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kimberly nichols
kimberly nichols is a writer, editor of www.3ammagazine.com,
diary of a californicator columnist and artist who lives in the
california desert. kcooperblue@earthlink.net
Works on this page:
letter to animus, 1998
Letter to Animus, 1998
1.
"I live in disguise. I move from station to station. My
dreams smash like glass acts in jagged formation. Like the fool
that I am, I swallow the slivers and spit dead empty songs in
the face of Ms. Givers. Memories get pulled like teeth from the
shelf. I look in the mirror but can't see myself. The one that
I can't see is the one that I am. The one that I can't be is
the one in demand."
-Henry Rollins
Oh sweet brother,
Umbilical cousin,
We are all alone in a brandy colored world.
Closer to getting wine stained napkins in our underground glory.
Independent taxi, it's party time in the city
Liquor storeähot hotel
Coal miner's daughter on the loose
Microscopic transcendental
Orgasm.
Wuss lipstick
Bank receipts
Forgotten balances
Living in this world
Empty as bullshit
Youth carcass.
I still look in the mirror and see a little girl.
Optometrist, adjust my vision.
In the end will we find all the answers?
Sitting here
Searching
Like some cataract babies
When we know so much better.
Stinging with lemon
And the old women in the corridor
Laugh at us
Shrinking in their vinegar wisdom.
I crawl on all fours back to the crawlspace in my soul.
2.
"From all men I was different, and myself, but I see in
you that part of me which is you."
from House of Incest by Anais Nin
Oh sweet brother,
Umbilical cousin,
You are soft and slow
Hard like a firefly
Battling with the door of its feathered cage
Rotten hearted claw marks and bruises on my breasts
And spent me lying on spotted sheets.
Glass bushes of grief and strains of planted desire.
The girl we are with sits on the curb.
We are in the car waiting for her.
She's yelling into her cell phone.
"Oh my god, I do not have deceitful ways about me!"
Everybody's arguing but I don't know how.
I'm a human failure
Because I don't want to lie anymore.
Rocks in my pocket
Drown
Like some high schoolish heroine.
The figs are fighting in the pantry again.
The pigs are partying in China again.
Thorny meadows sharp garden
And everything swims on as it does.
Amen,
Red scars,
Inner thigh
Highlight
High life
Termites chipping away at our devotion.
You were
the one in my dreams that would be there
For as long as I shall live
But far away
And like that dime store partner who slinks among dirtied water
And comes back for air
And comes back for the truth
That lies between those who are real
And don't know why.
What it is lies deafened at the doorway
What it is determines itself
And is determined to deafness
And is determined
Unlocked and unfettered by worry.
I have always been the kind of girl to turn strippers into
angels,
Glass thread into cotton webs,
Embroidered scars into history lessons,
Dirty thighs into ocean bubbles,
Soiled hands into feathers,
Torn wings into ego bandages,
Hard stone into wound coffins,
Lies blushing into cheeks,
Pock marked flesh becomes a kissed masterpiece.
The ugliness inside into a bonfire on the ceiling of hope.
I don't know why.
Have just always known how.
I will never be a poison to you.
3.
"Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything,
with a dissolute imagination the like of which has never been
seen, atheistic to the point of fanaticism, there you have me
in a nutshell, and kill me again or take me as I am, for I shall
not change."
-From the Marquis de Sade's Last Will and Testament
Oh sweet brother,
Umbilical cousin,
You are the best friend in the mudpile
That I never had
And that is why I love you
Cold fuse and all.
Long lost brother
Cosmic understanding
Snide autumn shrunk
Never cringing from the thorns
Spiked W I D E
On the wilting roses of my sanity.
Sometimes I envy you
Your clocks that don't exist
Your walls that fend off worry
Your benevolence.
Is there some injection I could take
To stop caring about this fungus of the world?
I sat with myself today.
Grew quiet and wordless.
Wanted to slash my clothes
Burn my house
Start over fresh in a bleeding womb
Grab my daughter and run to a faraway place
And plant her in the forest
Alive with green vines.
Looked around and couldn't understand
What was going on.
I don't want to search.
All of my poetry bleeds orange vomit.
I almost killed my computer.
The ink of yesterday disgusts me
And the rain won't wash me away.
I'm showing you everything
Because I know you'll swallow.
Then maybe I'll be able
To erase and renew.
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