Poetry, by Alex Ewing

on

I Cannot Say the Word

I want to forget you

         I want to forget

Your hands on me

         In ways I didn’t want

The feel of your leather seats

         Hot on my back

The sweat from your skin

         Dripping on my face

I don’t want you to drive      

         Down the same street

Arm around my waist

         As if I’m your girl

I wanted to be your girl

         I wanted to be

Another circumstance

         I wanted to be

Sunlight and daydreams

         I feel your hands

All over my skin

         The heat of hell

Swallowing us whole



Sad Girl

Nobody wants this girl.

 Nobody wants this girl and

 Do you know why?

 She exudes herself,

The inner thoughts like tubes

 Growing with each breath,

 Easily deflectable by

 The smallest prick

She hates herself, bad

Always has. 

No end in sight. 

Forget trying to

 Embrace.  Any

Self-help book.

 Any self-help. 

Any help.  Help! Anyone.

Such a pretty face

Burning-shame face

Brown-eyes with an

Obscure beauty mark

Wrong way

One-way street face

Peanut butter- jelly face

Extra crunchy

Strawberry instead of grape

She would be pretty if,

The world were

Flat instead of round

If she were

Flat instead of round

She would be pretty If

She

Weren’t

She



Tester

I want to bottle up this feeling

Keep it for a lifetime

Dabbing it here and there

A sprinkle on the neck

Just a dab

Damn, that shit’s intoxicating

Do you realize how someone

Feels about you?
A healing about you

Rubbed in the right places

A pinch on the wrist

Makes people wonder

Just what that is

A tester, me all over you

I take you home

You’re mine now

I rub you other places

smell you over and over

You are me now

My scent

Wherever I go

Everyone knows

I’ve been there




Alex Ewing’s poems have been featured in journals such as Juked, Dying Dahlia, Rigorous, Abstract Contemporary Expressions and more. She is a mother of four and poetry is the only thing her children don’t hide under their beds. She lives in Central Ohio and graduated from Howard University.