The cap is off my lipstick, in mid-air.
I’m caught between two opposing thoughts,
Standing there, as still as still life
Wondering.
A bird sings rhythmically outside,
The only sign that time is going by.
I’m still standing here,
Still as still life,
Wondering.
A picture of me ten years from now,
Noticeably missing this sultry pout,
Will say the thousand words I’d shout, today,
If I could only quit wondering.
-jenn
They’re getting paid to watch cement dry.
They can’t have fools coming by
Falling in love and deciding to
Concrete the notices of it
In the blueish grayish clay
With their names, or at least their initials,
And a heart with an arrow piercing it,
Right in the middle of their nice corner,
Or a proud mother whose toddler’s hands
And name and date
Are destined for immortality here.
But a dog has gotten loose,
And before they can stop him,
His puppy feet prints will dot the street,
And only now they see a leaf had fallen, too,
Undetected, and will also be
A part of this semi-permanent record,
Fossilized in this modern “public work.”
-jenn
When I didn’t know where to go, and
When I didn’t know what to do,
I’d learned to wait
And listen to
The homing signal.
I’m standing on the corner now
Of “Don’t Know Where”
And “Don’t Know How.”
The light’s just turned,
But I’m not sure.
A significant other passes away,
And no one seems to care,
But my Lover died,
And I don’t know what to say
Except that I am devastated
By loneliness.
I feel insignificant,
And I can’t seem to hear
Any homing signal.
-jenn
I’ve been nice all my life,
And it hasn’t worked.
They say the definition of insanity is
To keep on doing the same old things
And expect different results,
So maybe now I’ll try
Being mean and nasty.
To the woman in the Cadillac
Who honked at me,
Then quickly changed lanes
To get in front of me,
Only to have to stop
One block away
At the red light,
I’ll scream profane,
Call her a ‘bird brain,’
And flip her the middle finger.
And as I steam, I’ll think
Of a stinger to reply
To the guy at the grocery mart
Who continually thinks it smart
To refer to me by, “Young Lady.”
Nobody got time fa dat shit.
-jenn
When it rains,
The flowers weep.
The precipitation seeps
So deeply into their veins.
Do they know
That they must sleep sometimes,
And let the raindrops
Reach down far enough to get
To their main roots?
I like to sleep, too,
When it rains.
I close my eyes
And count the grains of sand
I’ve seen in the peanut fields,
And think of the green, leafy shoots,
The way wet, careless weed roots smell
When you hoe them out of the dirty earth
After the rain has gone.
Sometimes I cry when it rains.
The sky complains.
The wind blows my hair into my eyes.
I stare at that place
Where I used to think I was alive.
I wander back in time
And feel the unquenchable nameless pains
That reach all the way back to
My misunderstood innocence.
-jenn
The Roommate
I lie here deceitfully,
Scheming halfway through the night,
Climbing up trees, in my mind,
Just to fabricate a world
That makes sense to me,
While she stands plainly on the ground
And tells her side
Of her story she calls, “truth,”
And simply goes to bed at night
And sleeps.
I worry that there’s not enough,
And bluff my way through medical school,
Only to flunk out the last week or two
In a super industrial feat of self-sabotage,
While she works on a decorative collage
For her floral design degree.
She cooks her rice and eats it,
And simply goes to bed at night and sleeps.
-jenn
Last night, I dreamed
I was playing with my cats
And woke up with scratches on my hands.
But my house burned down,
My cats are gone.
These cuts and wounds are only from
A half-dead rose bush I took on
Earlier in the afternoon.
Tonight, I’ll dream I’m kissing you
And will wake up in the mood for love.
And where will you be
When I need you here
To contend with me?
-jenn
