Regret

I have a rum-soaked regret

I spent a night lying in a bed next to you, wanting you and warmed by the feeling of you wanting me, without getting closer to you, without holding you

We passed out immediately upon contact with the mattress as a result of all that we had imbibed, as we were serious about celebrating my last night in town

You lingered after the other guests had gone

As the party went on we gravitated together and let each other know in lover’s language our shared desire, finding reasons to touch each other without a reason

I remained unconscious to the world until I woke up, still fully dressed

You were gone, taking with you my only chance to physically express admiration for you

To this day, you are an ocean away

Maybe it is just as well

Why endure a one night stand, only to be followed by regret as I worry about sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy

Your presence was intoxicating enough

We both drank too much

The bridge of alcohol became our wall

Thank you for the fond farewell

Made fonder still by unrequited romance

High

I’ve spent most of my life high on fructose and other forms of sugar

That sweet drug with bitter side-effects on body and mind

Unassuming and ubiquitous, I didn’t suspect that my sugar habit was the mastermind behind my anxiety, depression, insomnia, acne, and menstrual woes

There was no medicine that could counter-balance the unbalance I swallowed and wallowed in

Though my habits were formed before I had a choice, I choose to continue my addiction bite by bite

I didn’t find my groove with marijuana

I was too squeamish to inhale or inject

Alcohol was easy, that hand-me-down comfort

Alcohol made me easy, made me almost forget to feel myself cringe when I pimped myself out- I only valued myself if other people valued me, my body was a battlefield between my ego and my low self-esteem.

Dear sisters, gather yourself before you gather sugar, alcohol and other drugs. Once you cross the threshold of being physically intimate, men act like they own you.

It is your birthright to be free, your birthright to feel bliss.

With feet on the ground, now I know how truly sweet it is.

Friend

Sometimes I create to destroy

To show my exes how well I do without them

Not that they see, and not that I want them keeping tabs on me

More often, I create to give

To share with others what I’ve learned from living

New Year’s was a holiday I repeatedly did wrong

Galavanting around town wearing the wrong clothes

Cheap sparkly heels and ripped panty hose

Spent the night with the wrong guys

Couldn’t feel small dicks between my thighs

Drank liquor that was too strong

Stayed out far too long

The morning after felt sober and nauseous

How can I be such a worrywort yet not at all cautious 

Tried to commune with nature in the backyard

The deer snorted at me and stomped their hooves hard

I took a bath and wished it could wash away what can’t be seen

Sexually transmitted disease, loneliness and low self-esteem

Some years I did some things right 

Ate a nourishing meal and went to bed at a reasonable hour last night

Though I am working today instead of napping and brunching like I’m high class

That’s ok- there are worse ways to spend New Years Day. 

I find peace in knowing that I won’t make the same mistakes again, after having made the same mistakes again and again.

Today is an opportunity to treat myself like a friend

The new year stretches before me like an unfurled roll of fresh toilet paper

May I commit every moment to the simple life, instead of my usual wild caper 

Hallowed

Pacing through the night, I feel the tingle of a poem coming on- I imagine this sensation is similar to the prodrome of a herpes outbreak or a migraine aura, though I have been blessed to know neither.

College in the city- classmates were falling in love as I fell into prostitution.

Are you a drug addict? One of my male customers asked me, inquiring as to why I was working in the world’s oldest profession.

No, I’m just a college student- came my honest reply. Perhaps studying is a more expensive habit than drugs, and the result just as ethereal.

My classmate’s parents supported them with a stipend and they complained to me that $600 a month was too little, as they bought booze and cigarettes, mean-mugging the clerk at the Chinatown liquor store to appear old enough, a grungy exterior disguising their trust fund privilege.

My parents sent me nothing but a too-late berating on how I should have asked for money if I needed it after they discovered my unspeakable scandal, which they have not mentioned since- nor did their unearthing of the truth result in financial assistance. I thought that my empty bank account and empty belly spoke for themselves.

On a cold winter’s night, I still hear the howl of those hallowed halls, the tunnels of avenues lined by iconic sky scrapers, indifferent to my frigid body below bent into the wind

With frostbitten feet teetering in heels, dresses so cheap they were nearly disposable, and the most threadbare of coats, I did have fun from time to time- prowling the city like a stray cat, discovering the serenity of late night corporate art as Wall Street slumbered except for a few coked-out, drunk men. Like me, they were lonely.

From time of time I still feel the unloving alcohol in my throat, the tears in my eyes from choking on cocks and the iciness of the night air, the flavorless meals and banal conversations, the false promises to pay me afterward, the faulty checks written, the wads of gritty cash I shoved into my shoes for the long subway ride home.

Second Worst

I wanted to share a pearl, at tidbit of wisdom from what I’ve learned about transactions and concessions over the years.

Purchasing the second-cheapest option instead of the cheapest is often worth it. For the thrifty, the second worst is truly the best and will be worth the seemingly extra expense up front.

This is certainly true with alcohol and hotel rooms.

Anyone who has felt the scald of bottom-shelf liquor tear through their oropharynx and esophagus will understand what I mean.

Regarding on-the-road lodging, the $50 per night rooms always smell like cigarettes and feel like cum stains and dog hair. Unless that is what you want to wallow in, spring for the $100 per night accommodation and rest in a clean abode, instead of fretting through the night and starting your day with a stench you can’t shake because it has seeped into everything you brought with you, including your lungs. Those cheap hotel rooms also don’t provide refunds, even if you booked online without realizing that it was a smoking room and upon discovery that it was a smoking room, immediately informed them that you would not be stepping one foot through the door.

You can try to learn this on your own, but I hope that someday I will help someone avert a hard lesson because of my mistakes.

Carnival

Welcome to the carnival

I offer all manner of novelties to delight you

Are your thoughts as wild as a flying trapeze?

I’ve got pills to set your mind at ease

Does your heart feel like it has been trampled by an elephant?

You don’t need to use booze to get bent

I’ll flood your blood with chemical love and adjust the dose to fit like a glove

I’ve perfected my performance to be your ideal physician despite my perpetual exhaustion, hanger and burn out

Ignoring my own pain as I eliminate yours

Neither one of us is listening to the sacred wisdom of our bodies

I suffer long and hard so that you don’t have to feel a thing

In my side-show alley you’ll see that if you want more than an endless stream of candy refills, if you want me to be your shaman instead of your drug dealer, at any time you can feel your feelings instead of suppress them

Take a plunge from the high dive on the wild horse of your unmedicated body

Hear your healing lion’s roar

Let your self-expression soar

Allow yourself to fall into the safety net of the universe

Trust that you belong, that you are a star just as you are

Juggle fire and meet yourself with humor when gravity makes its presence known

Allow yourself to be shot from the cannon of self-doubt, trusting that you will be ok

If healing is a series of flaming hoops

The transformative way out is through

Show yourself what you can do

Dance to uplifting music every day

Cultivate strength and flexibility in body and brain

Remind yourself it is normal to feel insane

In this seemingly crazy world, only you can take the reins

Be the ringleader of your life

It ain’t me, babe

Though I have the hard-won power to prescribe the goodies you crave

To be in control of ourselves we must give up control of everything else

Welcome to the big time

The show can’t go on without you

I applaud you

My eyes are open to witness your marvels and miracles

Sex, Money, Dishes

Tell me you’ve never fought with your partner about sex, money, or dishes.

Sex

I used to fight endlessly about sex, mainly because I didn’t want to have it but my partners did, so we’d fight and fuck, then I’d cry and be blinded by images of destroying my body or their body just to stop the rape and the torture of not feeling safe in my skin. Amazingly, we all survived and now I have a loving partner with whom I have gold-medal sex; you have to experience it to believe it, it’s like I’m cashing in on some sex fund which I invested in long ago. Happily I don’t fight about sex anymore- I’ve got a man I’m attracted to inside and out, and he loves me the way I want to be loved.

Money

I used to exchange sex for money. It seemed like there was always too much sex and not enough money in those transactions, or transgressions. Even those back-alley deals were more straight forward than my relationships in which sex was exchanged for the illusion of not being alone, for food, housing or ‘safety’, though I learned that the cost to my physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing which false relationships exacted was not worth the dinners, drinks, gifts of lingerie, attention or the roof over my head. You might get raped if you travel alone, but if you travel with a man you are guaranteed to get raped. Live within your means because fine dining won’t taste good if you are eating with a strange man, believe me I know. If you have to learn on your own I understand, however if my years of pain can help prevent a moment of your suffering, it will have been worth it.

Dishes

Rare is the man who finishes the dishes. Common are the men who stack the dishes artfully in the sink until there is barely room to turn on the faucet. I have noticed this pattern during my co-habitations with men. I’ve done too many dishes. It especially irks me when men drown sponges in the rinsed yet still not washed dish pile, unperturbed as the sponge decomposes into a musty mess. Men seem deaf to the silent cries of the forgotten dish sponge. Day after day, I rescue the sponge, wringing it out and restoring it to its rightful place safe on dry land, in sight. My man shows his love for me not only through our award-winning sex, but also through money (ie, responsibility for personal  finances to contribute to our future together) and dishes: ladies and gentlemen, my man did the dishes tonight, thus allowing me time to write the words you read. If a man loves you he will want to learn your love language, which you must teach him with patience, positive reinforcement, and more patience.

I grew up doing the dishes, in poverty, and sexually molested by family and friends. My sister would beat me when she got in trouble for not doing the dishes with me after we were told to do them, but the alternative would have been getting beaten by my parents for not doing the dishes, so I was going to get beat no matter what I did. I wished that someone would do the fucking dishes with me. A girl can get lonely amidst the dissolving suds.

When the High Wears Off

You can drink and smoke and swallow

Sniff and huff and wallow

Burn it up, inject it in

But no amount of noise will silence the din

I hear the roar of your pain

I see the fire in your brain

Anxiety and depression rage

Fueling the words on this page

I’ve tried it all

I’ve had a ball

I’ve lived through hell

Just to tell

What I have learned

What I have earned

Highs are temporary

Where will I be

When my next high wears off

Highs always wear off…

After chasing many a transient high

Which only left me feeling low

I’m building upward toward the sky

Growing that inner glow

I’m creating a sense of safe space to come home to

After another long day of battling anxiety monsters and depression demons

My mental sanctuary is invisible, yet indispensable

It is my daily practice, my intention, my breath

My practice is to remind myself that I belong here

Even if I don’t believe it at first

I am worthy

Even if I don’t allow myself to receive at first

I am a person

Even though I’ve spent a lifetime of feeling lesser-than

Of feeling like I owed my life to strangers

I’ve survived so many dangers

I’m lucky

I’m ready

To start living

To feel beyond high

Cultivating a sustainable solution without bodily pollution

Emotional storms are best weathered while wearing a life vest

So I envelope my chest with positive visualizations

Letting my heart garden blossom and thrive

With this breath, I am alive

I am beyond high

Absinthe and Abstinence

Instead of drinking absinthe

I wish I’d practiced abstinence

Absinthe passed through my lips

You followed suit, more than just the tip

I was butter and you were the knife

Wish I could take back that night

Spread out like jam on toast

On a Manhattan mattress, we did the most

It got so hot, we were the roast

But I was the one who got burned

Absinthe, you brought on sweat, blood and tears

Abstinence, you would have spared me much fear

Absinthe, why’d you help me undress?

Abstinence, you would have prevented stress

Absinthe, you never delivered that green fairy

Abstinence, your fruit is sweeter than the ripest berry

Absinthe, under your tutelage I’ve grown wary

Now I practice abstinence

From every Tom, Dick and Harry

and all the other men who didn’t have my best interest at heart-

You protested loudly when I told you we had to part.

You don’t have to understand

You just have to know that you’re not my man.

Dance with the Devil

I’ve met the Devil plenty of times
He’s a man with a drink in his hand, asking for mine
He’ll buy me a drink and drop a few dimes
But in the end, he’s just another waste of my time

I’ve seen the Devil at close range
I feel his eyes on me; he looks at me strange
When I hesitate to perform his every wish
(Whether or not I know what his wish is)

At first I make him happier than he’s ever felt before
Until I leave his heart panting on the floor
I survive with him til I remember how much I’d thrive without him

Like anesthesia, my amnesia wears off eventually

And when it does it’s like I wake up in the middle of surgery

Open heart in a bloody mess, I struggle to pick myself up and get dressed

Headed for the horizon, under duress, yet determined and strong, I sing my single song

Until I meet my sacred Devil again

And he gives me another chance to burn, another opportunity to learn

How many times must I learn how to get out of a toxic relationship?

Please, let this be the last time

The key lies in prevention, so I laid down a one simple rule:

Never be alone with a man behind closed doors, especially when alcohol is involved

The Devil likes to dance naked with me
His dick points at me like a compass needle
And I’m due-North, though I’d like to head South
His dick feels like a poison mushroom in my mouth
I want to spit it out, and shout:

Devil be gone- we’ve been dancing too long!
My feet hurt and they’re caked with dirt
Haven’t we made each other suffer enough?
Surely, your attachment to me feels rough
When I rip myself away

I’ve ripped myself away from the Devil
Plenty and plenty of times
I hope that I can quit him for life
You are my witness by reading this rhyme