with my mother on the couch, on some Saturday with the windows open letting in a warm breeze. Nothing to do but eat fruit and chat, sticky fingers and all, in pajama pants from morning to night. She says she should do something not realizing she's doing enough relaxing there in the afternoon with her daughter, and lemons.

We're all grown up here. We file our taxes, eat our vegetables, brush our teeth without anyone asking. We go to work. We drink whiskey, straight from the bottle, on cold lonely nights in front of a glowing television, the news reminding us to be sad. We come home. We pull at wrinkles. We suck in our belly fat. We curse. We could go to sleep whenever we want, but are in bed by 10:30. We go to work. We watch what we eat. We eat while we watch sitcoms that are all the same, their laugh tracks blaring reminders of how unfunny this all really is. We come home. We know it will always be this way. This is Alwaysland, where

scanning me with cool eyes you see invisible mistakes that you mistook for misgivings, misinterpreting the signs, misreading the words that came miserably from misinformed, parted lips.

He sits, feet apart in his old whiskey soaked leather chair cracked with age sipping bitter liquid from an old fashioned glass. He knows, in his heart his day has come again and again and now gone are the chains of his diligent oppression. She rises, from lipsticks. From shoes too high and tight. From fixing him an early dinner and late lunch. She takes, by truth, by force, what she has owned all along. Knowing sooner than later she will be Man of the house.

I see that black, emphatic box sitting on white tabletop. No longer do I see your face a thing a box could not replace. Your breath, heavy, with cigarettes, I'd lay my head against your chest, listen to you as you slept as the sickness inside crept. I'd cradle you as you cried. I thought I held you up, I lied to myself, switch it around. You were my rock, my solid ground. Without you here I have no base, so I'll float up to outer space. Then farther-- into your embrace, because mother's love you can't replace. I'll bring the box when I arise, past the birds and fireflies. I'll pour your ashes down below and from your love

You take sips from my being with lips, parted, pulling me. Let me roll across your tongue while you take in my flowery notes. My spicy aroma burning thin, veined skin inside your nostrils. Kisses, like flames down my chest you drink me in. I slide down your throat to a soft belly. Warm you like liquor our hearts skipping beats, breath shallow, eyes wide.

from these lips flow cities; black empty streets, asphalt sheets their clinging ice thawed, with thick warm breath I whisper life into the depths of this kingdom. of buildings scraping sky. stone and metal castles glass towers towering, looming slumbering giants. thunderous hills roll down the tongue, tasting like anguish, stinking of fear; we're in it together pounding this beating beating beating drum- becoming one. and when air fails to pass lips it will cease to exist fading into the cool dark of night.

They come dressed; gowns scraping a pale long stretch, collecting ash in their underskirts. Lipstick lips on lipstick teeth with smears across a sallow, empty cheek. And they all burn. Scalded skin shows through thigh slits, flame spits up the back to a head – undersized and eyes cavernous and dreary empty peering burning sockets. Boned chins up, laced hat brims down faces all around at this, the burning party, where the bad girls go when they've become no more.

There's some emptiness there, and so false are the politics of childhood. Don't give it up, baby. It's a precious thing that we have. The disease that everyone wants to catch - All love and candy and dark eyes that speak with lashes across your cheeks. The red will catch up, baby.