Stayin' Alive, Stayin' Alive

When you struck your finger matchless across the smooth alabaster

of my back--I can trace the dust It was an universe and I was swimming
My head couldn't have spun any more fiber optic if Peter with fairy dust
Or anyone had brought some to a party; angel dust doesn't work on me
but I felt religious then too Just so you know, thanks for the precocious

That finger was silk and the most precious Did you know one touch
could be astral projection Is there anything more forbidden than
one life-changing touch Generations back we are all products taboo
The glitz swarmed around my tattoo and beat voudoun my eyes

Over to you I floated much assuredly flowed into that seat and I
sparkled with you a smile There is a fox resident in you but honey
we share the same innocent sly When you macerated the basil
and I moaned along with you the glint was a toothpaste commercial

Married of a laughter but this was after I signed my contract
as a pair of teeth clacking with a set of perfection right back atcha
when I sank my sorry ass shaken with a toasted marshmallow
the first celebration of Dad for his Valentine's Day funeral, what--ow!

Tom Petty broke my heart as Dad caressed my adolescent face
and promised to be the one who could find the beauty in me and I
must break

to say
I'm near
oh, dear
I think I'm free-fallin'
from the brink of tears for tellin'
what stayed in that living room
so long ago with the very first CDs
overtaking radio
the hands floating
over my hips
I feel sick and please
belong me out of this song
Look at me with your sick
nausea
at what a piece of work
I am
over a mistake but I
will break free
your touch
out of my cage
and I will never

turn my face
was ugly but he thought of me naked and he touched the memory
pretending Bethie Bethie this is how you get a boy Touching all of me

and you were easily laughter No radio silence and the band played on
as I lay my contract bare between us Invisible and your eyes danced mine
thus I traced the lines naked into the aluminum Now I don't see a deck
of knaves shuffling eternally There is one trumps all, the hidden Queen

a rhapsody I keep in a Jell-O castle to keep the glitter from scattering
Encapsulating the opposite of the shattered me from my first love's touch
Back when he was fifteen, oh, I sixteen and he the most coveted prize
of the girls, the reptile in my eyes Redeemed that blue-tinted afternoon

his eyes are still big blue suns and his braces rendered adorable, pastoral
Scene: his pillow-pink lips a Cupid's bow where the only words my direction
"Ugly" "Fuck you" "Stupid" "Polish" "Bitch" "Get away" "Hey! Catch!"
there is no shame in love even later anguish--melted "I love you" then, hotly

"I...I want you to be my first kiss" descended two weeks later into dragging
me by my hair in the same steel darkness swallowing the heavy orange door
It was when I screamed because it was just the hem for thirty feet of peach
Victoria's Secret panties, sheer with woven leaves Now skidded with blood

from the rectal tearing thirty feet of dragging does to a thin sixteen-year-kid
weighing less than her glasses and terror There has never been another touch
apart from Greg's warm hand, which I romance, over ember glows delineate
after vicious rapes, dissolve into the marriage of souls with a glass of water

and toast The man lives a glorious life in my head, his dancing blue eyes
the last friendly eyes I've ever seen Another man who likes the way I look
and won't beat me up for being strong The youngster who met Greg crying
crumpled his number, seething Raping this "old," "ugly" woman How strong

the weakest boys can be in the dark How twinned you bartenders now are
and the drink on the bar Is the elixir of life Apple pie or toasted marshmallow
Shake things up and stand strong in the face of a fist in the nose for saying No
Smiling at the jewels ornamenting Nature and rubber-sheathed cables. Scar

my body with kindness, lash my mind with kinship Bind me with your glow
Give me shelter from the hail of men sixty strong day after gruesome display
Walking a mile out of my way month after month to shake a creep Blind
me with your guiding lights As I return to the apse Ready for the next round

For that first date who corners me where I know silent victims fall Eyes
that tell me I will not live to tell the tale Your eyes and that smile, that kiss
full friendly and full love, not rape Guide my hands and heart still to flirt
as I slowly gather my things and promise a striptease and back into light