“it’s been years since i thought about using my toes” she said sitting quietly on the corner of Hyperion and Effie streets she grew up hippie baby royalty before the majesties turned bourgeois as fuck “it’s been years since i thought about painting my toe nails” she said tucked tightly into her wheelchair under a patchwork or greens and bright reds and her nurse coos “you take you Sublocade now ma’am” with her bugged pewter blue eyes and see through seer sucker skin she looks to the underneath of the yellow bougainvillea tree and snarls at the men smoking lined up slouched on the brick wall looking at their toes recalling a war and the traumatic brain injuries and legs blown off as more than one slouches sobbing in fear “it’s been years since i’ve walked on my feet” she sighs out loud through aged yellowed lips that once kissed the sky and the dandelions but now are sealed most of the time to keep her cancerous insides from falling out “it’s been months since those boys have been here” she said “i wouldn’t want them to see me falling apart” she wheezed under her breath on that corner of Hyperion and Effie streets
words less spoken 