NOT YOUR BITCH–The Poetry Series #3

Featuring
PUMA PERL

“You never fuck me and I always have to drive.”
—-Diane, Drugstore Cowboy

I hide my hands as I pay for the cigarettes
But the lady notices and disgust contorts her
Powdered face her Maybelline eyes her thin red lips
She will leave here later and she’ll go somewhere
With things like couches and food and she can decide
To go to sleep or make a salad or watch television
I used to have all those things well not the couch
But I had money I could buy an iron or a sweater
Just because I decided that’s what I wanted
I walk the dark streets looking into windows at
People eating dinner with chairs and wine glasses
The ordinary has become as exotic as a Balinese dancer
There’s a hole in my boot and blood on my underwear
My keys fit no locks I have forty seven dollars
Enough to get straight in a twenty dollar room
Two bucks for a set and I’m dead broke again
This is the exciting life I dreamed of, I never wanted

To be the lady with Maybelline eyes and a couch
Now it’s too late I’ve crossed that line from
A junkie to a stone cold dope fiend there’s nowhere
To go but further into the bottom and the worst thing
Is that it is so fucking boring worse than ringing up
Groceries and saying have a nice day or wiping
Some kid’s snotty nose, death laughs at me
No matter what I throw in the cooker I don’t OD
I’m immune to rebirth and oblivion, somewhere
In between human and animal, breathing my
Fetid smell, hiding in corners, selling another
Piece of myself but not so much any more
I can’t stand the touch of a trick I’d rather be
Dope sick at least then when I get well I’ll feel
Something, it’ll be almost like being alive again

Puma Perl is a poet and fiction writer who believes strongly in the transformative power of the creative arts.   Her work has been published in cause & effect, MadSwirl, Trespass ,Red Fez,  Gloom Cupboard, the Oak Bend Review, and many other print and on-line publications and anthologies.  She is a featured reader in various New York City area venues.   Her first chapbook, Belinda and Her Friends, was recently published by Erbacce Press.   If you would like to read some more of Puma’s work, or to contact her, please visit her page at www.myspace.com/rubymydear916.