Things I Haven’t Felt
Emily Lloyd
From The Paumanok Review (Winter 2005: Issue #21)

Different, after losing my virginity.
Better, after the medicine I took.
Mosquitoes on my skin, before they’ve bitten me.
Profoundly changed, after I read that book.

The call of the wild. The glow of pregnancy.
Guilty, after sleeping with someone’s wife.
High as a kite, high even as a tree.
The peace that passeth understanding. Safe.

God’s presence in the world, and that of the boy
who thought I was his mother at the mall.
How long had he walked beside me without my noticing?
How long had I inadvertently hidden my face?

Pink | Barbara Jane Reyes

Wet work as a euphemism for movies of a young short skirt, showing all her pink, with still-wet newspapers and staring people. Fluttering amateur, brunette teen, spreading her tight pink, her sweet, sweet wet pink. Picture her describing how he wet his trousers, how he transitioned into a man who “longed for the pink” of a sniper’s rifle, the very warning of what may be found lascivious by ascetics. A wet pink rose, unaware of the war that raged inside of her, demanded red carpet thick and pink, quite wet from her being fucked so hard until she couldn’t take it anymore. She had yet to learn that war policy is neither made, nor altered while hospital naked and shaven. Dreampink and pearl fortune spilling, his throbbing gun. The day after the blast, she sat in a dirty shirt watching the adults’ wet clothes strung above. A spigot was the only water source for the tiny pink flowers growing, the basement of girls in wet shirts, hot and blonde, young sucking teen sluts of gangbang galleries. Their frenzied little faces saying stop the war upon teen pussy, pink and shiny, parted petals and swollen flesh. Picture her, slippery, cleaning the floor bent over naked, the color of bunny ears, the color of don’t complain about wet feet, about war games, about problems of fires spluttering out before we bang her wet body in the rain, in the quiet dream, in the pink pieces of the sunset.

Dude-- sometimes your secret is not interesting. You are not deeper than other people, and your pain is not more sublime. The conscious act of performing confession/confiding is a kind of subjectivity that is, I think, indicative a widespread trend towards narcissism in our culture. Yes, I say this as a blogger. Fuck you.

Forwarding this from an email.

Bratabase.com Compares bras based on measurements and tells you which other are similar. Here's an example
> http://www.bratabase.com/browse/calvin-klein/perfectly-fit-seduction-d3088/36C/
> In this case the 36C is actually pretty similar to a 34C in a different model
>
> It also tells you whether a bra would fit you or why it wouldn't based on owner's profiles. It will tell you which breast shapes are best suited for a particular bra according to the owners of bras in that size.
> http://www.bratabase.com/browse/vanity-fair/body-sleeks-full-coverage-contour-stretch-75-266/34DD/
>
> It has a bunch of other smaller features, but those are what I expect would help people the most.
>
> If you browse around you-ll notice that there aren't many bras on the site yet, since it is heavily crowd sourced and the only bras at the moment are from friends or members i've contacted personally asking for help.
>
> Feel free to give it a look and let me know what do you think of it or if you have any questions :)
>
> bye!
>
> Jj

Since I became the Other Woman,
my dreams have been as slippery as conscience,
scenes that shift in watercolour,
form, unform and run together.
I’m a charcoal mark, ingrained,
the one fixed point in a landscape
that pours like rain through a gutter.
I expect a storm and one appears:
a black cumulus in the shape of a wife.
I brace myself
for a fist like a thunderclap,
but as she grows towards me,
I can see that she is crying
and the tears are washing her face away,
taking the dream with it.
I wake to a voice softer than water:
How could you do this to me?
How could you do it...?

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

(Sonnet XLIII))
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

you were vast unto others by jen bervin

date the paper -- it's your early work --
date the space -- it's late --
write -- be late with you --

write to get lost in the day -- get
the time from friends -- make them a
memorable meal and forget what you made
-- write -- we are tasting new peaches
-- all the time -- write you waste
nothing -- write nothing is wasted on
you --

write this time of the animals -- the space
of the animals -- write the dog who
stands on your foot and leans in -- write
how you lean in -- when you love --
write the gentleness there --

write what you said to me -- how far
you went away from yourself -- when you
stopped -- noticing -- write you lost
your way for a reason -- write how --
you come back -- how your body was not
made to do this -- with you in it --
write stay in it -- a little longer --
write what died for this space -- and
only what will live in it --

tell me where you've been necessary --
the memory in the snow-- the river
in light -- write you flow -- humanly --

write the precise points that touch
the rivers of energy in the body --
enter them -- and tell me -- if they are
still wet -- tell me -- where they've been
-- tell me -- who touched you all winter --
tell me who -- you'll remember -- in
spring --

write where you were chosen -- when you
were chosen -- write -- what calmness
was chosen in you -- write it on your
hand -- write -- you are not too old to
write on your hand -- write -- there's
still space there -- and you have been
in it --

how you unsettle me -- how you go
infinite -- how you come back --

write how our nature's getting a lot
done -- how the air gets fresh all over
us -- write what tender leaves are back
-- how they tassle and sway -- write you
are spring -- write -- you-- are
impossible --

write how you slouch over flowers and
mend things -- write -- you can't
remember what you planted -- but that
you're certain some of them are
volunteers -- write today -- even the
garbage smells good -- write it's
spring -- new york -- and you're not
done with me yet --

write -- how you spill everything today --
feel listless and berate yourself --
write -- leave yourself alone -- write
you are the laziest girl in town -- be
that girl -- once in a while -- write
it was once plants and horses here --
write what you awoke to -- the feeling
inside the thing you made -- how you were
happy there -- write -- be there

write the day -- you were here --
write the day you were most yourself
-- write-- I can thank you for that --
write you went the beautiful way --
you made time -- you knew how to get
things done and it touched everyone
here at least once --

write how your friend's yard -- contains
a tulip tree -- that looks like a
voluptuous girl falling out of a pink
dress -- write she said that -- and it
pleased you -- write how easy it is --
to do that -- write how you love your
friends -- and what they think --
to say -- write that's you in the corner
pale green and fragrant -- write your
friend said that -- about a girl named
melanie -- write how he included you --
how you are -- in the world --

write the dog -- pausing to shake --
the girl leaning in to smell that page
--the library -- the river in light --
what you're choosing --the view from
the window -- every window -- you are
choosing-- now

write the body of the house shines
around the house -- and you my friend --
were beyond --
you were ballast --
you were vast unto others --

Delayed Reactions || Sherman Pearl
After the hammer slams down on your thumb
or the hurtful word penetrates,
a stunned moment follows.

You're like a solider who feels no pain until he sees the wound.

Happiness, too, is sometimes slow to register.

It was years after the rain had sent
me and the girl huddled close to me dashing for cover
that I suddenly felt the drops.

daughter | nicole blackman
one day i'll give birth to a tiny baby girl
and when she's born she'll scream and i'll make sure she never stops.

i will kiss her before i lay her down
and will tell her a story so she knows how it is and how it must be for her to survive.

i'll tell her about the power of water, the seduction of paper
the promise of gasoline, and the hope of blood.

i'll teach her to shave her eyebrows and mark her skin.
i'll teach her that her body is her greatest work of art.

i'll tell her to light things on fire and keep them burning.
i'll teach her that the fire will not consume her,that she must take it and use it.

i'll tell her to be tri-sexual, to try anything, to sleep with, fight with, pray with anyone,
just as long as she feels something.
i'll help her to do her best work when it rains.
i'll tell her to reinvent herself every 28 days.

i'll teach her to develop all her selves
the courageous ones, the smart ones, the dreaming ones, the fast ones
i'll teach her that she has an army inside her that can save her life.

i'll tell her to say “fuck" like people say "THE"
and when people are shocked to ask them why they so fear a small quartet of letters.

i'll make sure she carries a pen so she can take down the evidence.
if she has no paper, i'll teach her to write everything down on her tongue,
to write it on her thighs.

i'll help her see that she will not find God
or salvation in a dark brick building built by dead men.

i'll explain to her it's better to regret the things she has done than the things she hasn't.
i'll teach her to write her manifestos on cocktail napkins.

i'll say she should make men lick her enterprise.
i'll teach her to talk hard.
i'll tell her that her skin is the most beautiful dress she will ever wear.

i'll tell her that people must earn the right to use her nickname,
that forced intimacy is an ugly thing.

i'll make her understand that she is worth more with her clothes on.

i'll tell her that when the words finally flow too fast and she has no use for a pen
that she must quit her job, run out of the house in her bathrobe, leaving the door open.
i'll teach her to follow the words.
i'll tell her to stand up and head for the door after she makes love.
when he asks her to stay she'll say she's got to go.

i'll tell her that when she first bleeds when she is a woman,
to go up to the roof at midnight, reach her hands up to the sky and scream.

i'll teach her to be whole, to be holy,
to be so much that she doesn't even need me anymore.

i'll tell her to go quickly and never come back.
i will make her stronger than me.

i'll say to her never forget what they did to you
and never let them know you remember.
i'll say to her never forget what they did to you
and never let them know you remember.
i'll say to her never forget what they did to you
and never let them know you remember

Family Stories
by Dorianne Laux


I had a boyfriend who told me stories about his family,
how an argument once ended when his father
seized a lit birthday cake in both hands
and hurled it out a second-story window. That,
I thought, was what a normal family was like: anger
sent out across the sill, landing like a gift
to decorate the sidewalk below. In mine
it was fists and direct hits to the solar plexus,
and nobody ever forgave anyone. But I believed
the people in his stories really loved one another,
even when they yelled and shoved their feet
through cabinet doors or held a chair like a bottle
of cheap champagne, christening the wall,
rungs exploding from their holes.
I said it sounded harmless, the pomp and fury
of the passionate. He said it was a curse
being born Italian and Catholic and when he
looked from that window what he saw was the moment
rudely crushed. But all I could see was a gorgeous
three-layer cake gliding like a battered ship
down the sidewalk, the smoking candles broken, sunk
deep in the icing, a few still burning.