The Champagne Soapbox

I’ve been trying to write a poem like a tattoo. Ink on a pen. Underneath the skin. Except now it comes up my throat. I say words I could’ve never wrote because ink is forever and I shake stutter when I give speeches. Becoming more of a bitch lately. Young, fresh smelling leather. There’s a lot of empty space. And, I contemplate the difference in a circle and a hole. A lasso before it catches the animal, and what it looks like around something another something needed. 

Needles, guns, grass. 

Some important song.

And, most of my words will pass. 

The ones not written by tongue.

My arthritic hands flip hymns from mass. 

To do and not to say. 

Slurring laughter with a meaningless hum. 

Wake up asleep, just another day. 

Believe the foggy lullaby that shares the tune of my future hand’s shakiness. The surrealist is opening his eyes. How can you be nostalgic for things your mind made up? Feel the eternity lineage women making up your fingerprints? Pushing each other for a chance to catch the light of your reflection. No phones until Friday, far from parents or road toll. A broken fresh individuality in independence, staring into the mirror for years picturing wire steel hairs red nails cigarettes accents curves like the ones you grew into. They thought of you, never knew you, “couldn’t be you” they moan and release between scrunching dirt between motionless toes. 

That’s what they all say. The soft animal of our bodies when they become stray.

I’m doing the same shit another day. The same shit stomping mommy come feed me again. Daddy I miss you again. Do you think of my voice when you want to be needed again? My room is red at night. I didn’t bite. My tongue is numb from cutting my teeth throughout the night. I’m doing the same shit yelling mommy don’t look at me again. Daddy do you see me? A sister is here and we love to play pretend. She lives alone now, we both do. Mend the urges while his forgiveness is true. Pray that when you get caught, the folds in your forehead wrinkles are warm and eyes you look into still seafoam.