unformed woman poems
 

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squeezing in lost decades
compressing a lifetime
(of who i might have been
had i lived for myself)
into the future's slippery form
i flaunt a cultivated persona
not quite free of wrinkles
shaking and shrugging into a shape
that is as yet to gel

they seem confused
watching me shapeshift
(either they've already made themselves
or never will)
one of their own age
drifting amoebalike
for so long
becoming whatever someone desired
whenever someone desired
though i was never filled with desire

there was no me to desire
i realized this
as i deconstructed myself
and found nothing
of my own
in the bits and pieces
of matter
scattered on the floor of my life

who was it that masqueraded as me
and cast reflections in the mirrors of so many eyes

the ghost image of who i might have been
walks away
from the bits of nothing
and words long ago gone quiet
i am sounds that echo in empty hallways
coming from nowhere
to fade away
softly
 
 

---

 
 

i opened the shirt
to bare my breasts
and found nothing
inside the costume

the woman i had been
wasn't real
she had finally faded
completely away

invisible
i strut neonatal
with naked joy
and realize
i could wear anything
 
 

---

 
 

i no longer want to explain myself
neither do i want to know what you want
i would like to fuck you til you explode
then go away

although we could still be friends
and other predictable phrases

a comfortable fuck
or a sweet languid love

damn, perhaps i am become man
and never noticed
when my cunt transformed to cock

you do not want me to say this
or even think it
but they are my thoughts
so what you want
really doesn't matter

though you continue to take firm form in fantasy

you thrust up into me
beads of my sweat
fall to your belly

and you say
hush give no voice to your fantasy
be as i would have you be
or you cannot speak to me

in my dreams i close your mouth
with a kiss
and go on my way
 
 

---

 
 
 

i will shape myself
though it will not be as it would have been
had i awakened years ago
but i did not
i will never have an innocent's laughter
a reasoned joy will have to do

even that brings sadness

sleeping so long
left me blind
all my dreams crafted
for somnabulistic theater
i played the roles so well
for so many eternities
daughter lover wife
no one knew i had forgotten to awake
from lucid dreaming

the curtain rises for the last act
as the wraith transforms to flesh
steps from the theater to life
casts away scripts of expectations
and begins to speak of the long night
and the dawn
she will not deny the day
or constrain her will
in any way
 
 
 

---

 
 
 

i mimic but i do not mock
as i try to be
what i do not know how to be
i will always run contrary
to what is expected
no one believes i do not know
of what i speak
i sound convincing
with protestations and pronouncements
as i write the treatise
shape the tools of the trade
beating down the rough edges
converting swords to plowshares
learning so long after
the apprenticeship should have ended
i was mother and protector
before daughter and wife
and friendship i may not ever know
in my convincing duality
ferrocious lioness
and mangy stray
the roles reverse as i emerge to the day
from my cocoon in the corner
where my true self cowers cold and alone
in those long mean hours
of the night
 
 

---

 
 

you see bits and pieces of the edges of a life
and think perhaps it is you reflected in the shattered shards
of the broken mirror with which i see myself
and it is true you were an image past in my looking glass
but you did not break the mirror
nor ask me to cut my wrists and heart with fragments of a lie
another cast the mirror to the floor
so i would not see he lacked reflection
he drained my very soul
drew my blood and spirit through the wounds another made
until wraithlike my own image faded
i hungered not for flesh and life
but blood and the cool reflection of nothing in the mirror
 
 

---

 
 

an image that was never real but wraithlike
 

i could have done more
climbed from the burrow
to which i freely returned each day

darkness was the only comfort i had ever known
at night i still can smell the earth's damp cloak
and hear it calling in the distance
i close my eyes
and do not answer
in the echoes of the night

we return to the familiar
attracted to what we know
to that which knows our name

the gods of hell must know my name
i had never known love
only longing
i didn't know the difference
between a line that stretched to nowhere
and an encompassing embrace of love

so here i am filling in the empty grave
with spoonfuls of confused words
and pebbles of disbelief

i tend the garden alone
so no will know what i've buried there
 
 

---

 
 

every where i look there are men i should have fucked
 

a young woman's passion
never unleashed
with lean firm flesh

sends aching signals
like phantom limb

from a phantom cunt
remembered

the little cunt that could
i think i can
i think i can

but you didn't
you dumb cunt

my knowing flesh
curses your stupidity
 

---

 

i roll the thought around on my tongue
savoring the sensation of unsuppressed lust

a life fettered with should have, could have, might haves

do not ask me not to dream
unreal images are all i have of a mispent youth
 

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where are you thin tie man
on your birthday
i remember you

laughing and thrusting
as i arched again and again
and beads of sweat cascaded down
my neck to breast
you lapped at them
savoring the salted flesh
looked up and asked

how long has it been since you sweat over a lover

the night i lifted you up into my tower room
with long brown locks

your hands circled my waist

i should have bound them with my braids
forced you to force me
to do what we both wanted

but you didn't want me enough
to risk the journey to the tower
many times
so
another found
novel uses for my platted mane
after he destroyed the tower
and carried me away
to toil and sweat and laugh
in another mythic kingdom
with feral fantasies
 
 

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The Unformed Woman Series
a collection of poems
copyright nancy faye hill
May/June 2001
 
 

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