poetry – Page 19

truthfully,
I had a dollar to my name and
that was it.
I had even lost my bob:
begged my friend to

shave it in a blackout
I want this thing gone
so I had to scour the store for about
three cheap wigs that could
possibly be real hair,
a couple pairs of jeans,
some thrift store shirts that said nothing about style or quality or even
weathering seasons but the joy was the
low thread count
, the way she said “only fifty cents” and
you had that in your back pocket. a big puffy
brown jacket that someone had donated
to me when I was probably shivering
in my seven year hoodie and
I know how to take a handout if you phrase it right.

I was what you called the
“life of the party” and no matter how
many bedspreads I ruined, I was always invited back and
honestly, lucky timing that year
hipsters were cool so I showed them my
pall malls and dirty nails and asked if they knew
what it felt like to empty your guts about anything real
or if their record collection was more about posturing,
fell head first down the metal fire escape as I asked him
but got right up like I hadn’t concussed several times that night
and told him I listen to more music than he’s ever heard of,
said to him
I’m schizophrenic or at least
hallucinating mildly
generally at baseline
and then I threw up a little on the carpet
before I skulked out onto Hampton,
(turn the headphones up),
going nowhere,
sort of cackling.

brown combat
boots—those were second hand too even
though everyone agrees shoes are something
a person needs brand new and
a compulsion
to spend my days sipping
those 7-11 brand 1.5 liters of
red wine.
the kind that are hard to carry with one hand
or finish by yourself but here I am
the next day, unslept, squinty eyed and crawling in the grass
in the public square dragging it behind me.
lips cracked and red,
phone probably dead
no water..
I don’t remember crying but they said
I did it all the time.

a place on my friends couch.
place on my mom’s couch.
no bedroom.
a breathalyzer on my car steering wheel
that only started with one clean breath which
was becoming more rare so sometimes I asked for help
(Blow here, I’d point)
no real place to live.
about a dollar in my pocket
and a negative bank statement with
matching credit card debt but no
shortage of men and you know

(Call your wolves)

I fucking lived through that.
so I know grace personally,
like I wear it and absorb it and
I do pray with fervor.
I never forget where I’ve been.
and you think clutching a rosary makes me
a saint or insane but either way
you have never seen what asbestos can do to a structure,
the way mold just kind of grows on walls like that so you
don’t really think about it and
I build altar.
I answered all of your questions like that
after awhile: long form
in poetry and short stories
and anecdotes and all over the place so your drawing a map
to connect my life and her life and you’re seeing
there’s no difference in your bedroom but waiting
to see how I write you at night
when no one is around wishing you had courage
to bang on doors too.
wishing you had the courage to one day
drive your car headfirst
into a parked cement mixer too.
wishing your innocuous superstitions grew pulses, became
a poltergeist you leash to your bed.
wishing you had the courage to spit on a man’s face
for touching your leg
or learning how to tuck a razor inside of your cheek.
(Pull it out and graze his face)
wishing you had the courage to tell
true stories too.

And I lived through that.

“How do forget everything day 1”

July 3, 2019 0

all day long I do mathematical equations
they say I’m calculating.

in my head.
as I walk to the laundromat
shifting the hamper beneath me,
I think,

that’s an understatement.

I think a lot.

I think.
I think.
I love probability
like
what’s the likelihood I’ll see you again
believing I both convinced myself in this reality
and believe I convinced you it was true
so imbued in my delusion
but then God came to my defense,
I watched some things begin
to sprout like little poison flowers
growing out of the cracks
like refuge?
or the analysis like

what is it going to take to hypnotize
a small crowd and at what cost to my
well being and I was practical so
how much money will I make?
and statistically speaking,
we have to look at patterns,
not just equations but
trends so then here comes
the past.

I turn the headphones up.

you gave me a bouquet of
weeds as I was drinking
my third cup of coffee.
you had picked them from
our backyard when I wasn’t
looking.

you were smiling with teeth;
big, and I thought I loved
you.
I had gone upstairs to
change into a sundress
and tore something near my spine,
suddenly, like a rip inside.
I mustered up enough breath
to walk down the stairs,
back to you,
where you had been standing with the weeds,
where you had been telling jokes,
where you had been laughing and I said:
it feels like I pinched a nerve
and am having trouble breathing.
what should I do?

you looked up the staircase
on your way out
the front door and tossed a
I don’t believe you
as you were rushing.
someone else drove me to
the doctor and that doctor
confirmed it,
prescribed me Flexeril
for the pain and wrote me
a note explaining to my internship
why I wouldn’t be in that day.
I laid in bed, waiting for the
drugs to subside.

you came home
and attempted to justify
why you always felt
deceived by me.
I lay numb,
relieved of feeling anything as you recited
everything I’d ever done
that bothered you.
you weren’t sorry,
it’s Thursday and I feel
nothing for you
now.

I drop a pair of panties
on the sidewalk
on the way out and
someone calls me from
the corner.
I turn my headphones up

I feel nothing for you now.

“Thursday”

June 24, 2019 0

here is what I wrote down:

I had spent an hour walking one direction
without purpose or intent
only feeling the sun beat down on me,
me without water or
something to suck on
or a blanket to hold
and I was so thirsty.

without noticing, I was suddenly
surrounded by people at some outdoor
art show and I averted all the eyes
and tugged at my sundress;
the bottom always slipped up and
i could tell that they wanted to eat
my upper thighs,
see my tan lines.
you are cold and dry
my tongue was dry but I was hot that day
so men were everywhere,
my lips were open to keep
my jaw from shutting
and I don’t know how I got to the
park that day but let me tell you
that when my jaw started to shut,
I said nothing to anyone in that crowd.
I took my hand,
cavalier about it,
gave a quick eye over my shoulder
and opened my mouth with force
and continued not a break in saunter,
me terrified and looking for water
scared to shut my jaw.

you asked what living in perpetual fear
feels like and it is this.

“how guys save me in their phone #9”

June 24, 2019 0

Ive watched my nervousness

eat me daily,
clutch me with its
indecision I am robed in
rosary, nodding, chanting throughout
the day but really I am
fickle
is the first thing I write about myself
and I am always
holding something somewhere in
my body.
like a claw lives inside
my jaw line and now
I have TMJ

what’s that? sometimes
they wait.

a psychosomatic disorder where your
jaw locks when you’re chewing
and you slowly start to choke.

well not everyone chokes.
I just started to choke
when it closed the first time.

“the drowning”

June 19, 2019 0

carried with her
a weapon: her keys in hand,
a disarming speech pattern
and no reason to suspect
her about anything.

I never tell a lie,
she said
leading me to
someone else’s house.

(how do you get away with that?)

I just never finish the story,
she said and I
hung there like a
Christmas ornament
glistening in her iris.

“How guys save me in their phone #6”

June 15, 2019 0

She took her time. Each stroke became longer and more sparkly. It wasn’t necessary but dramatic as was the theme and when he come up behind her to hug her, she smiled in the mirror. She patted her lips one more time letting the blue shimmer by candlelight, washed her hands and returned to the party. The back stairs were set with alternating black and white candles, twelve each and the entire backyard was covered with string lights so everything twinkled.

“Don’t you think this is dangerous?” she asked, waving her hands over her Mary Janes pointing to each votive on her way to the bonfire.

A lavender laced joint was being passed around.
“We are doing it again.”
“What?”
“Thirteen stories.”
“No.”
“Yes.”

“So,” Petesia clapped his hands together and went over the rules for the newcomers as she took her seat. “One person starts–they set the theme. Last year it was ‘Video Game or Nightmares’ and we were supposed to guess which is which after each story. This year…”

Osiria cut him off, “This year we have no theme because we haven’t started.”

Timidly, Ava cut in, “Isn’t the theme Shakespeare in Space?”

Orb laughed loudly next to her and Jelinda shot a glare his way.

“Well, it’s a Midsummer’s Night Space Dream but the theme of the stories and game can be anything,” Petesia said.

“So this is how it works,”Osiria immediately turned her attention back to the circle. “Someone starts the story. The person who starts set the tone; the theme of the story and the rule of the game. We go around until we get to thirteen. Since there’s now only ten of us, three people will go twice. The last person has to end the story that the first person started.”

“What’s the catch?” “Mr.” asked taking the joint from Ophelia.

“It’s got lavender in it,” Cat said.
“No, with the game.”
“Well, legend has it that whoever it ends on is cursed.”
“Mr.” passed the joint to Pan.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Annnd…” Petesia interjected.
“Annnd, we make you tell us the weirdest thing about you .”
“Ohhh, cool!”
“Well we did that before.”
“Or you have to confess all your secrets.”

Pan passed the joint back to Cat who winked at Petesia quickly.
“Or maybe act out the story for us.”
“That’s not all, “ Petesia pointed at Artemis letting his fangs shine.
The crowd waited.
“The story comes for you,” he winked, not at Artemis or Ava but at Cat. “And it comes to life.”
Osiria grabbed the joint from Pan before he could take a drag.
“Who wants to start?” she said. “I start almost every year so I’m trying to pass this time.”
“Oh you play every year?” a woman in a fairy costume asked.
She had named herself “Eliza.” Petesia and Osiria nodded at her.
“We try to keep them kind of short though,”Osiria looked at Artemis.
“There’s only ten of us, “ Marco said, circling to the group.
“Three people will go twice, “ Cat turned to gently remind him.
“I’ll go first!” Artemis cheerfully volunteered.
“Really?” Osiria shot her a look.
“Yeah, I love games!”
“So…” she rubbed her hands together and looked at Petesia across the fire. “The first story is called…The Woman Who Walked for Miles.”

“The 13th Story”

June 11, 2019 0

I plan to spend the year
fat; replete in web
and feast.

“the web”

June 7, 2019 0

the first thing you notice about me is
the way I saunter when I walk anywhere,
even to grab a ginger ale from the cooler
“it’s my favorite.”
but then linger near the
exit the rest of the night with the crumpled straw
in my hand
and the temper on my tongue
contained,
but I’m waiting for a siren
to let this thing out.
my name is artemis.

sometimes buildings just catch on fire.
you say I always crouch with a
bow in hand.
“I’m just nervous.”
and that when I am lying I look away really
fast so you can’t see the smile spread
across my face and you know
I fucked your friends
and you know I’ll fuck some more
and you see me on the screen
my name is Artemis.
parting lips, combing bangs,
practicing inflection as I said
I would.

you said you’ll always remember
the way I laughed LOUD
and so sudden like you were the funniest man in
the whole world.
and I’ll always remember
the first time I was invited anywhere.
my name is Catarina Kocurek
may I come in?

you said yes.
no, it’s not that you said yes.
you said “ok”
as I walked across the welcome mat
throwing matches as you swept.

“how guys save me in their phone #4”

June 7, 2019 0

rainstorm.

unscheduled and I had been
comfortable in shifting drought.
avoiding the wasps
hidden in the grass
with my clumsy, calloused toes
seasoned from walking too far
and too hard in unpadded sandals
when the first sign of spring hits,
and my sky blue sundress seems a
sudden hindrance:

flimsy, strap always falling down and
blows up in breezes
so I have to keep watching the way I
carry myself around men.
I crouch and the hem crawls to
expose my left thigh and the
garter you gave me:
not the daisies I wanted,
a ring of bruises
in the shape of your open mouth
still fresh with conquest;
lasting impact of
your parting breath that
said nothing and now
just hangs there and hurts
when I shower.
wait

I’m counting cicada shells
under the picnic table;
a gesture of presence.
someone told me to stop everything
and I needed a year to pass.
I scrubbed away the last of your fingernail
but I have to ride those
bite marks out.
blinked once and a ripple in the sky
burst; liberated and aimless,
she shows just one day’s worth
of self-containment uncondensed,
without tension, falling naked
she’s black and soft and
seamless surfeit with mild
violence, crackling and
completely cageless.

my feet are covered in mud
before I even notice the shadow
wash over my bangs.
wait.
drenched in flood my head
is dark red because you liked
“subtlety”
and I liked demonstrative movement;
a hint of auburn wasn’t enough to show
blood with just a little bush
so I adorn myself with ritual:
hair dye and cleanses,
little thorns,
little kills to draw your
attention. my knees hurt and
all those cicadas are dead
so I stand to lift my face to the thunder;
a small gesture of inflorescence.
Wait.

open my arms purposefully
like petals of a rose exhaling
in relief for the drink
her master brings.
parched from the work my dry words had done
undoing
as they roamed free all over
your front yard.
God makes pacts with penitents
and you barely have a face that isn’t
my reflection so I’m itching to be clean and
fresh and start
again.
stretch my neck with pride to
to catch her drops on my tongue,
bold with repentance
and ready to wash away
the phantom jaws that bait me.
but suddenly charged,
the gray sky remembered
she held lightning.
and suddenly illuminated,
I remembered

I am
the dark thing
inside of me.

“prayer”

June 6, 2019 0

She took him down a long corridor and up a flight of stairs to a single room at the top. They passed a couple doors on the way but the apartment was relatively abandoned. He heard no movement in any of the place but their own and even his lady walked with a bit of a tiptoe.

“I’m renting for the night before I drive home tomorrow,” she stated placing the shorter silver key in the slimmer silver door.

“Where are you from again?” he asked her removing his hand from her back to check his phone for the time.

Flinging the door open, she tossed her pocketbook on the end table, ignoring his questions. She turned around suddenly and placed her palm over his phone.

“Get undressed.”

She had him tied to the headboard and blindfolded him before he could registerd the time or check his texts. He was naked and she was tying his feet to one of the posts as she began.

“I don’t like chit chat and I’ll review the rules once more,” she said.

“Can I see you?”

“No.”

She watched him lick his lips.
“Can I have some water?”

“No.”

He licked his lips again.

“Rule #1: You will only be allowed to touch me after you follow all of the rules. If you do get to touch me, you have to ask before you do anything. Do you know what that means?”

He hesitated, bound to the wooden frame and unable to see her; her apathy and mocking eyebrow lift as she cooly sipped a tall glass of water out of his reach.

“I have to ask before I touch you.”

He licked his lips.

“But what does that mean?”

She moved closer to his face.

“That before I touch you I have to ask.”
She licked her wet lips next to his ear.
“But why didn’t you?”

“What?”

“Why didn’t you ask all night?”

He said nothing. She took a sip of water and let it dribble down her chin but caught it in her palm before it hit his lips.

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s keep going.”

She placed the glass on the nightstand next to him.

“Rule #2: You must repeat after me when I say ‘repeat after me.’

She waited.

“I said you must repeat after when I say repeat after me.”

“Yes, I will.”

“No, you don’t get it. REPEAT AFTER ME.”

He licked his lips again and moved his head to the right slightly.

“You must repeat after me when I say ‘repeat after me.’

She opened a drawer and took out a metal pinwheel and pressed one of the edges to his nipple.

“Ooh. What is that?”

She bent down and licked his cheek as she moved the pinwheel across his nipple and over his chest.

“You’re very hairy,” she let her tongue run up and down his cheek close to his ear.

“Yesss,” he smiled.

“Repeat after me,” she whispered. “Rule number three.”
She kissed him on three, she repeated.

“Rule number three,” he repeated,catching on.

She put her mouth to his mouth so she could breathe directly on it.

“My name is Hecate and I enter your dreams every night.”

“My name is Hecate and I enter your dreams every night. Oh, wait. Should I say your name is Hecate?”

She picked up a red lighter from the drawer and lit one white candle on the nightstand.

“Say it both ways.”

“My name is Hecate and I enter your dreams every night. Your name is Hecate and you enter my dreams every night.”

She picked up the candle and sat on the edge of the bed.

“The first story I am going to tell you is about the woman who saw her own death and tried to out run it. Your job is to listen and to figure which story is true and which story is false. “

He laughed.

“You’re fucking something else.”

She let one drop of wax hit the same nipple she had been running the pinwheel over.

“Esssh,” he let out a noise and a wince with his jaw. “Ok, how many?”

“I will gag you if you talk during the story. You are only allowed to talk when the story is done. You may ask only one question to figure out which story is true,” she let another drop of wax hit, “but you have to wait until I finish the whole story and have to ask it immediately afterwards so don’t fuck it up. Yes?”

“Yes!” He winced a bit and raised his voice.

She reached for the glass of water and raised it over his lips.

“Open your mouth.”

He licked his lips and parted his mouth only partly, a tiny shudder passed over him that only himself, the trained psychologist, or herself, the trained sadist would notice. She let the cool liquid dribble onto his lips at the same time she let the hot wax trickle over one breast to the next. Reaching his neck toward her, he lapped at each lip.

“Good boy,” she said. “No talking. I’ll give you drops of water as you need them.”

She stood up and walked around the bed to sit on a stool that was placed at the end of the bed near his feet. She set both of her bare feet on the post spreading her legs wide, wide enough to reveal the sheer black panties underneath her blue and cream and floral sleeveless dress that iexplicably matched the groomsmen the way the body shimmer and the tinsel neck piece had.

“It’s called The Woman Who Saw Her Own Death: The dream about the alligator”

She saw his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed his own spit for moisture.

June 6, 2019 0