Submissions by de_la_ennui

Wait for the lightning bolt,
they say.
You’ll know
when it’s right.

But how can she acknowledge a
capricious flash
when her eyes grow full on the
chameleon line
of one man’s mouth?

Whose laugh is like an
engine’s roar,
voice the slip of
graphite on white,
his quiet sighs
all she can hear.

He looks like
the kind of man who can
hold a whisper in his hand
for days.

And somehow she knows
the sun sleeps deep in his belly…
she moves closer unconsciously.

*
...

She read in a book once
that to love is to
consume.

So she ripped the
page out and
ate it.

Some like to say
the child’s first word came out
a command:
Don’t touch me.
So they didn’t.

But this will not do; she learns, over time:
girls are meant to be looked at,
to be petted and prettied.

Pretty
soon
she only smiles
when she doesn’t mean it.