the ripe.

this is where i am brave...

[ripepoetrycollection]

I felt through the hard surface

and found myself a simple man.

It never rains where he lays,

and in his parched heart,

he feels nothing.

[ripepoetrycollection]

Latent.

I’m clever with my words but not my ovaries, they’re latent and slow.

I’m waiting for the right time to have a talk with them. Meanwhile,

the mothers around me talk,

their lips quiver with the pride that’s shattering my sanity.

They claim there’s nothing like it...

it’s a love they’ve never known.

I look at yet another collage of infantile disaster masked as happiness and smile.

What do they know of this barren middle-aged freedom?

Sitting in a sunken sofa, sipping on malt, and wondering if there’ll be time for a coffee after my cigarette.

What do they know of the weekend plans that take me from bite to bottle to bed?

What do they know of this maternal yearning that is channeled through streaming Netflix for seven hours a night.

What do they know?

[ripepoetrycollection]

Alcatraz.

We slept on a bare mattress in the middle of the room, in the middle of winter. Apartment #1407 of a gray building, occupied by grayer souls.

It stood on the outskirts of a lost island - depressing, dark, and damp. Like Alcatraz, my fate would soon feel it's thick walls and metal, but not yet...

There was a grocery store on the first floor so that the silvers didn't have to travel far for their essentials: milk, bread, penicillin.

It was a home where people came to die. But, with every touch and every thrust, we breathed life into the decrepit walls.

March, and my heart was already marching in a direction its never been.

He didn't have time to get furniture, just picked up the keys. He did get a mattress - a king for a kingpin. What did I care? I would have slept in the streets to feel him.

Got tired of fooling around in his many cars, so he rented a fuck pad for us away from the city, away from the world.

I wore black thin stockings, a skirt, and a sleeveless ruffled top. It was copper, like the pipes that failed to keep us warm that night. So, instead we kept each other warm. His jacket covered us, but only halfway.

We held each other, in the middle of the mattress, middle of an empty room, amidst cold and grey walls - but it felt like the way to heaven.

I would have stayed there forever, it was all I needed. His love gave me life. For years it sustained me and we ruined it.

Alcatraz couldn't break us, but our egos did. How dare we ask for love again?

[ripepoetrycollection]

blanks.

linens as blank as the stare you share you don’t think too deeply the pictures on your wall simply hide the blank spaces behind them and I wonder where you are I️ glare at you in disbelief, heart open, unable to fill the blanks of a shallow mystery

[ripepoetrycollection]

Pistil pistol.

I am not a delicate flower. Not a rose in sight, long stems with rotten centers where the pistils grew. I am prickly, my skin rough, like a cactus, with thin skin and thick layers of truth behind it, reaching. I am not a delicate flower, more like a tree stump, sturdy and stable, able to withstand a hurricane and comfortable to rest beside on sunny days. I am not a delicate flower. My beauty doesn’t fade, wilt or blow away. It’s within, it’s strong and it’s forever.

[ripepoetrycollection]

Six Years

By the time a girl is six years old,

she is a living, walking, blueprint of who she will be for the rest of her life.

She can perform household duties,

be trusted to take care of another child,

read,

write,

analyze,

and, sadly, by the time she is six,

she will also start to doubt her brilliance and intelligence.

Unlike her male peers,

she will develop gender stereotypes that will inhibit her in the future;

she will be doomed for life. 

In just six years, a female child develops a brain that is capable or distinguishing right from wrong, 

and it took me six years to figure out I was wrong to marry you.

 1https://www.presbyterianrecord.ca/2015/11/04/by-the-time-a-child-is-six/

2Adapted from: Coming of Age in Samoa, Margaret Mead (1928)

3https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/six-year-old-girls-already-have-gendered-beliefs-about-intelligence/514340/

[ripepoetrycollection]

Event horizon.

That thin line in the event horizon between not being affected and being sucked in, completely, that’s where I’m at with you.

[ripepoetrycollection]

Doctors called it...

Your love went through me,

it started in the chest

near my heart.

You injured me breathless,

took all the capacity in my lungs.

The doctors called it asthma -

I just called it love;

a case of the “Alex”.

It ended in my asshole,

near the end.

Your love went through me.

I digested you and spit you out,

finally.

The doctors called it proctitis;

an inflammation of the anus,

rendering bowl movements to

free themselves from my body,

frequently.

I just think my body

was done with your shit.

[ripepoetrycollection]

Lines and right angles.

He saw lines and right angles, right up until the line that made him disappear. He noticed things; shapes, colors, disadvantages, but, he was scared to color outside the lines most days.

He lived aloud for other’s ears, racing thoughts on Monday mornings. He added vroom vroom sounds to his ride but, was scared of the road he’d chosen

He grew his shoulders far and wide but, not far enough to touch somebody, not wise enough for him to balance his new body with his thinning soul.

He saw lines and right angles, up until I crossed the line by asking for too much He liked scary movies; the gory, the story, the pain. But, it was real life that frightened him the most and so he choked.

[ripepoetrycollection]

Repeat offender.

Before the thief returned to night, before his mask fell out of sight, a flash of fear before his eye, his mask was clear, like summer sky. The cover blown, the lie exposed gold returned to rightful owner; this case now closed.

[ripepoetrycollection]

Your residue.

It briefly snowed today. It came out of the blue sky, intense at times, covering the streets with a thin, but convincing layer and then it stopped. The sun came out, it disappeared But still, the layer of its residue remained. You are like the snow.

[ripepoetrycollection]

Premature confessions.

That hidden spark you saw, I saw it too... It crossed our path and settled in a word or two. Leaving behind an unsettled particle of tortured soul, silent, just waiting for its half to make it whole. But that's all a premature confession, like asking for a love poem by tempting the temptation...

[ripepoetrycollection]

Not of this world.

In shades of grey and empty space we could make sense, some may contend.

Dark spaces, unaffected by the light of day, the clarity and human senses, may give refuge to the vagrant souls we keep sheltered from the world below.

And in alternate universes and dimensions, where time and space need not equate to mathematical certainties, the differences between us would make us whole. Could make us whole. But, you pray to higher beings And I’m afraid we’re not of this world.

[ripepoetrycollection]

PHL>NYC

I’m leaving you, my love But, I suspect its not forever It’s not you my love, it’s me I should have known better I should have known a blemished love won’t last I’m leaving you, my love But, I suspect it’s not forever And though we’ve had our share Of breathtaking nights together I’m afraid it’s not enough And you should know, my love It’s never been a question of whether You are better, In fact, without measure You stand above the tallest skyscrapers No matter if people think it so… And I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you… that I prefer your desolate streets to hers The rugged whiskey in your veins, the lack of omnipresent pressure It’s liberating to a wandering soul I found myself in you, you’ve been my prize adventure But, I have to go, my love Here’s hoping for the better.

[ripepoetrycollection]

Happy Birthday.

Today would have been your 78th birthday. You always baked these for me. 

*********************************

You were the silent warrior. Gracefully enjoying each day with your stack of newspapers, a cup of black and a Pall Mall cigarette, preaching that ignorance is bliss as you finished another crossword puzzle. You were the epitome of patience; despite the hostile world you called home. You managed to smile through the pain; made jokes from your deathbed. It’s a shame you couldn’t find your voice when + where it mattered most. But, your struggle wasn’t in vain. You made me a fighter.

RIP. 

[ripepoetrycollection]

You watch scary movies 

but, it's real life 

that scares you the most 

and, you see, 

I know better,

but, 

I can't do better 

when it comes to me

[ripepoetrycollection]

Stands.

His lips met mine and I could watch him swallow me for hours. No rhyme or reason for his appetite, It was just for show. He flipped me twice; once on my face, once on my back. I preferred it that way, couldn’t look at him anyway. Cheap sheets and cheap thrills come at a price these days.

Our bodies met and we exchanged tongues but not sentences; and even then, they were bare, like our bodies lying square. He flipped me twice, once on my head, once on my pride, I preferred it that way, couldn’t face him anyway. The cheap white made me just wise enough to know it was time to go.