Paris Paloma: Good Girl

Heaven is a fed girl
Somebody’s got to
Somebody’s got to
And if you call me good girl
One more time
Then my fist will meet your skull

I sometimes walk naked
A child in the garden
And I pretend that there is no other way
Despite the distant shadow of incredulous laughter
Echoing as if I should know why it’s there
But I like the feeling
I’m at the beginning of time
And no thoughts of who I am
Have entered my mind
I bend over the river and
Catch a glimpse of
Something that’s none of my business
As I scoop some up to drink
I disperse whatever it was
And you can scream at me all you want
That the greatest love affair is with myself
That it should be passionate
Unwavering
No shadow of a doubt that I am
In love with my body!
And my body is in love with me!
But I am not
The water is not in love
With the cup that I drink from

Heaven is a fed girl
Somebody’s got to
Somebody’s got to
And if you call me good girl
One more time
Then my fist will meet your skull

For god’s sake!
How can I even begin
To clean up the mess of this relationship
With my body
That third eye turned inwards on me

Running as if in a dream
Getting out and wading back in
Through the quagmire of who I might be
Balancing this scaffolding of skin
And I grieve it
I grieve the world where I am
A child in the garden

Heaven is a fed girl
Somebody’s got to
Somebody’s got to
And if you call me good girl
One more time
Then my fist will meet your skull

Heaven is a fed girl
Somebody’s got to
Somebody’s got to
And if you call me good girl
One more time
Then I will break your nose

And I say it to myself “Somebody’s got to”
And I repeat it in my teeth “Somebody’s got to”
Cut free and let the soft down grow on you
Never let the tide be one more drop full
Go under the knife, make a new normal
Or die gnarled and happy, an old animal
I’d gnaw off my leg to escape it all

Let time take me
Weather like the tree
How clever to make
A girl’s own face the enemy
In the half-light
She’ll agonise
To be evergreen
A “Good girl, always look and never be”

Heaven is a fed girl
Somebody’s got to
Somebody’s got to
If you call me good girl
One more time
Then my fist will meet your skull

Heaven is a fed girl
Somebody’s got to
Somebody’s got to
And if you call me good girl
One more time
Then I will break your nose