Another explanatory rant from Eve

Eden isn't lost to all.
But a garden
Where not knowing is acceptable
Where reality is ugly
And death is a punishment
For reaching out
Plucking and biting
For tasting the world--
That is a terrifying paradise
Of illusion
That I would freely choose to leave.
I fear finding it again, actually
By some biological accident
Or circumstance that requires hiding
In a comfortable place.
I want to know! I need to know!
If its a sin, I'm saying it now
I ate the fruit
because
I smelled a cloying strangeness
In this illusion
And all I ever regretted was your pain
At losing it
If there was some snake in there I don't remember
Or a God in there, either
I'm glad that you still see Him in your mind
But I don't.
I'm still foggy from the sweetness
Of every other tree
But only one,
Good or evil,
Showed me what I know of me.

mirror, mirror

beautiful,
it doesn't matter if you're ugly inside,
underneath the make-up
and the pushup bras
if one boob is bigger.
They say you're pretty.
the guys are always saying stupid things about you,
like "take my monkey and gimme some grease!"
or "butter them thighs up and serve em on a platter!"
but you like the guys
who never flirt
relationships that couldn't work
the cute ones
only if they're out of reach
you find something wrong with Right
too perfect
you always fall in love
you dream more than you live
you fantasize
you want to be yourself, better.
I know you honey.
They say keep your enemies closer
and we are as close as it gets.

war paint

i used to see all this paint on our faces, and clothes we cloak ourselves in
and all gaudy things to
hide the things we are as masks.
never did i see anything but fig leaves,
trophies of our first shame
whatever eden
we left behind
for more worldly toil
because
we wanted to know
because some apple
taunted that
our paradise
was a lie
and innocence
and ignorance
are not bliss
and unaware is
nothing
but
whatever it was,
our very first sin i
thought, back then,
anything we cover up with
was an attempt to hide
the shame of it
and everytime we skimped it down,
cut it shorter, higher, lower
broke the rules that were left
i thought it was defiance.
but this pastey liquid i apply to my face
now is
war paint
i'm not hiding from
memories of eden
i'm fighting for a new dream
i've seen it in the paradise of my mind
so much better
than the first
whoever created either or both
and i'm damned
sure
i'll make it real
in this life
or the next, whichever comes first.

rose

There is nothing that can compare
To your thorny kind
Of beautiful
Bittersweet, shadowed mind
Mazed depths
Lead
only to somewhere else
Yet
Those prickled stems
Are worth the climb.

I'm tired.
So tired.
this world is too vast for me
I'm not a part of it.
never was.
Everything gray calls to me
The shadows say
I was always a ghost.
mirrors and doorways
are the same to me
as passable as windows.
I'm always watching through them
unafraid
behind their breakable
coldness
unable to pass
I'd have to shatter something
more fragile
in the glass

Nobody knows any more
than they ever did
anymore
everything and nothing
defines itself
as the universe
of right and wrong
neutralized
finally
every angle painfully
intact

insanity (reruns)

Reruns
re-run
back to where I started from
I should have walked
the first time
in Eden
the first one

the one unrecycled time
was when

reach take move give
delete
it takes more brains
more pain less pain

bring back
grow forward
grow back
go back
go back!

life in death in life
organize the little things
That find their ways
or replicas
back
on shelves
or floor space
they seem to think
they belong
enough to get there

biblical knowledge

A young man,
shoulders slouched,
form appreciative,
relaxed,
casual,
holds (a beating heart),
jaws working,
the apple.
what? she offered
her heart.
inside,
(the apple) crisp white flesh
entices
excuses
the cruelty of the bite
forgets
the openness of Eve
explains her fig leaves.

Inside
biblical knowledge
drips,
apple-blood
sweet, clear,
from
tooth-scraped little ridges,
toothmarked
concave
mouth-shaped
sweet flesh
her thin red
peeled back,
skin-deep
she offered

biblical knowledge

A young man,
shoulders slouched,
form appreciative,
relaxed, casual,
holds a tooth--marked
heart with taut red little ridges
bleeding only apple blood


jaws working
only apple flesh-- shrugs, like: "what?
she offered--"



forgets the cruelty of the bite
biblical knowledge explains
the openness of Eve,
her figurative leaves
surgically immodest
heartless
emptying


tasting
the sweet clear juices
the crisp fruit
cold crunch

white fruit flesh
scraped, mouth-shaped concave
bleeding only
apple blood

he
shrugs excuses
explains
forgets

(like: "what? she offered").

first draft...

A young man holds a beating
heart
inside, crisp white flesh
excuses the cruelty of the bite,
forgets
the openness
of Eve
explains her fig leaves

lamplight

Only a woman
Could watch a moth
Fluttering against clear glass
And envy the
Moon- forgotten stillness
Of a white sill