I’m at a point Where I’m so tired of always Being right about to crack. I feel myself groan and stretch On the daily Without ever wondering what the other ways To be, might be. But I’m starting to see Yes, I’m starting to feel That instead of bone, I can be butter.

Up til now I’ve lived my days Like an old bone, boiled far too long In a pan of foamy, greasy water A child’s fingers could snap me in half The way I’ve been living Makes me brittle Porous and pocked, With no meat and no forgiveness To give me cushion to move and bend. I want to sway like a palm tree, Seduction, Dancing in even the heaviest of winds But here I find myself an old twig On the very point of the ‘snap’ I can feel the maddened fingers tightening And I’ll have no more of it.

It’s too jagged and stretched, In this place of bone, This place of scarcity. I’m tired of the fear and the white-knuckled grip Like some gnarled old hand, clinging to one end of A last-ditch wishbone. I’m done with it.

I want to be smooth, creamy, and jolly. I’d rather be like butter than some old over-cooked bone. I want to be sexy and smooth. About everything, not just the easy, normal stuff. I want people to be able To come spend time in The soothing, refreshing butter. Spread me onto the bread. Dip your hesitant, greedy fingers in me And lick them after.

People will look for the bone, I’m sure. But they won’t find it. That old thing was never me Only what I tried to hold, Out of fear, Fear that there was no butter And the feeling that I had to suck My nourishment and hope From a shard that had nothing left to give.

I’m throwing it down, Like the cracked, tired thing it always was, So that the butter can show up on the table. Slide it over to me, And I’ll eat. I’ll rub it on my face, my strong shoulders, My sturdy hips I’ll swallow mouthfuls, full for the first time, And I’ll know deep down, Deep down in the creamy, dreamy yellow, gentle depths That there’s a lot more butter where that came from.

Understand that it is ok to comfort yourself The small sounds of the tv playing the voices of friends you have come to know well is not a wrong thing to listen to. It is ok to sit on a soft surface Sometimes you need to take on the posture of a slightly crumpled infant, held up in a sitting position to look with large black eyes at the world. This is often better than a futuristic chair even with all its knobs. It's ok to soothe yourself with the feel of soft blankets and almost painful bathwater that makes you sweat through your hair. Yes, it's ok to light candles. Tiny fires in big darks, small warm tongues that murmur gentle words just out of hearing. Why do we deny ourselves these small, soothing pleasures. We would not deny a baby though their needs are the same as ours. Jobs, age and time in this weird world do not change that. My thin veins have thrummed with Puritanical blood. I have associated soothing with sin though my body and spirit are in want of such tender care. Do it! I will, now. Ah, the beads of sweat begin to form.

This night swims with ghosts And yet it is already morning. This auspicious hour before the dawn feels ripe and pregnant for thieves and murderers witches — the kind with warts and I am no witch. Thief, you are you steal into my dreams Night stalker Carrying with you all your baggage of the past and the future, describe to me your wedding meal how it went smoothly down the gullet the steak, the cupcake the flesh around my fingers ragged for something ugly churns beneath the white, smooth snow seeping through in places. Let's throw snowballs at it Hoping it won't come back again, mold and mushroom beneath new layers of plaster painted stylishly. There is no green growth for months now, I've stared at the stump. I've had operations and grafts faith healers and three ring circus leaders have chanted nonsense (expensive nonsense) over this brown, twisted place where I used to grow new things. I am sad and scared that nothing new will grow again that my soil is depleted and depleting How long have I been in this same terra cotta swaddling? There is morning light coming through black, chattering branches A blue glow that smiles and says, “And now you'll do it all over again.” I'm already living all my worst fears of motherhood without ever actually giving birth.