Secret Ambition

At nine(teen)
my ambition had rose petals stuffed in her mouth
and lace wrapped around her ankles
we muffled her with romance
and hid her body in a trunk.

And now it's all crashing down
with the smell if decomposing romance.
there's no money there
in the murder or the hiding.
We've got extra smiles under the counter
who sell themselves much better.
Smirks provide the best business
& I've start keeping nickels between my teeth
the heavy metal takes up my breath
pushing poetry back into the trunk,
I mean,
the deepest part of the throat

I'm sending a tea-cup hug to my tempest tossed throat pocket.

But the nickels are falling round from my mouth
and I used my last paycheck to roll the tax man
one long cigarette

And the poems are lining her body
dusting the trunks innards with romantic decay
chocking down poems and rose petals
I have to keep the coins inside
no matter how many debt sores open the gums

This ambition is made of somersaults
and cinnamon echoes
her feathers are fluxing and cruxing,
but we stuck her hands in the dishwater,
made her dance in the broom closet
stuffed her dreams into a hairnet.

She gets quieter as the rent gets taller
never chooses secrecy
with hands too fast to be anything else.
but the empty pockets
stifle the frenzied speed
and anchor stillness
beneath the fingernails.

This boldness is getting chomped
between the typewriter teeth
the hammers bruise the paper in alphabet shapes
and the whole damn world is imposing again
widening the emptiness of pleats and pockets and purses.
All those dreams steep like tea
or a field lying fallow
as the toxic machine pinches the pennies in.
My feet move me forward
round coppery bruises and all.