The Kingdom I Am Not

Ripe cold sores accuse her lips. Of saying too much. Hearing nothing she begins her journey again. The start and the end interchangeable amalgams better suited to the chemistry of touch. Girl. Woman. Child. I wish I knew the difference.

You can live hard on the quarry of defeated men. Or you can live softly in the velveteen of cowering addicts. It's not the choice that's hard. It's the afterward. Deaf hammers pound mute nails. The wolf exhales on the piglets. Straw houses blown down. All these lives a lengtty fairy tale.

Little girls in the bellies of beasts. Fooled by beds.