A day in the life of a ordinary housewife

He hit me again today.
The slap painting a primary red onto my cheek
The stinging surprise turning my face into a burning question mark.
Today there would be nothing further, thankfully,
My eyes swim but I do not cry;
For outside the sun is shinning and there are birds
So i am happy.

Today there was more
He hit me and then there was rough hands
Pushing me down into thin sheet covering the mattress.
The breathlessness as your weight pinned me there;
Black spots dancing into my vision.
The hardly noticeable agony of what our lower halves were doing.
My eyes roll to the window
The sun is shinning but there are no birds today
But perhaps there will be grass in the spring
Luxuriant, soft, fragrant, blades of grass and I think of this
And I am happy.

And today was the last time
That he would hit me.
Blue and violent blooming on my face like badly placed make up.
(I'm so sorry dear, let me get a tissue to wipe it off)
The red lines exclaim on pale skin where he took my clothes off too hastily.
There were no birds or sun;
A white sheet wrapped around my face and neck so I could not see the window,
But only stars once, when my head hit the corner of the bedside table.
I will not get to see the grass in the spring,
But I think of it winding it's roots over me
And the flowers that will grow there,
And I think of how lovely they will be.
Perfect and delicate, fragrant and frail, pink petals that I may never touch -
But still, I think of them,
And I am so very happy.

Daughter Father

If only you could hear me,
Hear the screams of my uncomfort
Stretching and ripping this skin dress
That I have tried to live in
For the past twenty years.
Trying to be what you wanted me to be,
Or at least what you could stand looking at.

So look at me!
Shinny and plastic but I'm not smiling.
Ripped from the heart and roots up.
Wondering if there will ever come a day
When you will see me and accept me for what I am.
Wondering if there will ever be a day that I can walk with my head up
Scuffling to school with my back pack and old shoes.
Wondering if your tongue will ever be unloosened and you can speak the words of love to me -
Daughter.
If there will ever be a day I can live with out your acceptance
Haunting me down in the foot tracks of everything I touch.

That I can touch
With out the hate and knifes
Of loneliness slipping from out between your hard lips and teeth
Killing everything I love.

I dream of the day that my rootless heart,
The roots you cut hoping I would die,
Would be free to drift like a child's balloon
Off into a new place of rainbows and neverland island.
That I can erase the name whose hate only drags me down
Like a weight on my foot in the ocean.
That I can find a word that will mean love
Instead of the bitter rejection that you have crammed down into my thoughts
And slipped into my baby bottle
Like a slow working poison.
That you have plunged like shrapnel into my heart with every missed childhood moment
And silence of ignorant, ignoring, avoidance of eyes
When I needed you to see me the most.

No more will these memories of pain and missed chances
Wake me up at night and follow my home.
No more will the dream that you will embrace your self,
The self in me,
Remove the love I have for you in my heart.
I don't need you
And I am through.

Hey

I can't help but remember your face
Are you happy?
Are you well?
Is it hell?
It is for me.

Does she smile when she see's you?
Does she always greet you
like it's the first and the last time?

Do you talk with her like we used to
And when she dreams is it with you?

I don't have nice things to give you.
I don't have a innocent girls room with turquoise walls
And pink bedcovers
Filled with stuffed elephants you won for her.

I don't have anything.

My mind tells me all the reasons why this isn't good
Why it should be right
But I can't take my eyes off of you

And I hope when you dream it's of me.

And all the while I was dreaming
About being
her.

The Last

I am at last to tired to play games
My lipstick melted off long ago
And now I only look like a silly clown
Trying to get boys half her age
Because the real men go out with real woman

But I am to tired to care
Seduction is a wasted effort
I don't want to meet new people
And have men, the same men crammed down my throat
Again and again

I know the way it goes
And it bores me.
No, at last I am done.
All washed up and under 20.
Dear god, what is the rest of life to me?
But an endless parade of monotony.

I used to be vibrant and magnetic
But these magnates have reverted
And I only want the silence that brings.
I crave to be alone and lost
In cold winters of forgetfulness
Where even the birds don't sing.

Oh, I am so melodramatic.
So cliche and over the top.
I disgust me.
Old pathetic whore everyone laughs at.
I am so tired
And no sleep will come to me.

Admitance to the East Wing

I want to get as far away from here as I can.
The curtains around each bed draw me in
Sucking secrets out of me
Their green is a hypnosis that denies all subterfuge
The fill in words to your little blanks come tripping out

I hear the squeaks of nurses shoes against the dull shinny linoleum
Hushed always hushed
When the talk about you two feet away
Scratching your identity in ink on a white form
You are known by a number or a name that in latin means something entirely different

The rippling of thinly controlled panic beaches its self hear
In, out, the ventilators breath.
This is a living room
And I am over exposed
My reds and whites smearing into you
A photograph someone left to long developing
This symptom of a genetic accident

They pity and do not pity you
Rolling you into rooms where the smell of downers
Washes over you in waves of sicking health.
Pills are given out to make all the patients float
Red balloon heads in a circle
Talking about why they're here
If they can sound the words out.
I can't escape the feeling of escape
I don't belong here

I'm not crazy.

Tripping switches, sparking wires, speaking to myself.

The doctor gives me a strange look and a piece of paper
That is supposed to enclose me back into a womb
white. safe. controlled.
The sheets breath with me in between them.
Stone under a rolling tide.
And then even the nurses will appear less and less
Til one day they tell you
You can leave
Cured of your affliction,
Pariah no more.
Oh god doctor oh, fear of life
you drink my wounds like love.

While You Were Sleeping