Untitled

I never wanted to be a poet

Just a housewife

With a high starched collar 

And pillbox fingernails. 

I never wanted to be a poet,

I would have rather burned the waste behind my belly button

In some suburban incinerator

Made love to a drunken stop sign every night

And fallen asleep quickly

Smothered by a curdled, white ceiling

Cradled by some lightly crinkle peach sateen sheets, 

Lulled to mortgaged dreams by the sound of falling bombs. 

I never wanted to be a poet, 

To acquire a taste

For blood and words,

To live, like moss on a rock, in a century of falling ice 

And despotic wires, twisted hair and coffee filters

(The trash we used to burn accumulates. It’s suffocating me)

I never even wanted to learn to drive.

But here I am anyway,

Merging onto the 101 Northbound

Screaming fuck at the top of my lungs

A poet in spite of myself.