Tag: verse

That Kind of Girl

That mouth hanging open

-dripping

like a soiled dish rag–

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–she is porn

–she is titilation

she is the repulsion that

comes afterward

with green fingernails and wet, dying eyes.

Sweet, cherry nipples

stuck on Tender breasts

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She’s here

for you

sweaty–

greasy–

limp with filth.

  salty fingers on her tongue

she wakes

alive again but at the bottom

–where hell is

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defile her-

Life says its safe to make her stink

to make her cry

She’s made for this.

On a good day

she feels numb

cause

She knows how

To be

A thing with no center

There, but not really.

a rusty red husk

drying

in a shadow

by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse

Artwork by Keith P. Rein & Cassidy Rae Limbach

When She Waves

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For Hellos and

goodbyes

my hands are

brittle sticks

stiffened by the forceful elements

raised up as if ready to punish the space

between us

with a strike.

unable to grasp–

They are unable —

to feel

to hold

Affection slides off of them.

and

sharing is lost.

Whether coming

or going

they wag.

wag.

wag.

Hi There.

 Hi there,

whoever you are.

“Her Wave” by Angie Hoover Hillhouse

Artwork: Shadows by Bird Heart

The Silenced Wound

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A scar

is yesterday

It doesn’t stab through lonely bones

or bite at freckled wrists.

It only

sits–

flacid.

— The corpse of a memory

that I have

forgotten.

Callous and benign

 in a garden of  blooming nerves–

Trying hard to imitate

the rosy shades

of life being felt.

But still-

it does not fit

Still

it does not See

that

it is not the same

 and it

can never  be—

“The Scar” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse

Artwork: The Rising Sun by Peter Campbell

The Way it Happened

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Cold sands

rolling

over dents and dunes

silent as death

and

only my chilly lips between to feel them pass–

At once, light

and stiff- a densely packed strip of shoreline

 separating east from west.

spit from swallow

speak from sleep.

I recognize this place.

It is where pale

strands of life

rest

on my nose

exhausted after being pulled

and stretched

It is where fingers sag limp

from grasping the wind

too tightly.

And you cannot help me

because only I am here

with my voice

breaking against that relentless wind

that tells me

I can never know the truth

though it is buried somewhere near

“The Way It Happened” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse

Artwork by Agnes Cecile 

The Gymnast

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In the evening,

when her elbows grind into the gravel

beneath whirling toes

and plump, freckled cheeks,

she is alive

in the world with the rest of them.

She is the bringer of motion

of percussion—

of lightness and music–

she

is

everything.

But when the faint moonbeams recede,

she is a hardened lump of throbbing thighs

and raw skin–

stiffened scabs

and sleepy hands wrapped up in sheets

longing for the comfort of

adoring

eyes to tell her that

She Exists.

“The Gymnast” by Angie Hoover-Hillhouse

Artwork by Hugo Barros

This piece will be featured in an upcoming stage production called Cat-Fight, which explores  the complexities of womanhood!

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