Misti Velvet Rainwater-Lites

Unmarked.

Don’t touch me with those gummy hands those scummy hands those filthy
fuck knows where they’ve been hands. I’m scared of so little. So little gets past me.
You could whittle it with tobacco in your mouth until the sun sets on the wreckage
and the blood turns to tea. I’m nowhere. I’m plastic. I’m silly maw. I’m Halloween punch splash.
I’m warrior rainbow vagina angel
singing and shining
from my vast and vicious
glittering hell of ice.

 
Unkind Hymn

This loathing tastes like Wolf Brand chili (no beans) and mustard and sweet pickles
and white bread and fried SPAM. This loathing feels like old cheap stilettos sweaty on my stripper feet.
This loathing sounds like “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago although not as poignant.
This loathing looks like American television at 1:58 a.m. on a Sunday in September.
There will be no church no sanctuary no redeem no solve.
There is a trail that kisses the sky with trees and rocks that do all the bleeding for you
but not for free but that trail is not mine it is too far from here.
I drove to the ocean, put it all in a bottle but the bottle will not make it to bonny Scotland
or Rio de Janeiro. No one can find this can turn this into anything other
than what it is.
It is common.
It is ugly.
It is fat with 39 years, most of them belonging to Texas and various small towns and men who sound better
and love better
over the phone.
It’s sticky it’s messy it’s dripping from my wrists.
It’s trash.
It’s refused.
It’s tackier than a sympathy card from the dollar store with lukewarm pineapple juice
and stale pretzels for a snack.
It won’t make the ball.
It won’t save lives.
It won’t stop fists from slamming the slut
from goddess eyes.
(Marie Crenshaw still scorns me, her least favorite,
from her
heavy grave.)


DORME MECUM

It’s fucking basic.
It’s elementary.
You’re long in tooth, doll.
You should get it by now.
When a man sends you a picture
of his cock it’s not intellectual discourse
and emotional intimacy he’s after.
There won’t be an airport meeting.
Forget fucking on an actual train.
This is where trains and hotel rooms
are invisible and you cannot smell
the cum or piss or sweat or cologne.
Kisses are tasteless.
This works for most.
If it doesn’t work for you
write a bitchy poem about it.
So used.
So discounted.
This is where the muse comes in
spreads her legs
and demands
a quick fuck
and a century of cuddle.
Blink.
Sneeze.
Pout.
It’s over. It’s dust.
The wicked world
continues.

Misti Velvet Rainwater-Lites-

Trip

In the chill he sleeps loud
beside me in the rented bed
breathing through a mask.
He brought me an orange
and black coffee for breakfast.
His thick fingers dance deft
on my back until I fall
into dreams of terrible snow.
In San Antonio it's late May
and the sun is my mother
screaming birds from the sky.
We park on a hill and look
at the ugly skeletons,
tomorrow's unimaginative mansions.
It's agreed. We both want a garage
and a room for our books.
Sanctuary.
Our smiles are so much older
than photographs suggest.
 

No Romance

He was drunk and I was drunk and I had to convince him and he still wasn't convinced and I told him it was because I wasn't blonde and he told me that was cheap and finally we attempted a kiss but he didn't really want to kiss me he wanted to suck my tongue and it fucking hurt and I sucked his dick but it remained flaccid and I wanted to be fucked and I was fucked but only in my mind which is the worst place and the best place but in this instance it was definitely the worst place and I asked him to go down on me but I was on the rag and he wasn't down with that not in the case of me because I was not blonde and I was cheap and I was married and not to him but he spanked my ass until it was red and I screamed DADDY and later we watched a bunch of rabbits kill people and we laughed at Kris Kross and I bought him a steak and I heard him puke and he stayed with me while I tried to shit and we sat in a bar and he told me about how all the men congregated around the love of his life or one of the loves of his life (a blonde, natch) but there's more to it than hair color he likes his women well-read but sane yet really bubbly and shit and the biggest no no of all was when I got drunk and serenaded him with various crap ass songs the worst being “Hold Me Now” and asked him for a kiss and then got impatient and licked his face and years of friendship were null and void in the ugly whore face of such egregious error and I missed him I loved him for a long fucking time but now I don't and that's the end.

 

Libido Will Not Be Televised
 

Give her the nice Coca-Cola lotion cock and your stopwatch heart

for xmas for valentine's day for national clitoris day just because just because.
Chew him up concise and swallow with sparkling water to show you care.
Keep it clean and concealed inside a white pastry box.
Smile your bland share your beige at church and the Rotary Club meeting.
Safe inside the monkey house giddy screams and wild flings are allowed
but hide the cameras from curious fingers and careful with the belt
and piping hot white cream gravy can cause blisters to form
and San Francisco will never be the capital of America.
Meditation on Duluth.
A study in polite contrasts.
Shake the sweaty hand that feeds you raspberry balsamic chicken breasts
and olive oil drizzled asparagus spears.
The magic word is discretion.
A paper shredder is a wise investment.
If she leaves evidence behind
you can burn it
but you cannot
burn her.
Those kind of days
are over. 

 

 

Misti Velvet Rainwater-Lites

Stain

Love was a rock and then it was red.
The red was blood a bird at the glass.
I wanted him gone for good, gone from my head.
He came for a kiss and stayed for the mass.

All of me stale, broken, dunked in wine.
I knew his lips inside that prayer.
Over my tomb his cloud came down, I called it mine.
A kind of mist seduced the air.

Love was a ruby burning July.
I held the scorch against my breast.
It turned to ice and I decided to die.
I'm dead, now, yes, but not at rest.

Love came and smashed my glass to hell.
It rings long inside me still, an unkind bell.
 

Formula
 

There must be an attraction.
All those stars, scribbled down in black.
And the sun and Mars and of course the moon.
Easy as the marriage of sea and rock.
A lonely chassis rusting miles beneath the smirking bridge.
Fingers stained with formula.
The fool of cups, the one marked card in the deck.
Drunk on calculation.
 

Love Comes Panther

The dark is never deep enough.
The dark is no kind of protection.
Twisted trees conspire.
Blood tingles and screams its scent.
Love comes panther all sleek relentless grace
and prowl and find and devour and drip.
The bones laugh because the moon is fat and mute
a cool witness to casual carnage
so much unspeakable heat
and throb and ooze.
There should be some kind of law.
Love with its wicked jaw its grim unsmile its throaty purr.
Those flesh ripping claws so clever in design.
Jungles gleam pregnant with eyes that watch and cannot stop.
You cannot count the crumbs.

Misti Velvet Rainwater-Lites-

Business As Usual

Rats chewed lentils and marshmallows in the kitchen, which featured a dirty white and piss yellow color scheme. A fly flew around the dining room, teased by the stagnant scent of yesterday's pork roast and fried zucchini. Donnie was getting his dick sucked in the shower by some chick with papaya scented hair and a tribal art tramp stamp. Fred was passed out in a puddle of vomit, probably his, in the dark den while a popular Poison song leaked from the speakers. Dammit, the dachshund, fretted up and down the hallway whimpering for attention he would not receive for another couple of hours. The pineapple clock in Honey's room ticked ticked ticked. Honey was dead in her closet from allergy pills and vodka. She didn't leave a note, just a shopping list. Sad blue scrawl on expensive beige paper.

douche
diet soda (not Pepsi or Sunkist!)
razors
celery (the kind that's cut up)
extra crunchy peanut butter
sea monkeys


Neck

It is 3:57 p.m. in Texas.
I slept on my neck wrong.
I think I did it on purpose.
I think I wanted to punish myself.
I think I'm trying to tell myself something.
The carpet is filthy, the forks are all plastic,
the bed is haunted, the sweat is toxic,
the mind is wasted and the ruling spirit is Pluto.
Let me show you my scorpions and snakes.
Visitors so rarely stay for tea.
I'm the only creature special enough to tolerate this
thick terrible air.
I had a friend once.
He coached me through the creamed corn swim,
the odd desert ramble,
the stab the grab the jab at some kind of cheap replica
of bad girl heaven here on eyesore earth.
He left as Saturn, as dismayed task master,
as disapproving father jagged with ice.
I could go to Bible camp, there's always room
for one more on that good idiot bus.
Renounce, deny, cry to Jesus and Tammy Wynette,
put on the greatest hits of Paul the Apostle
and suck the sorry from my thumb.
I know that route, the swelling river,
the tidy death, the grave marked with
Barbie dolls, Care Bears and busted television sets.
I think my neck knows I am a witch.
Witches are harder to spot these days
but my neck knows its history.
No one will burn me or give me the water test.
I checked the oven but no one was brave enough
to shove me in.
My neck is itching for a blade's precise descent.
Make it fast and clean.
Don't be Ted Bundy about it.
There are words for women like me.
I've eaten every last one.
 

For The Broken Record

There is no glue, I know. What is this fucking process?
Reveal. Give to the point of depletion. Risk. Murder those darlings.
Murder self, those incessant murmurings.
I hardly ascend.
I get up bloody in pieces for the next go round.

I see you straight to your marrow.
I do not like what I see but I love you
and I know how to prove it.
I pretend like you do not exist.
I block you from entry.
You have already entered.
Your worms are crawling all over me.
I do not know you in smell or taste
but I respect your power
your way with words.
You have made me your bitch
but do not gloat.
The members of that club
are legion.

He had a cabin.
He had a wife.
He had a boat and I was not on it.
He loved me as a mermaid
but balked when I grew legs.
He was you on your worst day.
I climbed a few mountains
and killed a few bears.
The members of that club
mock me from a safe distance.
Their skin will not be lacerated
by my nails and teeth.
I'm such a tiger.
They are in the market for rabbits.

It was Sunday and I was sitting in
cowboy church and the eggs were all hidden
and I knew I could see
him in a pew with his wife
and they were closer
than Hansel and Gretel
and I would be informed
and it would be casual, nonchalant, bloodless.
I was a figment of a bad imagination.
I'm not the Bathsheba to die for.

The clues are scattered from Amarillo to Atlanta.
A few of my bones are mossy in Ben Lomond.
Don't bring up Santa Cruz.
I'll have to cut out your tongue
and you need that
for your next Delilah.
Bring on the dancing psychologists
and their paisley pads.
I invite the furious scribble.

All of this because Daddy
left us for Barbara
and a more humid climate.
All of this because I never got asked to
a single fucking prom.
All of this because I wear the hours
all over my back
and I have forgotten
how to crawl.

Misti Velvet Rainwater-Lites

Zoo Saturday

Mommy drags self into now to prove love.
Boy only has four years of memory.
Four fat decades of memories are too
much morbid metal realm.
Satanic rock spirit.
Hollow wood eyes.
Bat shit crazy peep show plead.
Mixing Saturn business with Venus pleasure
under black silk Neptune net.
Swallow whiskey fire for common courage.
Shallow mermaid witch, an artist by default.
Such debauched wallow.
Sorrow stabs tiny knives up and down expired wife spine.
Hold breath past lion enclosure close sunstung eyes
until monkey theater is over
carry ice numb heart to roaring parking lot.
Daddy has the key.
Door much too
hot to open.

 

Reddest Apple Writhing With Worms 

 

The description could have been more concise, more heft
in the hand, but I was not seeking, not streaking through
the market all ambitious with shopping cart zoom.
I put perfume on it, daisies, kitty cat stickers
even though I scream at strays, discourage them
from hanging around my lawn living casual as they do.
I would have written in bold black:

Masochist. Married. Might be in love with an ex-pat
living in Berlin, never smelled or tasted the man
so can't say for sure. I specialize in curling up on
couches feigning sleep while men laugh raucous on the phone
with clever, clever girls posing as women...
maybe they're addicts living in Mommy's attic or Daddy's basement...
the point is, stars fizz in the sky like the kind of champagne
they sell in specialty cheese and chocolate shops
when these girls laugh because they are clever, clever
and they know it
they know they have it in spades
with their tinkly laughter and tiny feet.
I'm not the kind to research these sirens then throw ammunition
against them at your triple locked door...so much mess,
so much blatant disrespect.
Oh, you know I'd send a Get Well Soon card soon after.
But sure.
I'm that.
I'm there.
Small and not sleeping on your couch
taking notes
smirking to myself
glad I am not in love with you
or anything similar.

Kissing is important, more important than jokes.
You do not get an A+ or even a C-.
I'm afraid I would have to flunk you for that
and a few other things I am too forgetful
to mention.

It's never a good start, going from the airport to a fast food restaurant
buzzing with flies. They're waiting for us to die, ya see.
From there to topless bars booming the wrong songs.
How many shades of wrong can you find in one paint by blunders?
Sharing a bath in a too small tub...yes, this was charming
when I was nineteen and in love with the man armed
with the bar of soap.

In black cursive scrawl I would add:

I don't miss anything about you.
I miss the shoes, my shoes, left behind
like some kind of thumb of the nose
in your guest bedroom.
...I hope I get those back.

 

Missed

That December day when all the monuments crumbled loud into the sea I used my last token to call you because you told me I could. You would answer you would return and there would be room enough air enough light enough food enough love enough for us all. I would not crumble but ascend. I called but you were in a meeting. You have excelled always at making the honest dollar. I looked out the hospital window with swollen eyes. That was my blood all over the sky. There is a tombstone I have not left for that is where you left me when I fell and failed to ascend. I tried to crawl. I called but there was no answer. A veritable hell of carnage can be traced back to that missed call.

Misti Velvet Rainwater-Lites

From: 'Framed By the Word'

Beethoven

The ghosts were yammering. You're going to drown. I'm in the fucking desert. You're going to drown you're going to drown in a disinterested sea. You're alone, bitch. You're not in Texas. You don't exist. You don't believe in Jesus. Jesus doesn't believe in you. You are not magic. You are not a witch. Whore. Slut. Cunt. Fucking loser. You could have stayed safe. What kind of woman kills her unborn child with a white gold amethyst ring on her finger. His birthstone. His baby. You are thick with lies. Fuck you. Fuck you. Mommy. I would have been. I could have been. You will never be safe.

Shasta turned up the portable cd player. Beethoven. Loud. All the lights off, vanilla candles aglow. Nothing. Nothing. Passionate proclamations of I EXIST. I AM FUCKING ALIVE. I AM HERE. Survival of the loudest.

Oral Fixation

Shasta ordered another whiskey. She watched Bobby flirt with a girl sitting at the other end of the bar. The girl was showing Bobby her fresh manicure. Her fingernails were neon pink. Shasta imagined the girl stroking Bobby's cock with her long neon pink fingernails. Shasta smirked. She averted her gaze. Shasta's favorite poster in Joe's Dive was the poster for “Candy Sue's Oral Fixation.” Shasta wasn't sure the film existed. She'd asked around. No one had ever heard of it, not even the moody porn flick aficionado clerk who worked at Cheap Thrills Video. The poster depicted a topless buxom blonde sucking on a big peppermint stick. She was clad in red bikini panties and yellow high heels. A Christmas elf wearing a lascivious expression on his ruddy face crouched beside the blonde, his hand on her ass.

Blossoming

The tiny buds on Shasta's tongue blossomed beneath the thick red chile sauce. It was spring inside Shasta's mouth. Then it was summer. The sun was singing and the birds were burning. Shasta wiped her nose with a paper napkin and muttered, “Perfection.” She licked the plump lime wedge and squeezed the juice into the cold golden beer. Then she sprinkled salt on the lip of the bottle. Shasta licked the salt and swigged the beer. She looked out the window. The lights of Albuquerque were coming on beneath an immense blushing sky. The neon sign of Casita Rosada loomed over the small parking lot. Deep pink letters on a black background with a blinking pink rose. Across the street stood Memorial Hospital. The crazy house. Whenever Shasta looked at the foreboding brown building she glimpsed her eventual decline and demise. Shasta imagined herself stumbling  down the desolate halls of the psych ward as an old senile woman, utterly alone in the depths of dementia, wearing a cheap floral housecoat and sock monkey slippers. There would not be a hand to hold. There would be a television in the day room. Assorted crazy people would sit in ugly chairs watching ugly television shows and ugly commercials. Sitcoms. Canned laughter. Old movies stuffed with songs by the Psychedelic Furs and the Bangles. The ghosts would assault Shasta. The ghosts would be shushed with medication. In art therapy Shasta would paint furious green and purple tornadoes and snakes with tiger stripes.

Misti Rainwater-Lites is working on her third novel, Framed By The Word. Misti's first novel, Nova's Gone Potty, is available at amazon. Bullshit Rodeo, Misti's second novel, is forthcoming from Blunt Trauma Press.

Misti Velvet Rainwater-Lites

His Factory

I'm famous in his factory
in my bee buzz battle ax fascination
stark and succinct
standing out in the dumb drug haze
he feels me feeling things
he shoots my blood loss
blows it up
passes out my pieces
to amused debutantes


Pastor Dick

he has something to show me
his shaved pastor dick does not go down
reaches up to the angels
a pink prayer rock
i turn away
reach for my own prayer
buzz it against my clit
turn my head
when he dives in
for a kiss



Rows

all those american rose bitches
in their pretty thorny rows
bloom burst eyeball scream
the dream few men are wise enough
to wake from

Misti Rainwater-Lites is working on her third novel, Framed By The Word. Misti's first novel, Nova's Gone Potty, is available at amazon. Bullshit Rodeo, Misti's second novel, is forthcoming from Blunt Trauma Press.