apiphile:

kissingpillows:

A boy asks his father to spiral a football over a tree
to arch it, so the ball will arrive an instant before the child.

The child dives. tendons extended, heart bucking
hands opening, to clutch what descends from the sky.

Your mother left today for the institution. If the ball
hits ground, she dies.

That December afternoon the boy’s mother passed away,
thirty-three times in the first hour.

Each time he grabbed her head from the snow and
ran it back to his father, promised to do better
and he did, he ran hard, focused, dove.

I caught my mother’s skull thirteen times in a row
and she’s still not coming home.

- Jeffrey McDaniel

apiphile:

kissingpillows:

If only we’d planted a black box in your skull,
like the ones dug out of airplane wrecks,

we could’ve salvaged your last thoughts,
and known, if not why, at least what,

but all we have is a body: the bruised
alabaster of your thighs, make-up so thick

a picnic could sink in it, legs so thin and sickly
they weren’t even bones, but diminishing

chimes of hope, and your heart: a time bomb
that took twenty-six years to explode.

- Jeffrey McDaniel

womanofsteele:

My short skirt is not an invitation
a provocation
an indication
that I want it
or give it
or that I hook.

My short skirt
is not begging for it
it does not want you
to rip it off me
or pull it down.

My short skirt
is not a legal reason
for raping me
although it…