When he turned the corner, I turned the corner. When he stopped at the orange hand,  I stopped at the orange hand. When he jaywalked, I jaywalked, although sometimes that’s when I lost them. I moved with him.  Watched his gait, uncertain shuffle, the way he was always running his hand through his hair with some timed tension-breaking. He held inconceivable space for his own self-assurance; feigned and toxic and unable to yield. He would play with his keys or a pen, in a way so  his forearms brushed people constantly. He would always have his head way up or way down and in his phone but never on anyone unless it was me, intimidating and meant to invoke subordinate laughter. A subordinate curtsy.   He was heavy on the sidewalk. Stomped his way through people, indifferent to the chasms he cut through couple He passed right through them like a ghost. Like they were ghosts forced to make their point abruptly or cut the thought short or turn around in disgust and the mood would be inevitably lost no matter how they chose to approach it. They came back together aware of the split. Aware they can be split. Aware they are not one. They came back together and then I followed in his footsteps.

  I mimicked his carnal prowl; the way he ruined things, the way his arms hung at his side like a big, hungry primate. No purpose, I saw, but to smash rocks, strangle things, dangle things above me. I made my movements wider.  I flexed the whole walk to make my arms stronger, larger, strong and large enough to smash rocks, strangle things, dangle my sex above them.  I channeled the Earth’s orbit and became giant space behind him. I wanted to loom. I wanted someone to feel something looming behind them. I wanted them to be the victims of a person constantly walking in and out of their relaxing silence.  They demanded interruption. I became stifled violence.

 I became indiscriminate in my hunt. Sometimes whole groups I would follow. I would be in front of them to start, choosing all my movements slowly, carefully, deliberately, aware I was being watched. I was being followed. I would tense and untense my hand so they had something to focus on; so they could see my nails ripping at the inside of my palms and then releasing. So they could see my nails were sharp and sharpening. My biceps flexing so they could see my arms were strong and strengthening. So they could see my palm was pre-callused. Sometimes I sauntered.  Sometimes I turned around without warning and walked the other way and caught all eyes now locked straight on my pussy. It was my ass they were just hungry for. Sometimes I laughed loudly to no one right in front of them and at them. Sometimes I relaxed; stopped dead in my tracks in front of them to check the weather forecast for the evening.  I responded to texts and let giant groups break in two just before hitting me, move around me, a wave crashing right before my feet and parting their own sea. I lingered there, responding, taking my time with my choice in vocabulary, choice in emoji sequence. They assumed frivolity. I assumed a wider stance and let another group scramble to pass me gracefully and then I suddenly changed direction.    

Sometimes I’d make eye contact for five hundred feet, or if I felt confident, I’d make eye contact for a mile. I walked right towards them, my lips set in a straight line. My eyes unblinking. My intent muddy. I waited until we were close enough to get a sense of each other. I stared until we were close enough to catch a whiff of each other.  I could smell their begging cologne from the first five steps of this mile. They anticipated a contact, maybe a word spoken, an observation about the mild winter we were having, a rehearsed joke, or unrehearsed nervous choke last minute, one chance, fuck it up.  Deep swallow. They hoped for something unbridled. Something untamed. At least, a once-over. I held a bit of a smirk but never anything wider, and then I looked up at the sun suddenly, looked directly at it. As they passed, I stared up at the sun the entire time. My head was completely back and I gawked.  Or if I was passing a window, checked my reflection. I ran my hand through my air with a feigned apprehension.  I watched my dogs perform and repeated it in front of them.  Whole groups I saw in my peripheral looking at me, waiting for me, watching me, wanting me to interrupt, but kindly. But please do it kindly. And I always checked my reflection, my lips set in a straight line just waiting for it.

“Hey girl,” they started.

I would suddenly change direction,
start running.

“the dogs”

rp due to terrifying relevance of this season’s tarot pull

I have a recurring vision
of me on the ground
twisting string in my fingers,
delirious and
I swear I can’t breathe.

I swear I’m not forsaken,
I say out loud to them,
I swear I renounce all evil in me.
tell him this is urgent,
my legs are jelly and I
cannot walk
          sir, I cannot walk anymore,
I repeat to the EMT that refuses to
give me oxygen and
you materialize, suddenly
screaming
I am praying for you.
you are not making it happen,
you are seeing it first. 

wait, back up,
that’s too complex
.a fire engine blares its horn
and I’m still wavering
in front of the park.
the little girl is doing
cartwheels for a small
blond child but when she sees
me looking again,  she skips in
a circle and smiles.
I know never to bet on
anything that talks
so I push the whole thing
aside, keep walking.

feel a bone
in my knees
bend.

“nine of wands”

the third is ennui.
you become overcome
with a sudden fatigue.
you can’t even argue.
you can’t aggress or retract.
almost as if you are floating
through it all.
but not as happy or light
as that. like you’re being
controlled by a beam.
it’s more terrifying the
grip this new surrender has.
your arched back,
your upward gaze,
some kind of nothing
and the laughter is braying:

so deep and directed
at you.

“ennui”

when you came home
with the giant brass
industrial art piece to hang
on the wall at the top
of the stairs, first I noticed
it had no smooth
edges like a pinwheel
fringed with daggers.
in fact, I was afraid
it might cut me in the middle
of the night and the second thing
I noticed was
you were a libertarian
but I had the grace to not even
ask how much it cost.
I had bought us an entire chocolate
cake using food stamps
so I cannot judge and I
have learned
life is meaningless.

this one’s for the soft touch
in me, signs and
I won’t do anything more.

you’re vacillating,
playing scenario and
victim. I am ten inches
taller than I was before
becoming volcanic,
moving neck up
to a martyrdom
I not only asked for,
begged for, wept for.
and first, I want to
say I hope it all works.
second, hope is a feckless
drug but I still walk outside
everyday hoping strangers
let me brush the dogs around
their collars even with
this ill air and I have not stopped
praying since the fervent need
first took me by the
finest strands,
held me under

look,
there’s love.

it’s not just execution.
it’s not just
having the arsenal
but where to put it.
pull back my curtain,
show him the basket
with the blue calcite,
the burned scripture,
the crown.

“formula #1: inference” (use this again)

but I add
people think angels can’t have
guns and
that’s not true,
hand him the weapon.
we just can’t fire them.
hold it.
get comfortable with it.

pink collar says
PRINCESS, I’m wearing
antlers and a dirty blonde
wig.  mock latex bodysuit
that rides my hips and
I am
only half bitch
three inches from you
on the bed and
half loading bb bullets
in the cartridge and
plainly  drawing up
variables marked
xxx.laugh out loud
cuz they
don’t really get it yet.

it was true, I left a candle burning. I laugh out loud. I am wearing a mask so the three people walking towards me can’t hear me say, “. I set my altar on fire three times and never burned it down.” both the smoke detectors are beeping in my new house. I left a candle burning. it was a way to get me to go back. “I was really going to walk all the way to rittenhouse like this.” I was walking slower than before, kind of crawling while standing and crossing the street at the intersection to get around them. the people with their dog. I couldn’t pet the dog, make small talk, and couldn’t grab a real thought. I can’t believe I left a candle burning.  I needed a reason to go back. the outside was indeed the antithesis of joy. in breezes, it was algid and everyone was boarded up. I was walking slower than before, kind of slithering across the intersection, leaning slightly to the right and heading back home to ensure I had left the candle burning. to sit on the living room floor, weighted. to feel the tendril wrap my head and whisper: c’est la tien, but in her brevity and english again.

 it taped me to the living room floor. my anguish ineradicable and now grown legs. the sensations, the swarm. I had the thought once I was back inside that this was going to be extreme but due to superstition thought I might want to rephrase it. shaking my head, I said out loud, “no, this is intensity. you like intensity.” and I tried to remember the French phrase. not remember it, because it wasn’t forgotten but how to say it. I had practiced outside on my ten minute walk. vous saimez l’intensite. I repeated l’intensite to get the inflection down. it is best to get one at a time. j’aime lintensite. I was grateful for the candle, first, for the ritual that started this, then for making me sit and wait.  it wanted weight. I wanted weight and I wanted to break through the leftover things.

last time this happened, I laid down and let myself feel the pull of the earth. I imagined being toppled with dirt. I imagined the coolness of the rocks and my body nestled in a grave. guffawing,  letting the cat sit on me for grounding, I said things that had no meaning like I’m lying on top of a carcass or I feel less above the ground and more beneath it. a lot of things about a girl named Rebecca who I felt was tricking me. the realization there may be no Rebecca. the confusion and me this time thinking firmly no ghosts today. I don’t want ghosts here.

note book try tarot then lay down. I grabbed my notebook and I flipped the page to see the Virgo in the second house and in big all caps DO NOT PLAY MARTYR. 
it’s too late for that isnt it? I laugh out loud

“I need to get upstairs.”