Turquoise

The Candidate

He irons his own shirts

Tucks bed sheets sheets so tight

You could bounce a silver coin

His fridge is clean and stocked

cucumbers for juicing, Thai food on Friday’s

A subscription to Business Weekly and The Economist

He doesn’t waste money at Starbucks

Instead, during lunchtime he

Pays a woman to

Hit him with a wide leather strap

Standing on his fingers in five inch heels

He talks in a baby voice to her vilifying

Begging mama to have his diaper changed

And on Wednesday before court

His secretary dusts his black gown

The judge sits in his wooden chair

Deciding the lives and fates of others

Who depend upon his justice for their own

Sitting there, FitBit on his wrist

Anticipating the next time

She’ll spank him raw

Perhaps his eye isn’t quite on the ball

His priorities are screwed up and wadded in the corner

Could be it’s his lonely childhood

Or the rejection of his first girlfriend

Maybe the pain reminds him to stay awake in a sleeping world

Or self hate takes a breath and sinks again beneath water

It’s possible he does it purely for kicks

Though I know of nobody without some reason

The sting of violence

Sits like icing all day

Does it influence his decisions?

We simply cannot say

For he may not know himself and this may all be a charade

He goes through to feel anything at all

And his head may be empied of quandry

His heart of compassion

The day he is voted to sit on the Supreme Court

Careful what we put into place

They stay a life time

Bringing with them often, little grace

Advertisement

Move

When you broke my heart

It wasn’t you who broke it

I had to give permission

All the days leading up to that fall

And the nightmares moving behind my eyes like greyscale film

In someways I’d always ended at this sharpened point

I did this to myself

It took that finality to break me apart

I held the chisel to ice

A distant memory of two people filled with joy

Was like a sore on my skin unable to heal

But I want to close my torn chest of its gape

Not see the stain of you separating me from the strength that comes from letting go

I know in time you won’t be a memory

Or even a regret

You’ll be the nothing I wish you’d always been

A cool blank space where all potential pain

Dissolves as salt on snow will leave barely trace

I don’t even wish you didn’t exist

I want to stop wishing for anything in your name

You’ve been a rot in my soul too long

It’s time to move on