Poetry of:

        
                                  shopping

I hold my belly (because something not small, something not flat, something not smooth, something so not is a belly)
jangles like keys
like a distraction held up for children
I am not beautiful

                          
                            barrier

it hurts a little to know you’re out there
smiling at everyone
innocent
it hurts a little
like a scar
like that little scar between my thumb and index finger
nearly lopped it off
breaking that flower pot against the window to get back in
it’s only a little thing
but tough
raised
I can feel it like a barrier
keeping my hands from being beautiful
I press on it when I’m nervous
remember how cold that dirt was
how I sat for thirty minutes before I stopped bleeding
and you never came over
I knead it and it won’t go smooth
just keeps living in me like a smile I can’t forget

It’s not that I want you again
It’s not that I hate you
I just wish I could open the paper, find out you died and finally be happy.

                         
                           1000 thread count

I want to be beautiful.
I want to wrap around like a strip of peach in an abstract painting, abstract like thoughts are abstract, abstract like God, abstract because what do you name it? what is it supposed to mean?

I call myself beautiful, like a little girl with a florid name, a hopeful name, it means God’s love, it means gift, it means you will be lovely, I name myself and grow and grow and look nothing like what my parents wanted, wrapping around like a brush stroke of dirty peach, like people standing back and saying hm? I don’t know what you’re supposed to mean

                           vodka

you steady my tongue, let all the things I want to say out,
it is a click click clicking I hear always, the roof of my mouth a suddenly closed door,
keeping my tongue knocking, knocking, embarrassed it must try so hard,
but you help, you open the door,
my words breath out easy, lazy, wrapping around themselves,
funny witty, endless, and people smile, nod,
I’m suddenly pretty, something to be around and so
I drink you up, gulp, gulp, gulp down and it’s never enough and always too much and
I fall into a nowhere sleep and it’s okay.
I was pretty and funny and something to be around for a little while.
I don’t need to dream

Kate LaDew recently graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Art.