Saturday, and the sun is out.
you’re licking the salt from the crest
on the underside of my elbow
and asking
where I would like to live
next as I am pretending I
am unchained, and beginning
the slow fall to
devastation.
when I hear my name reflected
back I melt, I’m stone
mostly until I’m just a cloud
of maniac.

I am begging you to walk
away, being wrong about
the others but dead right
about this.
you love being right.
now dead right.

sarah, we are begging you
to run away from this.

“Post Mortem”

no bra
and a weak smile.
mildly uncomfortable when
asking anything
more than how are you?
visible tan lines and big eyes,
hourglass and
a mostly untrained sex appeal,
a mostly stifled violence,
mostly mute when questioned,
always suddenly falling
silent,
maybe running but   
how are you?

lost, giving me
directions and
grimacing at the
passing time.

“how guys save me in their phone”

at least I give you transparency.

even when I’m moping,
I’m dancing
in songs of satin,
rippling with sob
and shimmering
deep    bright.
I am combusting
publicly:
a
flood of recourse and 
you are
drowning, immersed
in capillaries bursting with
crisis
and then immediate clarity.
my hands let go of the
flood I’m cradling.

you watch me move
like a snake across your
ceiling draped in shifting
constellations
you have no choice but to
memorize and I’m wearing
the crescent as a crown and
your ears like a gown
and someone else is full
of warnings.    me, I’m a dream
cat stalking rabbits
in the garden, or
waiting for the night
by the river for the
muskrat, and then
later on your doormat
pushing mice
all around.
each night I go to God and ask
for favor.
                 
I hand them back their most
prized possession as the only
way to get it:
a page, one line;
one at a time
wrapped in
flakes of
shrimp like little treats.
my barbarity, I desperately
want to play psychopath
and you told me you were
starving for affection.
I am the coldest
woman you’ve ever
met; catching your

goldfish, frying them up,
using your
own tank like
that.

“dreams”

sometimes I do ceremony.

I stick only to a daily morning
ritual and try to strengthen
some resolve with consumption.
I feed the cats, clean their
litter box, then stretch
and write my dreams down.
then I walk the neighborhood
to soak up sun.

sometimes I just
let things pass
like cravings or
weather.

we do that for others;

carry our grief quietly.

bury things deep

within ourselves.

I feel the root rot and darken
without altar, water
or speech.
you walk in and
I’m here now
growing into a black trunk.
you walk in and look
right at me
and I don’t know
where to begin.

but I found the
aperture.
I begin to grow,
unfurl, hum
softly.

V.

I sit in my summer
suit even though the cold
is here: golden sequined top
and burgundy pants,
loose, wide and a
lavender shawl wrapping
my bare shoulders,
knit wool socks
and I am also surrounded by
furry purring cats
lying on their backs to
paw my finger as I
toss coins on a giant
white quartz that has been stroked
by my friends and
three candles on the floor,
an Orgonite pyramid.
I’m experiencing a mild
tinnitus and a spectrum
of truths so I’m
trying to clear some
space for a violent
upheaval.
I offer you change and
fire.

It’s February first,
I pray to all lords
but I have an affinity
for wind and
glowering airs.
if you asked what I wished for:
nothing, an endless
seeking nothing. 

“Jupiter retrograde in Aquarius” or “Oya & Brigid”

nice smile.

small.
unmonitored fidgeting.
nervous laughter.
seems to force her way through small
talk and presents as
calm but quite fanatical
about some previous existential
crisis that she says
left her marked.
she doesn’t show me her skin and
is currently being touched and
does not like to be touched without
motive.
she is currently being undressed.

she is currently turning from ice
to flood to
to steady stream of
cold, red blood
and asked me to sing this
last part out loud.

“how guys save me in their phone”

I remind you over text
that I enjoy the slam of
doors, interjections,
a hand tight around my forearm
and learning the local
culture before intercepting about
the fine print of the law,
how to skirt
a shadow, what a savior
secret arsenals
I present the trunk machete,
then the painted switch blade.
I mean no harm
simply seething as I walk about
tracing panes, cracks in
paint and you hold me anyway
and in a way that I oblige.

if I’m anything stasis
it’s anxious so
I am blindfolded,
only feeling
the way the soil holds the bones
of those we’ve learned to mourn
in private:
eternally and quiet
with an airy tightness and security
like the rosary barbs the
knuckles when it’s altar
or when it’s storm and I’m all fist.
the way the heavens hold the pious,
the mob holds the riot,
or the torch of arrival and
the way the ocean holds all that
falls below that deep blue
surge of sea.
a gentle immensity
lifts me in my
fits and that’s the way you
see me still.

squall hits and I
drag you under to show
what made me.
you’re surprised by my
physicality and stature,
my apt command
of rooms
so far
only seeing me flit
and not sticking around
to see me pull out
the skewer and demonstrating
all the ways in which a weapon
works.

“furor”

 give it to me, God
can be a risky request.
immured in soft crystal, I felt
on the verge of crossing
borders and mostly unhinged
all winter.
my hair was combed,
my lips were never chapped,
I wore blush every day and
stockings with no
runs.   my tongue  was tied
completely
so no one asked
what I may have needed.

chased an impartial sun
half of December
and spent the other half
shrouded,
soaked in flower essences.      I preferred
helenite draped in tiger’s eye so I’m more
sudden hot eruption
than slow boil
but tonight I try more
benevolent blooms and pausing
and
watch my flimsy, cherry-dipped
ylang-ylang scented fingertips
shake unsteadily
and without any observable provocation,
suddenly stop untying my velvet collar,
suddenly shy away from the mirror,
suddenly lunge and land
on my ball of green obsidian
delicately scraped from the bottom of some
dormant volcano;
still mired in sudden climax,

rinsed and smoothed for my
handling pleasure. 
it was
heart chakra activating
and protective
and my heart;

poor, twisted carnivore
always unsure
can shift her way into a
permanent snarl
with protection.
I stomp into the other room and
shatter the rosy bowl
he let me borrow.
leave it broken, shiny
pink on the kitchen’s peeling
linoleum.
strip my skin of clothes and scent in
a hot steam bath
  i’m idling
and let the pieces
rest.
watch my step.
my place is

cracked and
full of ghosts
all bled:
a carnelian web
that sits atop a post.
you see my long legs
dangling before you see
the rest of me.

“heart”

 give it to me, God
can be a risky request.
immured in soft crystal, I felt

on the verge of crossing
borders and mostly unhinged
all winter.
my hair was combed,
my lips were never chapped,
I wore blush every day and
stockings with no
runs.   my tongue  was tied
completely
so no one asked
what I may have needed.
chased an impartial sun
half of December
and spent the other half
shrouded,
soaked in flower essences.      I preferred
helenite draped in tiger’s eye so I’m more
sudden hot eruption
than slow boil
but tonight I try more
benevolent blooms and pausing
and
watch my flimsy, cherry-dipped
ylang-ylang scented fingertips
shake unsteadily
and without any observable provocation,
suddenly stop untying my velvet collar,
suddenly shy away from the mirror,
suddenly lunge and land
on my ball of green obsidian
delicately scraped from the bottom of some
dormant volcano;
still mired in sudden climax,

rinsed and smoothed for my
handling pleasure. 
it was
heart chakra activating
and protective
and my heart;

poor, twisted carnivore
always unsure
can shift her way into a
permanent snarl
with protection.
I stomp into the other room and
shatter the rosy bowl
he let me borrow.
leave it broken, shiny
pink on the kitchen’s peeling
linoleum.
strip my skin of clothes and scent in
a hot steam bath
  i’m idling
and let the pieces
rest.
watch my step.
my place is

cracked and
full of ghosts
all bled:
a carnelian web
that sits atop a post.
you see my long legs
dangling before you see
the rest of me.

“heart”