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  • “Name your torture,”
    one of them said
    with a wink.

    I wanted an orchard
    but I swallowed the vodka
    he handed me
    willingly.

    “The Gorge”

  • I am somewhere close to the edge and  the last thing to go is the fear of death. that’s the fifth. kind of a bonus is being labeled batshit.

    the nodule in my throat. that was the first to go. showed up on a catscan then never appeared again. asked me if I had two throats.  but the first thing that happened was I choked. the second thing that happened were my legs went numb. the third was my breath being stuck and the steady rise of water. 3:13. that’s the formula we are looking for. the audience is buried beneath a lake of ice until I need them again. wait back up there’s no order here. 

    ok, the first thing to go was my mind. sit on the carpet and thank god. the second thing to go was my throat full of acid. quite literally caustic. the third thing to go was my breath. the audience is six feet under a snow covered bank.get on with then.

    but I snap back to the British voice in my head. I will tell it as I please. there are three things that happen in order and there are thirteen deaths I see. 

    the visions, the cabin with MS or the reaction to adrenaline perhaps and the pandemic with the robberies, the police on the swat team aiming at me. the suicidal thoughts. the jail. the mental hospital. the women ganging up. the bridge and car accident. the bombing. or it’s gas this time. there’s a tornado. a hurricane and a flood. the music and the seizure. the waves. first i have a near death experience but there’s so many i can’t keep track, and there’s an alligator somewhere. 

    wait, no there’s a snake somewhere. they said it would either be a snake or an alligator and so wait, there’s more. I guess. it’s kind of hard when you realize all the women in your life turned out to be snakes but they didn’t kill me so you start looking for the alligator just in case.

    “13 stories: the woman who saw her own death”

  • I spent years
    counting the silhouette
    lines of my cell
    on the wall
    and twirling,
    perfecting a
    curtsy, repeating myself to
    the bricks daily. 


    wear a bullseye–
    sheer blouse, the outline
    of the areola glinting
    from their truculent marks–
    tongue-tip spit and a bite.
    I’m invisible in doses

               when the maiden turns mother
    but before that, I’m followed.


    a car the other night and
    the others on foot
    yelling something about my legs.
               when the mother is hungry
    tiny shorts cuz it’s August.
    my massage therapist placed
    his dick on my hand
    (again).
    tiny breaths.

                       any complaint from the woman

    being forced to touch a cock
    while im bent over puking;
    that memory always comes back
    second, and so does
    being fucked without
    “literally any consent.”
    is the way I say it to him.
    drunk.
    tiny ruffle in covers
    passed out in his bed.

                            any affirmation that doesn’t start with yes
                                          can no be an affirmation?
                                      yes,
                                             when it affirms your rejection of men

    I have persistent, swallowed panic.
    stomach problems.
    the words histrionic
    when I show any emotion.
    inward disorder and
    grief, heavy like 

    my dad is dead.
    my brother is dead.

    my house is lined with crickets, asbestos
    and mold so the pets all had
    tumors.   squishy walls, broken trim
    and no one will touch
    the pipes.
    my mom doesn’t remember the time we
    watched the moon dance,
    or the word for channel.

    he wants to know I’m not faking it.
    my first memory was me
    being forced to try on outfits
    for some guy 

    until  he patted my day bed,
    bent me over.
    raped me.
    he waves his hand
    curtly and interrupts:
    that’s why you’re so sexual.
    as if I have never existed
    without the shadow outline
    of men surrounding me,
    stone, corralling
    and unresponsive
    like bars to a cell. 

    and don’t overthink
    my outfits because
    sometimes I wear head
    to toe sweats,
    bare face,
    hair freshly bladed
    so there’s nothing
    to grab, to hold
    to bend.

    “Rage”

  • “we need not forever remain prisoners of our prescriptions.”

  • “only victims have a destiny.”

    –Louise Gluck

  • (to survive you have to become impervious)

  • we think it’s a good
    thing to be suddenly mad
    at everyone,

    rage just means
    you’re alive.

    “sekhmet”

  • rage just means
    you’re alive.

  • you can find me

    angry

    seething

    red and
    dripping little
    balls of
    past

    up your steps
    up your hall
    up your banister
    hovering above your bed.

    we call this next section
    Sekhmet’s turn

  • light the fucking candle.

    stare at the mirror,
    a little past it.

    what card do you see?
    they ask.
    I see the moon.

    turn it over.
    it’s the moon.
    they do this all day long
    to prove to me the existence of God.

    I have a jar of oil, bayberry, my own spit,
    blank check signed, prick from my finger, dash of
    rosemary, rose petal from my dad’s
    funerary placement (private, just us)

    and my menstrual blood
    on the mantle.

    “I give it all to you.”

    (I’ve done this before)

    take my blood,
    drink it like pomegranate jui ,
    get drunk on my rage.”

    turn over a card:
    Justice.
    just to prove things to you,
    princess.

    I wake up the next morning
    bleeding again,
    a week early, moon in Leo.
    pour a cup full to her.
    candle lit.
    to the lion’s head,
    drink up, love.
    it’s pertinent you take it
    one bitch at a time.
    Justice.

    the first thing you notice about me
    is my smile, wide, bright like a star
    and  the second thing you notice
    is the viper behind me.

    the fifth one i call is Sekhmet.

    “five of wands”

  • it’s the skin that
    brought you back isn’t it?

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