Sustain Us

In a way, we were like lovers.
in another, like those who
do not know each other at all,

but the magnetism of things interjects.

...& if only it was that easy to forget,
to not want to share this bed with you,
these lips like soft buds.

I’ve got freckled shoulders
and nights filled with bells,
electric eels that keep me awake

with only the sound of the wheezing &
whistling delivery vans of the early morning.
& as the newspaper slaps our porch,

wasps clatter at my ceiling

as if to say sustain us
as if to say love is waiting right here.

freewrite, may 17

we try and cut down
on our hip inches,
try and whittle out a space
for light to peek through our thighs.

we will never get it right.

continue to cut out, to deprive,
to not slather with butter,
to keep our belly-wolves growling.

my cat laps up rubber bands
with sandpaper kisses,
fills his stomach with a nest
where no birds will roost.

I stand in front of the mirror to pinch,
to see what could be gone.