Rachael Swiss

Real men don't cry
Or write poetry
But you did, and I made you
I stood frozen as an ice sculpture
...

the last thing i want to hear
late at night,
before i close my eyes,
is your voice.
...

Live corpses wander littered sidewalks
Shoeless, legless, toothless and tired
The refuse of a city built on broken promises.
Pregnancy runs rampant - a self-perpetuating disease
...

They say that eyes are the windows to the soul
And so I paint yours pale
And vast
And blue as tiny slivers of beach glass
...

Even though the connection was severed
I still feel the pain
In the phantom limbs that make up the
Giving Tree that is my
...

“The girl is wicked”, so they say,
“A succubus, she’ll cause you pain -
She doesn’t love you anyway.”
...

There are fragments of your flesh
Trapped
Underneath my fingernails
Crusted blood in frozen coils
...

I pretend to sleep beside you -
Lying awake with heightened awareness
Attempting to preserve this moment,
Encapsulate it in a memory,
...

whenever i sleep i sprawl.
i cover my bed with the
entirety of my entity
to make up for the loss
...

Ballerina in a music box
Red smile painted on,
I twirl for you till the music stops
And frown when you are gone.
...

frantic fluff
usupring the pejorative,
he must torment! the
languid white moonlight
...

there is a pen in my hand and it trembles violently
electric waves carrying thoughts to poised fingertips
the words must flow now or the finger will bloat like sausage
and the dam will collapse without the hope of one boy
...

Razor wire 'round the throat
Criss-cross and POP!
Goes the pustule
Exploding the amniotic sad sack of
...

i'm not laughing anymore.

twenty plus years of auditioning for fear
of course i laughed
...

Kisses held in suspension
Hanging in comical balloons
Dangling from my wit-ridden tongue,
Frozen in time,
...

Stray hairs fall casually across her forehead
Flirting with doe-eyes
Coy and fetal wrapped as eyelashes are
Breath is gauze with some shimmer to it
...

i have not the words to rescue you by
just wishes fulfilled as tears
bitter welling bubbles bursting and flooding over
rivulets carving well-worn paths into puffy cheeks
...

A couple boards the bus.

She's fat.
He's ugly.
...

In the great exodus of daydreams I waited for you...

Looking out through bullet-proof reflective windows
Onward into tunnels of extinguished memories
...

there is a hole in my heart where my love hides
and a humble spider sits.
he has woven his web there
taking up residence in the dusty corners and crevices
...