Poetry by Kristin Garth

​FOR EVERYTHING THAT HURTS, THERE IS A PILL

For everything that hurts, there is a pill.
If you go out at night all dressed in blue,
the handsome man will always pay the bill.
The moon will turn to purple then turn back,
and when you shake, he'll know just what to do.
For everything that hurts, there is a pill.
You'll feel your mouth go dry, the night go black.
You'll wonder how you ever made it ever through.
The handsome man will always pay the bill.
And when it starts to fade, he'll bring it back.
He'll hold your hand and offer something new.
For everything that hurts, there is a pill.
But when he does not call, you'll hear a crack,
and it will be a sound you never knew.
For everything that hurts, there is a pill.
The handsome man will always pay the bill.




​Another You

I find you all online from little towns
with names that sound like jokes to me. You work
in supermarkets, coffee shops, not bound
to either job or place. You're hurt by jerks
for years before we ever speak -- by dads
who started what the others followed through.
My pat response the best you've ever had:
A ticket to a city that is new.
My pretty punchline to a party joke:
"How do you get them to do that?" "I bought
retreat from small town pain, a life past broke,
a car that's mobile and a home that's not."
I purchase all your pain until you're through,
and then online I'll buy another you.




MURDERESS

The problem with me isn’t lack of good
intentions.  They just lose their color, youth
much like the dying potted plant I should
remember once a day to water.  Truth
is that it’s been a couple of weeks because
I’ve been too busy fucking up my life
to save some blameless vegetation — judged
for verdant cheerfulness that mocks my strife;
sentenced to neglect, decay, demise.  Yet
how it prolongs the wither, savors its
confinement, torture one more day.  I bet
its life is proof to force to me to admit 
it’s not only that my good intentions lapse.
There’s bad ones inside, too, that will not give.
It’s easier to kill than learn to live.

Bio: Kristin Garth is a novelist and poet who resides in Pensacola, Florida. She is currently working on an erotic novel entitled The Meadow.

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