I wish to cry. Yet, I laugh, and my lipstick leaves a red stain like a bloody crescent moon on the top of the beer can.

I laugh, and my lipstick leaves a red stain like a bloody crescent moon on the top of the beer can.

I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.

I am inhabited by a cry. Nightly it flaps out Looking, with its hooks, for something to love. I am terrified by this dark thing That sleeps in me; All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to wash again the next.

It made me tired just to think of it.

I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of the throat and I'd cry for a week.