Christina Butcher

 

all around the mulberry bush

i broke out to toke out
choke out your memory and traipse through cherry orchards.
like a blind beggar on his knees i swallowed the distrust,
watching the indiscretion smear across your face like billboard rape.
it breathed and bruised and vomited out infection
lukewarm and against the fence-
buried under chinaberry weeds.
the suffocation crept up and tumbled down like
stale apathy written in the rules of war.
you said dig deeper burn faster
i said bury the truth on hamberger hill.
you were too much color for my grayscale motives,
film noir roses painted gray out of boredom.

gardens don't grow under pale skies
this lie is dead.

 

museum of wax

i see green leaves falling
down down down under that mississippi mud
like memories and moments and chocolate swans,
melting under the radar.

like the scenes you acted out in my harbor
burying promises in the sand - no x to mark the spot.

but i've seen farther than your game of deceit
past the porcelain and puppets and china dolls.
[how easily they stole my heart]

it was your smile that gave you away.
it melted like wax under my fingertips
lost in translation - never to be seen again.

but who knows, maybe i'll play along
sullen girls never speak up anyway.

mother always said play nice