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.