(n.) a body of water, a compartment, a lover
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Poetry, Print
she loves her man.
she swears her skins never been so soft until he touched it, swears her breasts never seemed so full until he cupped them, just a handful—they aren’t small, they’re just his.
she never knew her smile was capable of shaking something until she thought she heard him rattling, her head on his chest, his inside bouncing like it was happy she was happy—
she is happy, happy that for the first time in her life she’s comfortable with a body that someone else can be comfortable with too.
the way he holds her, fragile like he’s afraid she’s going to break. he knows shes broken before. she tells him about the flying orchestra of shattering, he doesn’t mention he likes the sound. she is so unsound.
they blend into his sheets, they are so red and dangerous on those saturday mornings when they threaten to swallow them whole. she can still feel their bare feet touching underneath them.
she loves her man.
but love has trials and she’s on the stand, defending him, like she always does.
she tells him to fuck her. to fuck her over and over again. so she stays the next time he fucks her over again. she moans, she closes her eyes, she fingers herself with his hands, fingers the scratches on his back—she tries to forget how short her nails are.
she doesn’t care what it means, she keeps her mouth shut, only opens it at his tip, she can taste the other women, not as sweet as you, he cooos. and she believes him.
she loves her man.
got herself convinced he’s doing the best he can, that he didn’t mean it, that she deserved it, that it’s okay being beneath him. she likes the ground. she doesn’t mind going down. she can still feel their bare feet touching.
yesterday when she woke up she wasn’t breathing. it was saturday. the sheets had swallowed her whole. he was pulling her out with his hands around her neck, she was wearing them like he had given them to her in a jewelry box, like pearls she thought. he tells her that she is most beautiful when she’s blue. who else but him could decorate her with such pretty colors, so she kisses his fist with her jaw, let’s him ruin her sliding his wine into her carpet.
maybe she’s just crazy. batshit. in love. something innocent taking on the dead of night. she’s a coupla screws too loose, so he finds something tighter to fuck. she is spells of inner adventure mistaken for seclusion, sometimes depression,
sometimes
I am pathetic.
I can still feel our bare feet touching.
2.13
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Poetry, Print
is there really
silence
when inside me is so noisy, breaking
like all my thoughts
are committing suicide
splattered
in messy pieces at the feet of my face
spilling down
gruesome
into my pillow
there is a deep pounding in my head,
someone there is screaming
i open my eyes
something rolls across my face,
into my ears
the quiet is so
salty
wet
distrubing
here.
hmmph.
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Poetry, Print
he holds her hand in his own hand,
loosely,
like a rag
that was just used
to wipe the dirt from a child’s mouth,
dirt that resembles ants
ants that remind the girlfriend
of the three or so small hairs standing
at the base
of each
of the boyfriends
fingers.
she has observed him many times
her eyes are full with him,
always.
muss es sein
Posted by Marion Smallwood | Filed under Poetry, Print
tell me how we fell in love.
it came to us like fleshy daydreams,
it kept delirium like flecks of paint in our eyes.
how you looked with my hand in your hand…
like a loose eyelash,
like every wish had your complexion.
but we scorned the ground
for being too close to where we started,
punished it for touching our feet.
and i asked how we are supposed to break
after falling.
i asked if my heart would still work in your fist,
but you were tearing into thirds and fourths
screaming that we are not in love, we are not in love.
and so i wonder
what the hell this cherry pit is doing
lodged under my navel like a good mood
and why it is starting to hurt and writhe
and spit the letters of your name down my spine.
but you said, it must be,
so it must be.
