Juliet Cook

Red Glass Ceiling

And some of them are space invaders,
repeatedly disallowing your own time and space
repeatedly making you feel like you're dirty
for not rejoicing in their continual insertions.

And sometimes you want to shove your own finger into the
garbage
disposal. Sometimes that feels like the only way
you can ever be in charge of yourself again.

And sometimes maybe you internally exaggerate things sometimes.
Maybe you won't stick your finger down the disposal
just yet. This time, you'll just bang one hand
against a hard edge until it bleeds.

And you need to bleed out the madness screaming inside you.
Feel it drip and drip and drip into a wine glass. Fill yourself
back up, temporarily. You think you're always a work in progress,
attempting to raise yourself up to the top of the ceiling.

And then crash down. What if all you really are
is a repetitive disaster inside a landscape of decaying flesh and
holes,
like rotting gingerbread swimming in blood in an old bathtub.