#poetry

Just Jennifer

When You’ve Got a Hammer

When you’ve got a hammer

All you see are nails

Welcome to the way that

It feels to be fe-male’

Cause when you’ve got a hammer

You’re looking for a hole

You like to force the rage out

That percolates below

And when you take your hammer

You shatter someone’s glass

It could have been my own date

Now grabbing at my ass!

We all can use our hammers

To put each other down

You even ditched your woman

To play “Man About Town”

The one who stood beside you

When things in life got tough

The one who always loved you

And thought you were enough

She even liked your hammer

When it no longer worked

So why’d you end up treating

Her like such a jerk?

Now here it’s ten years later

You’re acting quite the creep

You think a beer will buy me

Dude: I don’t come that cheap

The only way I’ll date you

Is Payment in Advance

And with no invitation:

Keep your hammer in your pants!

These are the second set of lyrics (poem?) I’ve written according to the beat of another song. Essentially, my tool for stimulating creativity. #ShapeSong

Just Jennifer

When You’re Old But Your Parents are Still Worried About You

Because I’m growing up… and out again. It’s time,

Thanks to Pops and Honey

For loaning me and helping me with my money.

I know my actions often appear quite “funny,”

And my presentation’s not always sunny,

But please don’t worry,

Don’t worry about my hurry,

I know it might look rather blurry,

But the winds of change have stirred me,

Into a better place.

And because of God’s and your grace,

I don’t plan to exit planet-space.

My goal’s now to finish This Race.

I can’t promise you no disgrace.

But I can promise you I’ll be okay.

Post Script for my Untrusteds:

I hate to mar this sweet post to my parents with ridiculous disclaimers that “there is no money.” How does a person get real and not alert people with less than admirable intentions that they only carry their exact lunch money? Because I’m being relentlessly stalked online and getting fed up with your evil intentions towards me. It’s not conjecture; it’s objectively true, and it makes me very sad. While raising my simmering ire in equal measure.

Just Jennifer

The Replacement Queen

My once “Lifetime Love” stole my whole identity,
And all the while, right there in front of me,
He dangled with pride his shiny new love 
Who, he proclaimed, fit as snugly as a glove 
On the hand of the fam’ly who now said I was too small.
After years of gifts aplenty, I had given them my all.
My fam’ly’s new adventures were no longer shared with me,
All access was cut off, and my presence sold as cheap.
I was barely out the door when the new Queen took my place 
Taking on my name and usurping my old space.
With barren, empty pockets, I was banished from my home,
And told to hurry up so they could shine the new Queen’s Throne.
As this richer, clever Queen with great cunning took my place,
The nine years of my footprints were summarily erased.

2020, REPOST

Just Jennifer

For My Next Love

Is there room in my life for you?
Is there room in your life for me?
You know I don't come to you pristine, newly minted, or shiny and new.
I have felt hurt and caused hurt, 
I have been broken by the random and the cruel - and by my own choices.  
My body has been ravaged, charting atrocities visited on it by plague and progress.
Yet you love it - even desire it - all the same.
You don't love what I once was; you love me now, scars and all.
Of this much I am certain: where our lives intersect 
There's a special space; a pocket of air, a sea of calm, a place of rest
That quickens the war-torn and restores its vigor.
You've fixed your circle on me:
Rounding out my sharp angles and smoothing the rough edges,
Like a balm against chafing. 
Like sand against glass.
All without any intention of "fixing" me.
In answer to this gift, I will fight my baser self to love you back, with honor and devotion. I know myself; know this will surely be a struggle.  
But I am committed to it.  
And in the giving and receiving, I will be transformed into the beauty visible to your heart's eye.  
Thank you. Bless you. I love you.

http://deeporshallowthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/07/for-my-new-husband.html

2014

Just Jennifer

With The Back of My Hand:

Or, “A Hannibal Kind of Lust”

—————————

I love you so much that

I’d like to Eat You Alive.

And then wipe your blood off of my mouth

with the back of my hand

that still has

chunks of your hair and scalp

threaded through my fingers.

And later,

after I burp up your digestive juices,

I’ll sleep more soundly

than I ever have before.

—————————

Photo credit: Catalin Pop. Thank you!

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With The Back of My Hand:
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With The Back of My Hand:
Just Jennifer

These Lazy Days

About we lie and laugh and laze

In these hot and hazy lust-filled days

Counting clouds amongst temperatures rising

A world of us two, and from others are hiding

Sharing personal jokes only we understand

Facing each other, you reach for my hand

And in that moment, a bond’s made and sealed

A secret pact good as long as we feel

These majestic moments that make up the “now”:

Which are as sure and as sacred as a vocalized vow.

Photo credit: Jennie Clavel. Thank you!

Repost

Just Jennifer

The Exquisite Flame

Beauty was awareness and clarity
Insecurity, Trepidation, and Innocence.
It was wide-open spaces, full of promise
Daydreams and night dreams of That To Come
It was humanity and anxiety and a blissful unawareness of the deeply-buried consciousness of Now
It was sleep from the touch of head-to-pillow to the alarm clock’s pre-dawn shriek
It was yesterday; and it was golden, and it was pure

And I didn’t even know.
I didn’t even know.

How I long for the fears of youth
And simple problems easily solved
I ache with the final passing of Thoughts-Future
That once roused me when I fell and propelled me forward,
Despite my child’s timidity that sought to hold me back
Time alone wasn’t the enemy,

Nor the immersion in grief

Instead it was the consequence of a poor choice, seemingly therapeutic at the time

to bury,
to extinguish
that Exquisite Flame
which took me to the Sun
and dropped me back again.

Autum, 2016, REPOST

Just Jennifer

Come Inside


I want you to knock on my private door.

When I answer, I want you to come inside.

Let me welcome you into my body, my life.

I want you to invite me for dinner.

I want you to eat me alive.

I want you to kiss me and give me a delicious surprise.

I want to embrace all of you.

I want to give you all I have to give.

I want your heart to meet mine in the place that it lives.

2011, REPOST

Just Jennifer

Eat Shit and Die, Motherfucker

Is that the trash from the bottom of my shoe talking again?

I’ve tried and tried to scrape your fifth off, but I guess I’ll finally have to burn these shoes.

Then I’ll order a brand new pair

at the absolute highest price possible, and

cover them in the ashes from the burned pair

until they’re completely ruined, and then

I’ll burn that pair, too.

Eat shit and die, Motherfucker.

I’d hate you if I cared.

Just Jennifer

The Language of Love

Oh! To be known and yet loved for my flaws,
Fills me with hope and gives me great pause.
To think that these gifts 
Come without any "ifs"
Makes your words start to stick,
Building trust brick by brick,
And truth day by day, 
And all of the while, the words that you say 
Begin to sink in; they seem quite sincere,
Both arousing my trust and ousting my fear.
I’m feeling new things that I’ve never yet known,
Could they, just this once, 
be my very own?
I don't have the words to describe all this new 
Emotion and Growth and Questions without clues.
I only know this mystery transcends my go-to speech,
Its translation is a language grasped only by us each.
When I speak in silence, we both understand,
And volumes are shared when you take my hand.
It is true I feel safe when I’m wrapped in your arms,
Free from all danger; free from all harm.

In you I’ve found treasure.
And exceptional pleasure.
All beyond measure.

2017, Revised 2021
Just Jennifer

What Is My Superpower?

Writing obtuse, obscure, and obsurd poems.

What does that mean?

It means I like alliteration (I wrote a semi-poem about it called “Ode to Alliteration”) so I was shooting for “obtuse” and repeated the “ob+consonant” for “obscure” – which is like alliteration on steroids, IMHO.

So you like to read poetry?

To be completely honest, if I did enjoy reading poems written by others, I’d probably prefer the obtuse and obscure to the superficial and prolific. Speaking of which, who would you say is the Thomas Kinkaid of rhyme (other than Shakespeare, who’s anything but)?

And to change the subject from ME and MY superpowers, tell me about YOU and YOURS?

Just Jennifer

I wonder…

I wonder 
if you're a hairless wonder
or underneath a hairy guy?

I wonder
at your sweetness
on the menu of a cafe?

Will you be cold,
kind or bold,
when you meet me halfway?

I wonder
If I'll blunder
and start to cry?

I wonder
if you‘ll plunder
my depths and make me sigh?

I wonder
of the rhythm that beats in your chest.
Will it pound until dawn
or be calm, 
absorbing me with zest?

I wonder
about your lips:
will they be wet 
as you kiss my fingertips?

I wonder at those lines, 
so tiny on your face. 
Will I caress each one
In a digital embrace?

I wonder 
if your shoulders will lift
the heavy weight that surrounds me?
And if Ease will finally find me 
once you loose the cares around me?

Then I ask myself:
will YOU be the one to 
melt the ice from my heart,
long frozen into place?
Just Jennifer

For Debbie, My Therapist

August 2020

I get my head shrunk each week by woman named Debbie

She helps me to process my grief once I’m ready

Her empathy provides me with a safe place to land

I appreciate how she relates and always understands

Those thoughts that lead me down a path of despair

Always seem more powerful, out of reach in the air

We combat them with “mindfulness”, a tool I’ve just found

With it we lasso these fears to the ground

Once my pain’s in the room, we then can dissect

It from a distance that helps me reflect

On the hurts I have felt all through the years

And in the process I purge many tears

We use hip techniques like “E-M-D-R”

Other times she affirms me and treats me with warmth

I feel quite secure when I talk in her presence

She’s someone I trust with my thoughts most unpleasant

When we look back, we see choppy waters

The hurts from my past, both the grief and the bothers.

I know I have found the best-equipped guide

To help me to cope and bad thoughts exorcise

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Photo courtesy of Priscilla Du Preez. Thank you, Priscilla!

Just Jennifer

Lavish & Ravish Me (2019)

Pour out your heart and with it do lavish
Your love onto me, and my body please ravish.

The strength of your presence, it beckons me close;
Banishing fear that leaves me exposed.

Yet with you my exposure is no cause for shame:
I feel full of beauty when you breathe my name.

The confidence you engender calls out to my heart,
And tells me it’s fine that I don’t want to part.

Instead, what I want is to grow a great union
Of mind, soul, and spirit in True Cosmic Fusion.

No longer searching for places to hide,
As all that I am warms to beckon you inside.

Again and Again and Again. Forever.

Just Jennifer

I Felt Alight

I felt alight,
I felt aglow,
When I began to learn and know 

The inner You 
You chose to share;
I held it with the utmost care. 

You opened up
And shared your pain 
Underneath the falling rain. 

You didn’t lie; 
You didn’t hide 
The truest You that lives inside.

It proved you brave:
It proved you strong. 
And made me feel like I belonged 

Inside your space.
Inside that world, 
You made me feel all shades of girl.

We told the truth. 
We told our tales.
And unlike Bill, we both inhaled. 

My stomach growled -
You made me food.
It took a while but it was good!

We played some tunes,
We watched some flicks.
You opened up ‘bout other chicks.

Spilling all 
Required real guts.
It helped explain your “ifs” and “buts”:

The things that hurt,
That cause you grief,
The things that make you seek relief. 

Sometimes I think 
You might shut down 
And burn this thing straight to the ground. 

I hope I’m wrong, 
I hope you see
We have a special chem-i-stry.

I’d like to try
My very best 
To learn what burns beneath your chest. 

It’s worth a chance
Be free and dance
To give no mind
And leave behind 
The awful shame
From years of blame.

I’d toil and sweat and run the race. 
I’d even risk my comfort space
To free my truth, long stuck in place 
And lie beside you face to face.

2021
Just Jennifer

C’mon Y’all Let’s Exorcise!

C’mon Y’all, Let’s Exercise!
Let’s Exorcise that Voice that’s in our Minds
That Voice that Loops all through our Heads
That scolds our every move and says:
You’re not enough: You Should be Dead
Well, I say: You must go Instead
I’ve sold for cheap Your words of Dread 
Now Get the Hell out of my Head!!

Don’t come back and bring your friends! 
Your time with Me is at an End
I’m so sick of the Words You Say
The Words that never let me Play
I’ve told you you must pack your Bags
You’ve turned into a TOTAL DRAG
I want you out; I want to Sing
I want to be Authentic Me
All I’m Asking’s to be Free
To not Feel Shame or Misery
And Show the Truest Part of Me

C’mon Y’all, Let’s Exercise!
Let’s Exorcise that Voice that’s in our Minds
That Voice that Loops all through our Heads
That scolds our every move and says:
You’re not enough: You Should be Dead
Well, I say: You must go Instead
I’ve sold for cheap Your words of Dread 
Now Get the Hell out of my Head!!

We’re really done; I swear it’s true 
Those words so often said by you 
No longer welcome Here are They
So find another place to Stay
I hate your voice and all it wants 
Go find another soul to haunt! 
I want you out; I want to Sing
I want to be Authentic Me
All I’m Asking’s to be Free
To not Feel Shame or Misery
And Show the Truest Part of Me

C’mon Y’all, Let’s Exercise!
Let’s Exorcise that Voice that’s in our Minds
That Voice that Loops all through our Heads
That scolds our every move and says:
You’re not enough: You Should be Dead
Well, I say: You must go Instead
I’ve sold for cheap Your words of Dread 
Now Get the Hell out of my Head!!