I’m in the doctor’s office
trying not to laugh
as he keeps pressing me
“what was your father like?”
I don’t have time quite frankly.
this man is asking me if I ever
feel like I am watching myself from
outside of my body.
I say sincerely,
sounds like you think I’m a ghost.

I’m trying not to laugh.

he is outlining various traumas
I may have experienced in my life:
my drinking,
my family’s drinking,
my previous assaults by men.
we talk MS, autoimmune
components.
we talk allostatic load,
latency of neglect,
the firing of nerves.
the confusing compression.
I’m just talking about the mirror
and gesturing a lot to the air
about the fact I asked for it
and then my legs went numb.

that was the first time,
I say.
when I asked for her to enter me.
before, she did it without asking.
I nod as if he is
answering the questions.
get on it with then.

Sir, I am possessed.
I don’t have time for this.
I stand up,
suddenly able to walk again.

“LILITH”

November 10, 2020 0

I ignored his question,
showed him the
callous on my palm,
referencing my need
to grip.
sometime I have rough sleep,
that’s all, I shrug the bruise
off.
he licks my hand with his tongue
without questioning my need to
hold everything so tightly
I’ve succumb to carpal tunnel,
arthritis, delusions of
grandeur and infancy.

“has anyone ever talked to you about splitting?”
the doctor asks.
where am I?
I was twisting the straw
in my fingers, contorting my
face and confessing things,
sometimes i like to shoplift.
“Who is Catarina?”
the doctor asks.
numb.
“splitting is a phenomenon in which you sort of leave your body
to allow another persona
to take over.”
the doctor says.
sometimes I like to squeeze worms in my fingers
until they pop.

“like possession?”

my posture is severe,
having been found hunched over I am
upright, hands crossed and
waiting.
sometimes I peek at Christmas presents.
“no, more like split personality.”
the doctor is taking notes and
eyeing me so intensely, I almost
laugh. don’t tell him my name
is Arachne. not
yet.

sometimes I watch the mirror dance in candlelight
and wait for her to come in
I break men
like the swell that rises over bridges
engulfing islands with her mouth,
we break men with turns of
tides.

“Sarah, have you ever felt like you were standing outside
of yourself?”

we break men with
dulcet metronomy,
or the way words do:
harm.

“Poltergeist”

November 10, 2020 0

I don’t like to talk about my
house so I don’t
but the garage
is gone and so is everything
that was in it. my
childhood bedroom is gone
and so is everything that was
in it. one day the sink
will collapse. it’s leaning. we
have snakes
in there. other things too.
giant water bugs and
crickets and
slugs and I have no
yearbooks. I have a couple
notes from my friends
and a swath from a cologne sample
my high school lover
used to wear between
fucking his wife and me
accompanied by a note
he wrote me once:
there is wine in the fridge.
but I am thinking of
myself younger

and the old lip gloss bottle,
a roller, vanilla scented
but pink
that I had saved because it
reminded me of an entire
freezing december
on my crush’s bench
where sometimes they let me
wear their sweatshirts.
I am
holding my hands to the ground,

feeling vines wind up
my calves.
repeating,
muttering.
what rolls off my tongue in
these heavy fits of consternation.
the way they describe me to the
ambulance: someone who
looked like she saw the horizon
close in on her and
collapsed.
the way they describe me
to the first responder
is that I looked to be seized
by terror like she saw the
horizon closing in and
just fell
to the ground.
“Persephone”

November 10, 2020 0

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”

November 10, 2020 0

freedom,
as with any other illusion,
is a cage; square
of smudged windows

or
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

November 10, 2020 0

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.

“flood”

November 8, 2020 0

it keeps no record of wrongs.
i’m saying it out loud
and I’m noticing my drawl
drawn out that’s how I know
he’s come round.
placed toffee on the other
mantle the way he likes
try not to ask about
whatever wayward lover
that’s been side eyeing
me or just puckering
their lips and I’m
hor d’oeuvres.
disentangled.
waste.
of time.
but here we are
marking everything
xxx with my fire finger
so I decide to
begin again:

love is patient.

I am trying not to get lost
in the mirror
which is a tall fucking
order (but drawing it
out so it goes
t aaaaallll fucking
ordddderrrrrrr)
when the little girl
enters the room.

the audience is lost,
I know. ok, so
there’s me plus
my reflection
plus it’s
what year and
there’s
how many
folks
in the room?

“Formula #2: Descriptive”

November 6, 2020 0

I know I’ll always be ok.by purpose, my namewill be forgotten. my real name.I am thinking back.if you can’t keep up,this is winter 2014. but it is alsowinter 2017.it is also spring andsummer 2020.the day I arrived in the hotelin the financial district of New Yorkto meet a Russian photographerwho promised me a night in an expensivesuite and a binding contractthat has been violated over timewithout my awareness,my nails were paintedblue to match mybruised knees.spread more, all the way.I thought that wascute.

I know I’ll always be ok.
by purpose, my name
will be forgotten. my real name.
I am thinking back.
if you can’t keep up,
this is winter 2014. but it is also
winter 2017.
it is also spring and
summer 2020.

the day I arrived in the hotel
in the financial district of New York
to meet a Russian photographer
who promised me a night in an expensive
suite and a binding contract
that has been violated over time
without my awareness,
my nails were painted
blue to match my
bruised knees.
spread more, all the
way.
I thought that was
cute.

he gave me a fishnet
black onesie I ripped a hole
in but wear on dates
to remember us by.
and even though
he took advantage of me
and you felt betrayed
by some unshaved labial
part of me,
I made my half of rent
for once.
in the car from the bus
stop on my smile
spread and the bickering
couldn’t dissuade
the new confidence.
the way cash feels
sizeable in an envelope.
ok, chill.
fuck,

I got rent, right?

“doors (#7)”

November 6, 2020 0

at three pm,
I show up to the church
just my tourmaline in
hand, hair wrapped
and I begin.
God, I renounce all
evil in me.
my hands twisted
like roots, the white string
of my cuff ties
between my knuckles,
nervous
and he says
daughter,
take your time.

beads of sweat
ride my back, pull my
camisole tight to skin and
I can feel the pleather
stuck to the bottom of
my thighs so that if I moved,
the flesh would have to be
ripped from bench.
I’m obsessed with time,
and that’s not the issue
but how I count it
in riddles.
he cannot see the way
I move my leg;
the natural tremble
it’s developed.
it’s what I say in
blackouts, or even now,
the way it has to be correct.
the way it spills out of me.
I’ve twisted the tie til the circulation
is cut, tightly around my
ring finger.
and that I need to be subsequently
scourged, promptly.
begin unraveling it when I feel the
pins start up my knuckles.

I’m nodding
my head in some sort
of agreement with something
internal, with the
rush I feel from purge,
the glow of sun
through pink stained glass
across my cheek,
the bend of legs
on pews,
the comfort of
the ailing, the
rhymes,
to ailment.
the comfort of beads
in hands, or
anything, the
alms.

I am here and
practicing throwing
my arms
open
when people
first
walk into the room
but also
remembering what
I
scream
at doors
in panic.

“the recitations”

November 6, 2020 0

all day long
I vacillate between intention;
maybe a couple steps forward
or skirting one craving
and then the immediate withdrawal,
the later three walks and
four coffees, twelve cookies
and picking a fight;
my habits,

my beloved
hermeticism and the double meaning of
everything and I’m
ambivalent about every choice
I’ve given myself over to;
even in completion,
I shrug.
let the wind take me.

now I am
in Philadelphia,
and I have an Access card to
buy toilet paper.
I am also writing letters
to Colorado llying
saying I got into Temple’s
education program and I’m
raising my hand in meetings
to volunteer for service
earnestly.
getting invited to social things
and showing up early.
crying endlessly and in public,
which refreshes me.

I am dog sitting; house sitting for
money in Queen Village,
and I spend the days
drinking their coffee,
sneaking their chocolates.
using their washer for my own
heavy blankets,
and walking the pit bull
without the choke chain
she gave me.
not trying to make a fuss
about it even though I do want
to put it around the woman
walk her on her fours and
then tug a little bit.
that’s a part of
innate ferocity,
an ardent step, a
boil.

I observe the doors of people
in Society Hill:
clean black or
mahogany
with the numbers painted on
them or in brass next to their
outdoor lanterns, their empty
flower boxes soon to be leaking
zinnias, petunias, geraniums.
soon to be fingered,
picked by me.
I am obsessed with the material
possessions of others
and knowing I’m no good
marked this place for
later:

we should rob them.

begin to circle the area
with the pit bull
understanding clemency only
gifted to the few who
have smiles like
little sunshines
and white skin,
tanned but porcelain
otherwise.

“doors #4”

November 6, 2020 0