Laughter Lines

i feel the cigarette smoke settling,
carving into my crow's feet,
the laughing lines, I confessed to you,
have eroded and formed
from years of flash floods

i live alone in hurricane season,
i take pills in my dreams and direct sad movies,
horror scenes project from behind my eyes, outward,
the sad light fills the laughter lines

the symbolism of a crippled pony

i am not
the mare at your bedside
gazing erotically
at the suffering in your sleep

i am not
the transcending white winged horse,
i can not hold the weight of the one who will save you

not Uchchaihshravas,
i have only one sagging skull,
too crippled for a king's crown

my neighing cry lends itself to demons,
these wooden hallowed insides
do not hold warriors

so suited i am a crippled pony,
abandoned by the herd

my bloody knees and hocks
are the stench of weakness and sign of failure

the horse is an animal i have never touched,
a wild thing i dare not discover

so suited i am a crippled pony,
an unwanted mystery lying in the barn dust

i see you are
falling
for me

you must be
crazier than i expected

wallowing and broken things

as a girl she only played with broken toys
as broken as her
dusty dirty in grandma's backyard
chained in fence
and her parents
used their drugs to remind themselves
there are so many ways to not be here

now she only plays with broken hearts
unhemming the last stitches they worked so hard
to keep together
but she knows, nothing stays together

she wants to be the one
to break it to you

she's a cat who only plays with
terminally ill mice
those who let her
play because they know how broken they already are
what's the harm,
those who let her play
remind her
there are so many ways to not be here