I checked the time
before walking home.

a habit.
10:26 pm, no magic
in that but the drizzle
feels good on my bare thighs.
my obsession with clocks
began years ago.

everything in threes,
I am sobbing in front of the
young attending.
and I just can’t stop reading the titles.
begin to pick my lip.
sometimes I feel like I am choking.
sometimes I think I am willing it
through like it’s a choice
to breathe or not.

they didn’t check my throat,
not even once but they
did give me a pregnancy test.
sympathetic nodding,
no real connection to the
young man but an hour of
purging. weeping.
wrote me a prescription.
I am always arranging everything.
I call Monday.
the psychiatrist doesn’t take my insurance.
can just peculiarly count rhythm
hearing a few notes.
and can align thoughts with
crescendo, and can align time too.

I decide to skip it altogether.
collect new rocks for
my mantle.
move art in new corners
spend a day composing.
later i will find out
that i have severe dysphagia,
a nodule in my throat.
and that swallowing is in fact
the most insidious
danger.

 there are whole nights I don’t sleep.
check the clock for it.

“3:13”

when I’m still, the breezes hit
and then suddenly the room falls
away. I can feel the blackness
pervade as if there is a hand
around my neck;
this ostensive power
beyond me.

i’m clutching the rug,
bottom of the ocean,
as the first wave hits.

“the labyrinth”

I told my boyfriend every crazy thing that happened to me
on the first night we met,
talked til 430 am.
talked about The Spotify Thing
but he’s humoring me now.
haven’t really shown him anything
except my eyes red, once,
when we fucked,
he said

“your eyes changed.”

he said it was scary

and then I didn’t want to do it anymore.

“LILITH & I”

typically, an episode starts
at the mantle any time of day
but something has to hit
and it’s usually
three things at once:
stasis plus drugs,
(that means im fucking dizzy and
no one will listen)
an acid wave in
my stomach and
a recurring thought,
(some say intrusive or internal stimuli)
caffeine, throbs, jaw
tightening into one flat line–
then there’s the timing.

in no particular order:
can’t breathe
can’t swallow
can’t move my legs
and then the heart leaps
start; staggered,

the rhythm is irregular. 

racing.
my pulse burning.
mouth turns to stone.
tongue desperate, bone-
dry, lurching outwards and me
biting it to stop talking.
just want to stop talking.
saying everything that’s happening out
loud and answering their questions
but snapping, imprudent.

i don’t know what I notice first:
that I haven’t exhaled,
swallowed or stood or
  or
that I can’t seem to do anything
nor stop the group from
screeching orders.
desperate choral grove.
the candle on the altar.
blow it out.
no, lick it.
just get up.
listen to me, Cat. me first.

there’s giggles all around,
dead little girls.
and today it’s

jump off the bridge, Catarina.
don’t cross the bridge, Catarina.

We call this next section “Thirteen Stories”, or
“Jump off the bridge, Catarina”

I’d tell you I harvest mens orgasms
for my own personal gain
but you’d say that’s rather crass

so what the fuck do you think I do?

Part 2:

The Act of Blaming things

“yeah the guilty is often
the victim of the injured.”

as if I am even hurting anything;
some embittered tremulous thing
shaking her fist at the
moon and praying for a tidal
wave.

you notice my arms are toned,
you say I really “wear my weight.”
you watch me lift bone to sky
and notice the notch in my veins
before you even notice
the flood.

‘“The Long Rain”

I have vague memories of standing places,
squinting to read the street signs.
I once walked from 34th and Hamilton to
5th and Walnut without so much
of a forethought, or plan
to get back once my knee
went out.

And I did it every day.

Now I am severely injured in many places but
no one believes me
so I just wash it all down.

“The kratom series”

“You made me believe you were a victim.”

“No, I told you a story and you inferred victimhood.”

The Woman Who Wrote Little Notes

and I’m The Fairest Thing That Ever Happened To You

let’s just have some fucking fun.

1. Pool
2. Lake
3. 13. Ocean

Chapter 1:  “I am inviolable”
(Or the woman who held her breath)