but to you there’s no difference between
decimation and the resolve so you’re
palms out begging for it
and here comes the reaper
wearing your blood.
—5/11/2018, notes found, self to self
“I’m always knives-out,
a chain of razors folded
behind each gesture.
You who loves me: are you
paper? Or plywood? Or stone?”
–Christopher Morgan
I never write about blossoming but
I’m seeing inflorescence in
my dejection:
my censorious portraits
cascading and
my unpolished toes
at the edge of the kitchen
where the carpet meets the tile,
an unwashed bowl of almond butter
next to my tea,
empty half of a house,
my patient sponsor and the
tail end of my
frantic texts public mania;
an affinity for
inscripting every feeling
somewhere permanent.
begin to plan the next
black mark on my body;
a large alligator named
Milo. I’m flagrant when
offended and they
say I turn violence
inwards.
I could have been
sitting still,
saving face,
explaining through private sessions,
watercolor, the grace of
long sleep, ten am and
fresh and lucid still
immured in dream.
she mentions doing the
dishes she mentions
deep breathing
I see a bud in the daffodils
you left, a water filled horizon
that distorts my perception
of what “leverage” really means.
and the big picture,
obscured by my choice of lighting;
all fluorescent,
it’s cheaper
blinding everything overdone
with explanation and
cyclic editing,
ornate,
constant litter.
I liked some things about us:
two dirty bowls to wash
but saw clearly.
we were soaked in
soft lighting and I held
your gaze,
your torso,
your incogitant rage
that I managed between fits of
self soothing and pleading,
placating.
mouthful of bitten tongue,
some little good timing,
ready for
hi there
some little soft haunting.
for you,
always:
a toothy smile,
walk for miles,
fingers crossed for some
little soft revenge.
you?
I think about you.
3.
lashes black and wet and
shaped like little
bolts.
we watched fireflies and I
licked your earlobes,
tried your fingers on
while I played with truths;
denied them.
felt your chest pressed against mine.
we clanked with ease
and I took in the scene of two people
unclothed and unseen
underneath some crescent innuendo
in your backyard
without friendship between them;
without people between them and I dared
to stare in a way that endures more than
deciduous planting.
I broke at the
not now
you spoke back
with a masculine fragility
I had never known envied,
tried on later with pants,
unplucked eyebrows
and alone.
you became all red and
graceless, I became an unwatched bull
headed to your porch,
snorting and you were
bare faced and guarded in all the ways
I have yet to learn.
I’m so obvious:
a scarlet blaze that starts with a joke,
two bodies parting,
an unreturned question that ends
with a sharp exclamation,
annihilation of something.
ends with a reminder from someone higher
to stop destroying something
to eliminate one part.
I am a wave of coercion
pulling you in and under
when I should have been
patient;
when I should have been laid in the grass
gently next to the ant hills
where you can learn my thighs,
breasts,
spine,
toes curled without injury;
when I should have been pausing to notice
there are no people between us;
when I should have been gracious,
with you and naked.
I remove the rest of my top
and close my eyes deliberately
to show you the length
of each thorn.
with my tongue pressed
against your chin,
my lips trace
your jaw I say
more softly
than before:
you know,
I have never
become divine without
first becoming storm.
“Scorpio”
why don’t you keep this real simple and complete the blue book?
sometimes I do ceremony,
sometimes I just
let things pass.
we do that for others;
we carry our grief quietly,
bury things deep
within ourselves.
I feel the root rot and darken
without altar, water
or speech.
you walk in and
I’m here now
growing into a black trunk.
you walk in and look
right at me
and I don’t know
where to begin.
I begin to grow,
unfurl, hum
softly.
5.
I couldn’t stand the sight of me
so I watched the willows
perfect their melancholy
some days
when I walked
to the edge of the city and back.
they carried it naturally
and I tried passing windows
without looking at my face.
it’s dark at four and
forget about the moonlight,
or a headlight
or my sun lamp.
my body sees no glare or
person and
my head is drawn
in hoods.
I am their winter rival.
my pores were lined with bentonite
and steam and suffered
prayer; a nihilist effort’s
worth so my skin was
exfoliated but my heart
was still blood-thirsty
in knots.
Nana’s rosary draped across my wrists
and most of my fingers stayed crossed
to become a space that contains little breaths
of God personified.
I scrubbed the dirt from every inch
of my scalp,
the bridge of my nose,
under my elbows,
my kneecaps.
any crack that light could fit
I tried to rinse it first.
sometimes I took the long way to the store.
29 degrees and someone drew a giant sun
blanketing a tulip garden
on the side of a wall in an effort to,
I only assume,
preserve summer and cure their own
raging seasonal affective disorder.
I focused on the colors.
tried to pay attention to the subtle shift in greens
as the stems got closer to photosynthesis,
the yellow stamen, orange petals,
tint of turquoise in the grove of trees
hovering in the distance,
the way everything tilted towards the right
on instinct
with no speaking masters
and no shadows beneath them.
I leaned left towards your block
focused on feeling the weather change in my tights
and mock wool mini skirt
in hopes it would
cure my malingering,
would halt my bloodlust,
my persistent inner child
bleating with her hands out
looking for touch and I am
suddenly spades out in your dead garden and
running forward,
something pinned between
my teeth:
lines, the way that
pauses form a book,
my thirteenth draft
to you.
“Saturn returns”
you hold me anyway
and in a way that I oblige–
I am blindfolded,
only feeling
the way the soil holds the bones
of those we’ve learned to mourn
in private:
eternally and quiet
with an airy tightness and security
like the rosary barbs the
knuckles when it’s altar
or when it’s storm and I’m all fist
the way the heavens hold the pious,
the mob holds the riot,
the way the ocean holds all that
falls below that deep blue
surge of sea.
squall hits and I
drag you under to show
what made me.
“furor”
I’m a panther wearing
the sky at night
and it’s a slow stalk I
perform.
when I am resting
you see nothing.
when I am present
the first thing you notice
enter your floor:
yellow eyes like gold
hovering in front of your nose
and a black, velvet paw
lazily trailing its way
to your headboard;
rest her swords
right next to yours.
but in the sun
I’m thirsty,
let me finally be a
rose about it:
dew sprung,
rained on in
blood red gown,
arms up and
opening ready for the
shears, the pluck,
the touch.
something always
noticed.
something sniffed and
often picked
even hidden behind fences
in your neighbor’s yard.
even hidden behind metal and
further than that,
as far as I can get,
and you can’t see me yet
but I’m sending bees
to woo you with their
tails
and I’m lined in
warning thorns.
“forms”
a book of hurt and spell
and curse
name your torture.
daturamoon.com 