Sometimes Life…

Self conscious underneath him
Aware of the woman who came before
Long-legged, hollow-hipped
A stinging work of art – painted, framed,
and hung where I can see her
from the corner of my eye

She’s all but gone, and I am here
open, aching, breathless
underneath him.

I’ve dreamt of his eyes for so long and, finally, fixing mine on them, I see
I see what I am.
Second, third, fourth, fifth,
I am anything, but not the one.
I am not her.
I will never be her.

I shut my eyes and wish the stars would die
so I won’t be seen as not some other, dying
underneath him

The dam breaks and he surges from me –
a river forming tributaries mapping my thighs,
trickling to an empty death.
And here I lie in the ruins of his unrealized civilizations,
nothing
but underneath him.

In: Poetry | | #