I made a deal with God
I would use my beauty for good
by releasing it
but I’m thinking too much about my hair
again.
You come over to remind me
what the outside looks like,
what weathering something means.
I demur at your suggestion that I’m
better than I am.

My mouth is sore from oral surgery
so I don’t have to go down on you.
The hydrocodone is kicking in and
it’s retrograde so you fuck me with
familiarity, like you knew me once and this would happen
and you’re a cloud passing by
and I’m a budding tantrum.
You leave.

I skulk around my third world neighborhood;
watch the men watch my backside shrink
as I scurry further from them.
Tuck my ribs in and
I’m at your feet again.
You carefully take the tangles out of my hair
with your sadist grip
as I threaten to cut it.
As you force my head down
to remember my part in this.

You rock me with familiarity like you knew me once
and this would happen
and I’m back at God,
withering trying to remember how not to
          (I take the scissors)
fuck up
    ( I start with my bangs)
everything you said I didn’t even have to touch
    (watch the hair fall to the tile)
I wait til morning to sweep the pile.

No one is here.
I am alone,
a squalling infant,
and
”you’re full of secrets.”

“cat calls”

they call me curious.
no, they call you two games at once,
he corrects me.

I am whiskers and diamond eyes,
a silver glitter topped headband
with ears at the top,
pink lip gloss and
baiting teeth; videos
on repeat that project a
moving constellation at night
slicing through each corridor
with claws the size of countries.

they call me
catarina
he says, no they call
you God.

“catarina”

I’m mad at God for every season
that brings the
buried back.
you still creep around my edges

like the protruding roots of
our favorite birch outside
the bedroom window.
the branches scratched the glass
in gusts, and you
asked me how I was never
startled.
you said: even in nightmare,
you play it cool.
this is nightmare to you?
come cross me on an unprotected
plank and I’ll show you what nightmare
can do.

the leaves fall dead in the
winter, but the trunk
is thriving in places
hidden.  I am bathed in
slivers of moonlight and
gelid anger
watching shadows dance behind
the blinds, biding time
in heated blankets,
cusps of friendship
with men I might feign
to like to move
you.
I can feel your silent steps,
I can feel your body cross the
garage.

you still know my home real well:
my fetal curl, my pillow smell,
and you still visit me sometimes
to trace your teeth long up
my thigh.
my ever longing service bell:
I ring, you crawl,
your incisor blades
are seeking throat.
I can smell you in her bed
all right,  but you still hold me tight
at night

like one long
and steady
choke.

“letters to exes”