NewPoetry

Lauren Turner

Reapply my lipstick with a prayer to keep me heart shaped.
……..My dearly beloved is a red red cherry.

My cherry never popped. A boy’s hand plucked out its stone
……..behind Babylon. I was 19 then grew

slick with pussy blood, whirling into a knock kneed scramble
……..for any taxi’s plush derrière.

From another’s open mouth, his greedy hand would beckon
……..to Mike. My modern day amoureux

is named Michael. It’s a trash bin coincidence, a lil O-faced gasp
……..leaving red on the globular fruit

I teethe, lovingly. My soft naïve bits were harvested like organs
……..and later went stalked

by tumors, suiciding what’s left. Still, born love is red and exists
……..in menstrual blood, every time

we seed to create nothing. Sway my blanched hips underneath
……..scuzzy satin, I’m effervescent at burst.

That’s how we know it was special. My red red lipstick takes a gun
……..of cigarillo, letting you into the secret

alley where Mike bleeds me out of me, on repeat, with every man.
……..I never could flesh myself anew.