sparkling explosion of
cellophane and champagne nails
tickle birthmarks down a
back.
fallen glitter eyeshadow
dances on a throat:
roving crescent moons
from everywhere a lip hit
and pieces of gold dust
rolled off a nose. 

bare mattress,
ripped each corner of sheet off.
a girl licking a cheek and
hearts like lava
fill the blue gray cracks.
im telling him ghost stories and
feeding him berries in bed.
mouth filled with laughs.
I’m in an afghan
sinking my teeth into a shoulder,
straddled with bare feet.
and what else?

I’m somewhere else.

1.

if you asked me where I was,
stopped me on a street corner,
I’d be shocked to come up.
not able to answer fast enough,
you’d be surprised to learn
I’m local.

you can live anywhere
as long as its not in your body.
even Philadelphia, even
Kensington, the first neighborhood
I arrived.

I tattooed her name
on my arm to never
forget where I came from;
the city that  unsheathed
me to beat me with it’s
black ice and corners.
she turns to me again and
says, I implore you,
for me,

do you like
warnings or do
you like to drown?
and feeling myself a
smirk, traipse the town in
pink chiffon. I spit on the
floor and I say:
I don’t know

why don’t you just
fucking surprise
me?

“Lilith”

and love?
I want this thing gone
so I can be alone with my tea
and good ideas.

he says,
name your torture
there are two giant
bruises on each thigh.

“but I don’t get it. are you ava? cat? which?”

there was a fecund air tonight and i was distracted by it. the waft. the dissolving cell.the way visions suddenly pop into view and I

“who are you?” he said.

I was in the cave of masters. circling. looking at my growing purple nails. but im also in a fire midtown and 

“Well I am Artemis and.” look up and

it always starts with  well.  i can’t believe I found you. but some things you don’t say out loud.

“and.”

“and there is a mouse in my pocket, friend.”

“but I don’t get it. are you ava? cat? which?”

there was a fecund air tonight and i was distracted by it. the waft. the dissolving cell.the way visions suddenly pop into view and I

“who are you?” he said.

I was in the cave of masters. circling. looking at my growing purple nails. but im also in a fire midtown and 

“Well I am Artemis and” look up and

it always starts with  well.  i can’t believe I found you. but some things you don’t say out loud.

“and.”

“and there is a mouse in my pocket, friend.”

smile real big to show him your spiny canines.

I really miss your hands on me.
the way you held me in
sullen incubation.
I remember the oldest incantation:
the thrust I was given,
some gleaned anticipatory luck:
      God gave you a chance and
    an unfinished smile.

we needed a spark.

I grin full tooth to show you
my new porcelain canines.
light the match.
now the frame is melting
and so am I.
in the cradle of tar black trees,
I fight the urge to bow
and suddenly tiptoe
all around you;
two inches taller than you remember
and my tongue hot
hits your neck like a
wet quill.

hold your breath.

wait
for some other current to take me.
bite your skin.
let the tips of my
fingers dig in and
always remind them;

  there are no exits.

“chrysalis” 

Little pieces of me
in a dark cave
talking to the hooded masters.
This place I visit often.
First a fire then later
a push off a cliff to get
to the fucking bottom of it.
And today, changed into my true shape,
unpinched waist and
very short hair.

Always cloaked in white.

She’s faceless, all palms
but the  glintis bright.
“If you want to die
so badly, here’s
the knife.”

“ketamine #2”

This next section is called
“I’m Worried About You”’

What did grief do?
It opened me up.
Made me think.
Made me alone and
do a lot of drugs.

“the Ketamine Series”

I have a lot of visions of being dead

sometimes as I sit there,
they make their make way across my mind.
a truck, the bridge,
knife to body,, visions of me
screaming, or hanging by a rope and
now finally being held by someone,
visions of me snotty and
pleading and seizure coming
on.

“You’ve never had to give up anything,”
she says.

I nod, sort of
wither while I’m there,
clutch the white and yellow
plastic I found right outside her
house.
  careful not to put it in your mouth in front of her
I am in my (12th house),
pencil skirt.
(the one imprisoned in loss).
sweater, and my computer
sits idle on my lap.
“I bet you had an easy life,”
she says.

this is my 7th job: case
management. this is my fifth time
nodding out. I am somewhere else
screaming over a toilet,
letting the brain stomach the
powder that makes me euphoric.
they call it an opiate.

“I bet you haven’t suffered.”

It’s 10:30 am,
in five years half of my family
will be dead, my friends absent,
alone in an apartment pre eviction,
cloistered by pandemic,
visions of me dying all long
when you do the rituals, do they make you feel safe?
burgeoning addiction coming back
and the pain.
    opiates help pain

the fucking endless pain.
the endless walks to nowhere
 yes the rituals make me feel safe.
the vomiting and dizziness,
aches. fret.

but not yet.

“So you can’t relate.”

“Safe”