Between Apartment Walls by Kristine Brown

Totalitarian antipathy
Between apartment walls.
Shoulder blades stab into the spots,
as Fibromas
stress concrete beauty

My Michelle—smooth dresses, her blazers
And why not a scarf to make more sense?
Sweating her mind away all to pay
Four years endured, landing her here
An old dry briefcase, child her turtle
So scaly with all this working girl strife
To turn the lock and sneeze from the dust
On your blinds makes home
A droll little box

Bachelor pad, Bacardi’s benign
Trucker hat propped on an IKEA chair
Peers closing in to instigate
A shunning, lest he gives up his cash
Sleeping bag sobs, migraines succeeding
Replica—Michelangelo’s fight
For Elysium sprawled ‘cross the skyline wide
All in this face
He’s lost

Fortune cookie sweetheart love
Shriveled by corporate cyanide
Receiving less for striving more
Cheated, never repaid

Youngster much more ragged, tough
Puppy deprived from mother’s milk
The day’s too dark, really thick
Murderous, bitter black coffee

Sand and mud
Blanched forlorn
Like robins in their plight from a gun
Lepers with childhood trinkets eternal

                             DEAD BY SMILING NIGHTFALL.

Kristine Brown is a freelance writer and editor who resides in Southwest Texas. She is a cat fanatic, and recently had her first collection of poems, Scraped Knees, published by Ugly Sapling (link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0998496901/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_101IybN9ACW0D).