I never really know anymore; 
not since it started to grow 
inside my skinny frame 
I used to know. 
It was just me; 
tight like a rubber band.

I can't have a baby pushing out 
from between my hips 
that space where the skin goes in 
empty space between pelvic bones, 
beautiful empty space. 
It simply cannot, 
It will not, 
I will not let it fit.

I can't be fat
Not for nine months
Not ever, for anyone

How do I know 
it won't stay; 
I won't be fat 
forever?

I told him today;
I told him that I couldn't

How could he understand? 
I couldn't live with myself 
and someone else for nine months 
couldn't live with a part of him inside me 
he would have me

Nine months is a long time
I can't give me up for someone else

not a man or a baby 
Can't give it up 
thinness I mean

Maybe when they suck it out, 
it will all come out; 
he will come out 
out of me 
on the sterile tiled floor 
scattered with doctors' footprints; 
in the bin with bloody sterile gloves. 
And without it 
the space between my hips 
will grow deeper 
more beautiful

He cannot understand 
He will not 
And I will tell him
I lost it 
I'm sorry 

I go alone 
and the doctors see me and know 
I cannot be a mother 
I could not 
My body, myself 
thin 
I am compressed and perfect 
just enough for me and no one else 
He doesn't even have me 
Not enough of me to matter anyway 
There's just enough for me

I lie on the cold metallic table 
And I tell myself not to cry 
Perhaps the cold metal, 
the suction will make me 
more compressed 
perfect.

While most people may be fooled again and again by a compulsive liar, I, being raised by one, can detect immediately that spark of truth before it is hastily subverted.  His pupils will subtly constrict and the muscle above the upper lip on the left, the one which is made for smiling, will spasm slightly.  That heartbeat of a second before the lie comes is, for the compulsive liar, the only truth.  So I’m aware that Dennis drove his ‘83 VW Rabbit back to my house only because he needed to cover his tracks, but it’s amazing what we’re willing to settle for under even the best of circumstances.

No one else noticed that you almost cried then, as her soft arms gently released their grasp for the last time.  Only I saw your chin tremble for half a moment, and then your hand reach up to your face and pull down your jaw, a gesture which can appear masculine.  Ignoring me saved you the embarrassment of self-awareness.

They hung non-committally like sacks of flour, pale pink nipples dangling toward the floor without the remotest suggestion of sexuality.  The feeling of one’s skin against bare skin is soothing, masturbatory  without the guilt, sensual without the sex, a quiet reminder of the inherent humanity of our universal form for a woman growing and existing among vinyl pants and itchy underwires. 

If I could draw for you the palpable knowledge of cigarette smoke killing lung cells, I would illustrate the shaking hands of a daughter of an alcoholic as she tucks a well-rolled joint into her Camel Lights on Christmas Eve.  I will be the first to say it is wrong to leave your cousins’ house Christmas day to smoke in their driveway, regardless of the example your parents set.  It is wrong to consciously place foot in frozen-over canyons in the snow where he once stepped, only to get your tights wet. 
 

Caught making that face I used to make 
eyes so blue and scrunched and smiling; 
Him, embarrassed smile laughing eyes 
young and skinny and red and smiling; 
Sunny and unspoiled, Red and Blue 
unbrushed curls blond and unruly 
toes and hands holding and wiggling.

The shrubs were smaller then and so were we 
blond and bony and young and smiling 
young and skinny and red and smiling 
Red and Blue against gray and green.
 

  5x7 missing from my loop.
Operate yourself with the sort of time
 given to you by your mismatched shirt cuffs.

     Sleep on the rug.
     Reflect.
      Understate.

6 is ok.
Ok is for it going ffffffover.

 Get fover it fister fox.

     get over
     it
      sister.

sister socks still stocks up with soap.
   Jane says wash it down with detergent, sergeant.
So we can all go on and on and sing our song and ....
 

Jesse goes into the water
backwards,
but comes down slow.

Mike stands a man
with goldfish in his hand.
 “mmm good, you want some?”

Jill goes up the hill and falls 
 down. inside out. forgetting the one thing 
 she told her mother would never be lost. (at all costs)
  The jackfruit.
As she sat there trying to learn about 
 the rhythms of the universe and the secret of the fruit 
 she mistakenly sliced a good (or not so good for jill)
 portion of her inner palm.

to find out if you are like Jill just ask yourself what your 
 father used to do when you were crying, It’s not that strange really
  to think – about – when you die is done and disembodied voices
  ask about your pee.  Don’t be ashamed to go about your 
business when asked “Why do you do this to me every single time?”
   Sitting under a large raincloud of death.
   They were pros.

Jill awoke from a daze of all the days she had once forgotten, in
  a stark remembrance of me.  She decided to get a band-aid for her 
     soul.

But how can this be answered when it isn’t one of my buttons?

     1/2 of this stuff is funny
      and the other 1/4 is nil
     still

       underneath all of the 
          flaps,
         trees get me going.