OctPoWriMo Day 24: Typographical Musings on Finnish

For the first time in my life, I've been grounded by the doctor, who not only took issue with my having gone into work at all today, but has vehemently issued an order that I stay at home and rest tomorrow for complete recovery (apparently I have a bad infection in my lungs and an equally bad inflamed throat, and the fact that I actually didn't even know, because I'm so used to working while feeling utterly crappy, is...kind of telling, really.)

So I'm about to go do just that, but I had to at least finish up today's poem. 'Opening' could mean a lot of things. I wanted to take it in a more serious direction, but then I got waylaid by Finnish, and it took me in a whole other ridiculous compass point away from serious (I learn Finnish in my spare time, because I want to read untranslated books and many of them that I really like are in Finnish. I'm also interested in hand lettering, calligraphy, and typography - part of it may be in the blood, as my father was a printer in the typesetting days before digital printing. But that's another story. )

DAY 24 : TYPOGRAPHICAL MUSINGS ON FINNISH

‘Helvetica or Neue Haas Grotesk is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedingerwith input from Eduard Hoffmann.

Like many neo-grotesque designs, Helvetica has narrow apertures, which limit its legibility onscreen and at small print sizes. It also has no visible difference between upper-case 'i' and lower-case 'L', although the number 1 is quite identifiable with its flag at top left.[26][27] Its tight, display-oriented spacing may also pose problems for legibility.’

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica

Today I learn that the Finnish word for ‘world’ is maailma:

Maa, earth, ilma, air.

Ground. Sky.

Hell. Heaven.

Today I also learn that the Finnish word for ‘hell’ is helvetti,

Which is not a compound word like maailma

But one complete word unto itself.

Ergo: If  helvetti is hell, then Helvetica must be a close relative. 

OctPoWriMo Day 23: Atomic Non-Blonde

Initially I was wondering what on earth I might be able to write with a prompt like 'See Me' - which is deceptively straightforward, but can be taken in a variety of different compass directions all faaaaaar far from magnetic north.

And then I watched this poignant, horrifying clip of Australian atomic veterans, men who had seen and experienced nuclear explosion close up during nuclear testing. One phrase just stopped me in my tracks, dug in, and wouldn't let go: "If I was looking at you now, I would see all your bones." The atomic flash had apparently illuminated all the bones in their hands as they covered their eyes with their fingers. They all agreed that none of them wished to experience that ever again, as much as it was something utterly extraordinary.

I couldn't help thinking how terrifyingly vulnerable that must have felt - to have your skeleton laid bare by just a flash of light and a wall of heat passing through your body.

And thus, my macabre take on the prompt. (Yes, pun on the title - I am decidedly non-blonde even if I've experimented with it in more unfortunate moments, and this is very much literally atomic.)

DAY 23: ATOMIC NON-BLONDE
For the Greyhound

“If I was looking at you now, I would see all your bones.” – David Hemsley, atomic veteran

You’ve seen all my bones. Atomic flash, a revelation of skeleton and skin, the light places, the dark places, you’ve seen them all. The zombie kraken. The eldritch horrors buried in the Mariana Trench of my subconscious, the green-eyed envy-eels and depression-wyrms that slither out slit-eyed and soul-hungry. I’ve seen it all, there is no more to see, Bjork sings, but she’s wrong. Something always cracks the ‘no more’ barrier, oozing through hairline fissures. There. You see me, dissected on the table, a most un-model alien specimen, flaps of skin peeled back to reveal soft tissue and bone, neatly labelled - ‘tibia’, ‘patella’, ‘brain’, ‘undecipherable thought pattern’, ‘strange matter’. Go deeper. Under the bone is where the skeleton of my thoughts lie. Under the neural networks and firing synapses are the nameless things, the godknowswhats that define one moment more than the next, one specific place over another , this man from that man, which to run from, which to stay with, which wrong word spills out two seconds from ‘I love you’. Atomic flash. Skeleton and skin, light, dark. You’ve seen them all.

A stone. A star. Flash.

Your breath, earth-warm, beside me.

I give you my bones.

OctPoWriMo Day 22: 'Zia's Nine. She Refuses To Sleep Without A Night Light, Says There Are Monsters. Oh No, We Didn't Install One. My Husband Said She Was Just Being Silly.'

I've read palindromes, but I've never attempted one until today. 'Betrayal' as a theme encompasses a lot of stuff, but I couldn't help thinking about what happens when protectors betray the ones under their charge.

What happens when home - the safest place a child should have - becomes a nightmare, because there is a human monster lurking about?

This is far from the best palindrome, but the thoughts wouldn't go away, so I wrote it, and decency be damned. Sexual abuse of children happens in the home far too often, and it NEEDS to be addressed.

DAY 22: ‘ZIA’S NINE. SHE REFUSES TO SLEEP WITHOUT A NIGHTLIGHT, SAYS THERE ARE MONSTERS. OH NO, WE DIDN’T INSTALL ONE. MY HUSBAND SAID SHE WAS JUST BEING SILLY.’

Here be monsters

Always. But Mummy says there are none.

Door opens. Monster eyes. Daddy’s face. Daddy’s

Dark like monsters.

Must I? Yes, says Daddy.

Daddy says Yes I must.

Monsters like dark.

Daddy’s face, Daddy’s eyes. Monster opens door.

None are there, says Mummy. But always

Monsters be here.

OctPoWriMo Day 21: The Littlest Time Lord Contemplates Laws of Attraction

I don't think I did today's prompt much justice, but a migraine stopped over to visit and pound my head to smithereens with a sledgehammer. 

I wasn't much for for anything after that, so this is the best I could come up with.

DAY 21: THE LITTLEST TIME LORD CONTEMPLATES LAWS OF ATTRACTION

Synapses: around 0.5*ms per synapse per complicated thought.

Thoughts: generated and acted on in less than 150ms.

One thought: multiple neuron networks.

60 seconds into the future is as far as I can see or think.

We’re orbiting bodies, satellites, planet-moon gravity-joined at the hip

Navigating asteroid belts. How will I know? Know what? I don’t know.

60 seconds to lift off, 60 seconds to find out if we crash or we burn.

60 seconds, maybe less, to figure out us. If we make. If we break.

I don’t know. I don’t know any more other than

We’re orbiting bodies, satellites, planet-moon gravity-joined at the hip

Navigating asteroid belts called 'attraction'.

I’ve tiny hands. They’ll fit into the palm of yours

With room to spare.

Long orbit ahead. I’m game if you are.

*ms: milliseconds, ie: 0.5ms = 0.0005 seconds

OctPoWriMo Day 20: Threnody

I thought over today's prompt - 'Time stands still' - on the bus the entire way home. It had the potential to go in a lot of directions, it's a fantastic prompt, but my mind latched onto a) Kitty Mao, the pregnant stray cat living downstairs who's adopted me, who's about to have her kittens in maybe 3 weeks' time b) my friends who have had miscarriages.

I also wanted to do a Minute Poem as well, but the Loop Poem Variant seemed to fit subject matter and the flow a lot better, so I went with that instead. 

DAY 20: THRENODY

[Threnody]: A wailing ode, song, hymn or poem of mourning composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person.

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threnody

If I could freeze time -

time it precisely with the tip of a finger

finger-dial like a rotary telephone, all the way back -

back to the day they carved

carved dead life from my womb.

Womb-dead. They said -

said I could never conceive another child.

Child. My cat births her kittens in a squall of blood.

Blood, afterbirth, life. These squalling lumps,

lumps of knitted cells stitched together by fur

fur licked slick-wet, thin piercing mewls

mewls carving the air into furrows

furrows like womb scars. If I could –

could freeze time, time it precisely with the tip of a finger

finger-dial like a rotary telephone, all the way back –

back to the day they carved

carved dead life from my womb, to exchange -

exchange these squalling lumps,

lumps of life, for those pieces

pieces of you, of me, crusted and dead, on the glittering,

glittering razor edge of a cold, aloof scalpel.

OctPoWriMo Day 19: Dear Men Who Keep Asking Women 'What Do You Want' And Never Listen To The Answers

I don't apologize for being caustic or blistering today. I've had enough gas-lighting, emotional/verbal abuse, condescension, and mansplaining in my life to know how destructive it is, and that many men seem to keep asking, but never listen to the answers. So. Here it is. Blunt, no mincing of words.

DAY 19: DEAR MEN WHO KEEP ASKING WOMEN ‘WHAT DO YOU WANT’ AND NEVER LISTEN TO THE ANSWERS

What do you want
       you to stop

       trapping my body with:

       yours

       your eyes

       your hands

       your words

       your smug assumptions
       and expectations

       on *[how I should behave]

       [how I should conduct myself]

       [what career is fit for me]

       [how my body should be regulated]

So what do you want

       you to stop

       treating me as territory

       to be *[conquered]

       [staked out]

       [possessed]

       [tamed]

       [shamed]

       [broken]

       [put into proper place]

       (*replace with [word] as necessary)

       to have flags sunk into me

       flying labels you’ve imposed

       incompetent weak slut bitch ugly

       because you are Omnipotent Man

       who surely must know my body and needs

       better than myself who has lived in it

       since birth

     
No really what do you want
       You

       To

       Fuck

       Off

       And
       Police

       Your

       Own

       Behaviour

       

       NOT

       MINE

OctPoWriMo Day 18: (Throwback) The Love Song of Ms Mary Modern

The prompt for today also dredged up something I'd written ages ago - a modern nursery rhyme/fairy tale, as it were, that was a take on 'Mary Mary Quite Contrary', and what might a modern little girl might think about.

I turned it into a song for a performance at a jazz bar, and it's below, if you're interested:

https://soundcloud.com/shuku-kusanagi-li/the-love-song-of-ms-mary-modern-live-at-nbt

THE LOVE SONG OF MS MARY MODERN

Mary Mary quite contrary

How does your garden grow

With silver bells and cockle shells

And Cadillac dreams

And pretty bridesmaids all in a row

There’s a buried star from that boy in college

Who broke your heart and left you just for fun

So you gathered all the pieces up

A coat of scars, a patchwork plaque

To shield your heart from further indiscretions

Here’s a withered tree in the corner

That once reached for the sky with dreams of travel, of adventure

If money was no object – but it was

And that was that

So now it droops there, not quite forgotten

Oh Mary Mary quite contrary

When her heart is breaking you will never know

'Cause she hides it so well, she’ll never tell

Silence is her lover

She just waters all her dreams with her tears

Leave it behind Mary, leave it behind

Regrets of yesterday can’t be undone

The only thing that keeps you strong is castles in the air

Always ‘if’, always ‘maybe’, never ‘when’

Mary Mary quite contrary

How does your garden grow

With silver bells and cockle shells

And Cadillac dreams

And pretty bridesmaids all in a row

Yes, your pretty bridesmaids all in a row

Oh, your pretty dreams all in a row

OctPoWriMo Day 18: Pearl Necklace

I had a surprising amount of trouble with this prompt. Who'd have thought that 'Once Upon A Time' would be so difficult?

Then Jane, wonderful Jane, suggested taking a character in a myth and writing about them, and an old, old idea I'd played about with several years ago resurfaced, and things went from there.

The original fairy tales - Mother Goose, the Brothers Grimm, and even Hans Christian Anderson - all had some rather grim endings that were sanitized for public consumption.

I have to admit, I took great guilty pleasure in unsanitizing this one.

DAY 18: PEARL NECKLACE

Blue, blue, water so blue

Water as blue as your eyes, my dear

Water as blue as your eyes.

I wear a pretty necklace, my dear

Shining silver and pearls so blue

Pearls as blue as your eyes.

I loved you with all my heart, my dear

Your hair so silver and eyes so blue

Your eyes as blue as the water.

You pulled out my heart and ate it, my dear

You broke my bones and left me to wither

Dried up, like the child that leaked from my womb

Spilling life over your fists and my gown.

You lived with mirrors for eyes, my dear.

You wouldn’t see, you couldn’t see

You couldn’t see me at all.

How could you, when your beauty, my dear

Filled up your mind – your pretty mind

Until there was no room for me?

Blue, blue, water so blue

Water as blue as your eyes, my dear

Water as blue as your eyes.

I wear a pretty necklace, my dear

Shining silver and pearls so blue

Pearls as blue as your eyes, my dear
These pearls that were your eyes.

OctPoWriMo Day 17: Definitions

I had a bit of trouble with today's prompt, less with the three variants of it, and more with defining madness. I've had (and still have) my share of mental health issues I'm working my way through, so I'm very familiar with dark sides and the feel of everything spiralling out of control.

What came to mind instead, after a good long think on the way back from choral rehearsals tonight, was a different sort of madness - one that many fellow singers and performers are very familiar with: The Saga of Dressing For The Occasion and the pressure-come-stress of it all (for those who aren't so familiar, most performers have so much black clothing in their wardrobe they could build a black hole. That's because more than half the performances they do require them to wear formal black.)

Here's my not-so-tongue-in-cheek take on the prompt (not-so, because of the underlying expectations and perceptions that necessitate the whole situation to begin with), in the pseudo-style of illustrated dictionary definitions.

DAY 17: DEFINITIONS

MADNESS RAINS:

Annual clothing sales are of the devil.

(So are major choral conducting events which necessitate

attendance at said annual clothing sales

in search of the next perfect black jacket or black pants or whatever else

the event has decreed but that’s another story.)

Or rather, all the Outfits You Cannot Afford are suddenly

somewhat within range of covetousness 

(covetousness is a sin. Especially when the black outfits in your wardrobe

have inexplicably taken over and multiplied like trolls on social media.

That's why clothing sales are of the devil.)

And then there’s that One. Perfect. Black. Outfit --

MADNESS REINS:

-- except it’s a size and a half smaller than is comfortable.

Do you really want to hold your breath

for a few hours on end?

No you do not. You really do not.

Parisian chic and sophisticated style aren’t substitutes

for oxygen, breathing, or turning purple in the face

trying not to give a demonstration of Exploding Seams

in the middle of conducting Camina Burana. Or Gilbert and Sullivan

(even though it would fit in the latter world quite well.)

But. It makes you look tall (at five foot nothing, that’s important.)

But. It’s slimming (of course it is, when your innards are compressed

to the width of a noodle and your ribs have migrated down

to your hipbones which have migrated

down to your knees and your stomach

is now located somewhere in your esophagus).

But it’s that One. Perfect. Black. Outfit --

MADNESS REIGNS:

-- So come that day you hook yourself up to an oxygen pack strapped around one thigh

like a concealed gun and holster, and arm yourself (and your students)

with old-fashioned smelling salts (those Victorians did know a thing or two)

and strict instructions on how to proceed if you

turn purple in the face and gracefully buckle like a tottering swan

in 4-inch heels –

but hey! At least you’ll be dressed in the pink of

Parisian chic and sophisticated style

Because it’s that  One. Perfect. Black. Outfit

(even though it’s a size and a half too small and you

are going to need to be inflated with a balloon pump

later on)

and even mere choral conductors

aren't immune from wanting to look glamorous
(even when passed out on the floor.)

OctPoWriMo Day 16: Love Song

I am not good with poetic forms. This is most likely because I wasn't introduced to them early enough in my life to be comfortable with them, and I managed to miss any classes in college that might have taught me something about them.

So. Today. Terzanelle.

I almost gave up on this one after metaphorically throwing it across the room more than a dozen times, starting at Line 1. The intrepid and wonderful Jane Dougherty, whose poems I am in awe of, suggested listening to the rhythm instead of trying to beat it into submission with a wet noodle and an excited corgi - and that really helped a lot. Rhythm I can grok - I'm a musician, rhythm is part of my life.

So after much potato-ness, brain going on a tangent mixing up symbiotes with 'Catch me when I fall' (yes, Venom), and dozens of snarly fits later, this is my Terzanelle of Doom.

It's a good thing I have an amazingly supportive unconventional SO. Not everyone'd be thrilled at being called a symbiote host - even one not named Eddie Brock (he is definitely the Better Half of the pair of us. Me? I'd bite off heads without the slightest provocation if I had my way of dealing with Idjits).

DAY 16: LOVE SONG
For the Greyhound

Symbiote. You and I

Know each other too well.

Symbiote: you and I

Co-exist. Heaven. Hell.

Either happens when we

Know each other too well:

What should be said softly

Is shouted. Faerie light

Either happens when we   

Dream it, or make it. The night

Eats me. What should be soft

Is shouted. Faerie light?

Maybe. Hold me aloft.

I’m your Venom. Darkness
Eats me. What should be soft

Isn’t. You light my blackness.

I’m your Venom. Darkness.

Symbiote? You and I?

Symbiote - You and I.

OctPoWriMo 2018 Day 15: The Restorers

Today's theme, of something being an umbrella, was a lot of food for thought. I know it was supposed to be a 10 minute write, but I thought about it all afternoon because so many things can be both literal and metaphorical umbrellas (garbage bags, friends, all those things.)

For some reason the image of an umbrella being imperfect, leaky shelter in a storm kept churning about in my brain, and then in floated another image, of a mother who, imperfect as she is, protects her child like an umbrella until they can stand for themselves - and then the metaphor sort of gradually extended itself and turned into this.

In honour, love, and gratitude to all the different people who have been my forest of hands over so many years in the difficult seasons of my life.

DAY 15: THE RESTORERS

let me fix you he said

and took me apart      

left

me

in

p i         ec   e        s

saboteur masquerading

as mechanic

a nut a wheel a bolt

one piece at a time

different hands

joined me together again

made of my cracks a kintsugi mosaic

a forest of hands

               over hands

                       over hands

both near        

                and        far

forming over me

an imperfect umbrella

until each mended crack was dry

until I could stand whole

and build for myself

a shield

OctPoWriMo 2018 Day 14: Mirror Mirror

So today, the suggested form was a shaped poem, and the theme was, If I Were Me.

Shaped, fine, shaped on the computer? Maaaaaybe not, I don't have the patience.

So I wrote the thing first, and shaped it the way I know best - with hand lettering. Poem included below, because it's not really legible without it (and that's bad design, I know, but.) You'll have to click on the picture itself to enlarge it because my HTML-fu isn't good enough to alter the sidebar widths so the large picture shows properly.

DAY 14: MIRROR MIRROR 

 
caged with words
corseted by expectations
you’re a nail to be hammered down they said
the ash from burnt garbage
a pigeon pecking the ground watching eagles soar

until the mirror showed me

not a nail but a sword

not ash but inferno

not a pigeon but a phoenix

OctPoWriMo 2018 Day 13: Un-Inspire

I've been told so many times that because my students aren't all championship students, I am a shit teacher. That unless they're always winning and being top of their class and top of their competitions, that they're pretty much useless and I'm even more useless because I can't even do a simple thing like making them win. 'We pay you to teach. We expect results.' Straw, camel's back much? 

The Blitz poem would've been super-fun to try, except tonight my brain is so tired it isn't working at all. So this is a prose poem, slam poet Bill Moran style.


DAY 13: UN-INSPIRED

every day someone posts some inspirational shit on social media and every day I want to shove those stories down their throats and shout STOP TRYING TO INSPIRE ME DO YOU KNOW YOU’RE KILLING ME INSTEAD

(i measure out my life in spoons ((coffee tea sugar teaspoon tablespoon it doesn’t matter)) no that’s not right

i measure out my life in lack of spoons

 i am a spoon that folds in on itself and vanishes

all i have left are knives)

(good teachers produce A students championship winners you don’t so you’re a shit teacher don’tcha know ((why must A equate success why / can’t B or C or D be equally as good because not everyone starts from A some start from X and climbing up to V is Mission Impossible with the theme song blaring only you don’t know if it’s gonna be pass or fail so why / isn’t that something to celebrate isn’t that something to teach students that it’s ok not to be the top  that mediocre isn’t bad that they aren’t defined by numbers and letters but by name their own secret name)) to name a thing gives it power gives it existence) why won’t we give them power give ourselves power how does one stop the world so we can all

get

off)

runrunrunrunrun BE PERFECT runrunrun YOUGOTTABE A STAAAAAAR

what if I’m just a pigeon with tinsel twisted around grubby feathers

trying

to

s p a r k l e

OctPoWriMo 2018 Day 12: Legacies

Today's theme was to explore how the feeling of being 'tortured' was a necessary part of love, and of growth in a relationship.

As usual, my brain decided to go off the beaten path, especially after reading this article on the outcast Vietnamese children of American soldiers - bui doi - left behind in the war, and the brutal impact on their lives. 

Bui doi means, literally, 'dust of life'. Dust. No dignity, worth nothing.

What happens when love means knowingly embracing a minefield that could blow at any time?

DAY 12: LEGACIES

We always cut her hair so it stays short. So it doesn’t curl.

She’s never known what it’s like to have long hair like her sister.

She asks, but we tell her, don’t ask questions.

She’s a good girl. She studies hard.

Even then she comes home crying.

*Mẹ, mẹ, they threw stones at me again.

Why are they so mean to me, mẹ?

I can’t tell her they hate her because she is different

That her face gives her away.

That her skin is dark and her hair is curly

Because her father was an American soldier.

That her mother didn’t want her.

I wipe her tears away and tell her, they are just jealous.

Jealous of her long limbs and round eyes.

Jealous of how quickly she learns.

Bui doi don’t choose their face, their hair, their skin

Any more than they choose

To have their worth stripped away

Before they’re even born.

Every night, I watch her eight year old body curled up in bed with her sister

Her sister with long straight hair and a Vietnamese face.

One terrible day she will ask, and someone will tell her the truth.

I am terrified.

*Mẹ: ‘Mother’ in Vietnamese.

OctPoWriMo 2018 Day 11: Sub-Zero

I fell off the bandwagon. Badly. Internet outage, work stress, physically not well - no spoons left, down to knives only, and I was pretty much about to give up altogether because I just couldn't catch up.

I gave it one last shot to see if I could write anything today, after days of complete brain-blank. It came out as an absolutely lousy cascade. Maybe I'll try to catch up on the missing week in the next few days, if I can. I am also being reminded to try and be kind to me, when I'm totally out of spoons and depressed so p'raps I might not get around to all of them (and I feel guilty about even THAT.)


DAY 11: SUB-ZERO

i’m an ocean no i’m a lake no not a lake a puddle

i’m a puddle in a rut muddy puddle muddy rut

i vaporize i rise i dry i vanish and the sun eats me

i have no substance no form i beat invisible fists

against apathetic air i have no voice i am a hole in the world

(i’m an ocean no i’m a lake no not a lake a puddle)

i condense i freeze i fall i am contained in a drop of rain

no i am split scattered i am rain falling down into the cracks

i’m a puddle in a rut muddy puddle muddy rut

i am rain i am pieces of rain i fall into the cracks of my life i disappear

(below ground it’s sub-zero hell froze me over)

i vaporize i rise i dry i vanish and the sun

eats

me

OctPoWriMo 2018 Day 4: Three Caged Species of Exotic Animal

Today's prompt was 'Strange Animals', and the mention of Gerald Durrell and his delightful book 'My Family and Other Animals' made me squee with joy. I love Durrell; his writing is wonderful and evocative and witty, and I felt sure I'd have a whale of a time (pun intentional) with the writing today.

Except I didn't. Because things, as always, took a left fork into the middle of Unexpected Territory, and the piece came out nothing like what I envisioned. I didn't want to write it, I swear, but one thing I've learned (resignedly) is that my brain will churn out what it churns out and I don't have a say in the matter.

Here goes nothing.

DAY 4: THREE SPECIES OF CAGED EXOTIC ANIMAL

1.

Filipino Maid in Kuala Lumpur

ma’am is in a bad mood tonight

she come home start shouting

CORA WHY YOU PUT MY BAG THERE

ARE YOU STUPID

at dinner she get mad again

throw the plate on the table

CORA THIS IS SO SALTY HOW TO EAT

HOW MANY TIMES I TOLD YOU

DON’T PUT SO MUCH SALT

YOU STUPID IS IT

GO CLEAN UP THE MESS

YOU AH SO USELESS ONE

i think of my children in manila

they ask nay when you coming home

i say i don’t know nak

ma’am has my passport

she say she keep so i cannot run away

she keep my money too

malaysia is very far from manila

i wish i could swim

so far

2.

Thai Bride in Belgium

She loved him. She wanted a better life.

Both these things are not mutually exclusive.

Dating website. Six months.

He said he loved her. That’s all she needed.

She loved him. She wore long sleeves and long skirts

To hide the marks he left after his jealous rages.

She told herself it’s ok, it’s ok as he

Checked her phone every night

For signs of infidelity. Vetted her emails.

Built her a locked cage called Marriage.

Five years and she could divorce him if she chose

But it’s only two this June.

They can deport her now if she leaves.

He says he loves her. She believes him still

Makes excuses for his abuse.

She can’t go back to Thailand. She won’t go back.

Everything has its price. She’ll pay hers

In  makeup carefully masking bruises and black eyes

Clothes that cover her skin

And silence.

3.

Exotic Dancer in Florida

Money for college.That’s what I think about.

Money, as I pluck this sequinned hell off my body

Money, as I flash my tits to dead-eyed dicks with beers in their hand and tents in their pants

Money, as I gyrate my hips and think of anything else but this damn claustrophobic club and these hideous lights and this bloody pole and this zoo of eyes watching like I’m some damn species of pussy in a cage

It’s ok on the best of days, downright degrading on the worst but hell –

It pays the bills.

Sure, there are other jobs. Better ones with less shitty bosses even.

They don’t pay half as well as one good night here though.

What a joke innit – being tied to a pole by debt.

I’d laugh but it’s true.

Anyway, Annie’s done  and I’m up next.

Time to go make money.