Posts
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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”
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we left with our hands
uncurling
in separate pockets, fingers
strained against the denim.
I left a place where I found
God and
a studio apartment
with no utility bill,
foothills with no rain and
zero percent humidity,
sun 300 days a year and
a rose blanket that smelled
like my parent’s room.
I left my
first incantation,
my brother is dead
in the margin and
you left me with this
townhouse.
an abrasive echo
that scratched marks
in the walls,
no budget for paint.
one half of the utensils,
a couple of wicker baskets
and no end table.
you gesture to the antique armoire,
remind me it’s yours
even though it’s not your
taste, you see the value
in heavy wood.
you took the bigger bottle of
toothpaste.
five chairs,
all the curtains, the area rugs,
the broom and your
glare lingered on me
counting dollars
in a borrowed sundress,
feel my clavicle
jut out the skin
as I rationed meals.
you took the kitten and
the lighters,
every last card
(left the armoire)
and so abruptly like when
you took my waist that
one breathy night,
pulled me into the crook
of your body. said
you were going to
squeeze me in this bad neighborhood
rolled out of that soft spot,
grabbed a litter box,
took clean off.“doors #13”
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“Why does insanity always twist the great answers?
Because only tormented persons want the truth.” -
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freedom,
as with any other illusion,
is a cage; square
of smudged windowsor
slowly cracking doors,
screened porches and you’re
watching the kids chase the wind
into the gulls at the shore.
brick walls with a hole in the
mortar and you’re peeking
through the cracks of your
latest lover’s absence,
trying to catch sight of
the tips of their nails
for the synesthetic trail
down your breast or
the scourge and
when settled
and mended and feeling
very tall,
broken glass on the sidewalk
as you leap from your
place:
burning, indelible
in char.doors #12
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“when the terror becomes unbearable,
the other becomes God.”
–Louise Gluckconfinement can be comfortable.
felt familiar in
the grip of load:
my chains
hung from me like the tail
of my self-throned
coronation robe
when I hoisted myself
on self and made policy about it,
my divination crumbled in it’s cell.
started at my temples,
made my crown;
the veil that obscured
the trail of my widow’s march
following the scent and
stepping lightly down the roads
that my men roamed further apart
from each other to leave me
in pieces in rows in their
new lovers’ homes.
on a shelf,
freshly dusted,
gilded by the yellow dust
of whatever stamen she picks.
I was mired in sudden freeze,
then implosion,
then retraction of amends
and I came
full at them
hook in mouth like
hungry lure.“Doors #11”
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my will to live solely stems from my will to write and that is it. even the face of things I love isn’t motivating enough at times in despair. imagine something foreign taking over your body and then teaching it how to talk. it’s maddening, literally, whatever is in here now.
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When I was very young, I used to stare at my closet sort of squinting. I first had this ugly brown accordion style door on it that my parents eventually replaced with a soft, translucent pink curtain that had tiny little circles all over to texture it. My closet had clothes and my bookshelf. When I closed my eyes, I could see the curtain create patterns. Well, I squinted and I could see colors and I began to emote not through me but through the child I imagined. Well, back up. That may be complex. Imagine what happens after you look at the sun: you get those circles, those oil slick dots, in your retina. I could do that by closing my eyes hard and then opening them fast. Or pressing on my eyes and then opening them. The curtain would look like it was moving and bleeding light. I could feel things move from it. When I wanted to be alone, I just laid on my bed staring at the closet.
I imagined a small girl that looked like me at the edge. She couldn’t really leave the room. Like a twin sister. But better than me. She existed right next to me, parallel, everywhere I went. But she couldn’t exactly leave. And she was better than me.
The difference between her and I was her hair. She had long flowing beautiful hair. We told each other stories. We dared each other to do things.
“the woman who walked out of walls” or “the mirror”
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“I don’t intend in this, to set up any sort of hierarchy, simply to say that I read to feel addressed: the complement, I suppose, of speaking in order to be heeded.”
–Louise Gluck
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nooo she cant die before she finishes the book. i mean L OH L yeah thats the joke
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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. and being labeled batshit or dramatic is a part of it.
the nodule in my throat. that was the first to go. but the first thing that happened was I choked. the second thing that happened was my legs went numb. the third was my breath being stuck in my throat and the steady rise of water. 3:13. that’s the formula we are looking at. 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. 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 and im quite fine with it now.
get on with then.
but I snap back. 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 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. the music and the seizure and the sweet sweet drowning. there’s an alligator somewhere.
“13 stories: the woman who saw her own death”
daturamoon.com 