Uncategorized – Page 104

suffering incursion will
change you. there are a thousand ways
to die, my head begins again.
nail in eye.
car to body.
man with fist.
I begin to count
and begin to twist the straw
in an effort to curb the brain
from going deeper, usually
the fixation begins from the most
likely place.
it was the end of February,
2014 and I lived in a rowhome
on the cusp of Port Richmond
and Kensington and knew two things:
cars don’t stop for anything here,
and neither do men.

I begin to count and organize and also
step into a dark long reverie
of a place that is warm and
seeking me, but I also begin to
count and create myth from fingers.
begin to list the ways I’ve watched the
Earth take: my aunt run over multiple
times, murdered. my eight year old cousin
died from a brain anuerysm. my uncle
shot his face off in his father’s
old house. my aunt drank her body to death.

you see I have to stop and enter
the beach seeking me.
you won’t make it otherwise
as I turn the headphones up,
just miss a truck but I can
hear the ATVS revving.
the sign says walk
but my aunt was once run over
repeatedly.

it’s the coldest winter in years,
they tell me after meetings,
and it’s not an easy time to make friends.

“doors #2”

February 19, 2020 1

“it was beauty, I learned, that we risked ourselves for.”

–ocean vuong

February 19, 2020 2

(first draft I wrote walking around town)

I walk around giving women bad advice..
Things like
when a man follows you,
turn around and smile.
That is bare your incisors
like maybe you’ve used them
to chew tendon before
and

stand tall, taller than you are
and on tiptoes. don’t call
the police. fuck the police
is another thing I like to say
but
it’s not fair of me to
demand such things
knowing the ways we’ve been bent
and the price I’ve paid for
teeth
but
one time a man rested his hand
on my knee after a meeting
to converse.
to talk to me and I said
I am not railing, take your
hand off my knee.
and he loudly shouted to the meeting
that he had touched me and
I freaked out.
it was february 2014
and I had lived there one month.

it is not fair of me to look
around and wait for the other women to
chime in; expecting anything from white
women is like expecting mice to suddenly
organize and take the floorboards
back. we know the cats and rats
own them and we know
where they hide.
I feel no loyalty to certain
things.

it is not fair of me to look them in the eye
and expect anything so I began the
quiet ascent right then and there
reiterating that there is no need
to touch me, a woman that you don’t
know to talk to me and he began to
turn blush red and stammer and
get louder with everyone
assuring the group that
I was freaking out. I guess
to let them know that
he was calming me down.
I forgot this part but later a
friend said he was in a bad spot
like I was allowed to be grazed
by men in bad spots
with bad tempers
in bad neighborhoods,
just hanging skinned meat
from a hook like a bag
to hug when they’re worn
out so I controlled the eye
roll and returned to the sea.
began to call stallions to
me to see if I could
ride them and began the quiet
ascent,
I break men
and rather than complain
about hypocrisy and To Wives again,
I merely left that place and rather
than
repeat myself to him,
being new in town, making
friends and also finding ways to
assert myself at night on my
lonely, cold walks as men
followed me in cars,
as men whistled at me in winter,
me, bundled, as they began to walk
steady behind me,
as a semi truck stopped in the middle of rush hour on
Aramingo to honk at me and look at me
and me reaching for the women to hear
that’s normal.

I repeated myself and noticed
no one said a word as this man
reiterated that I, the new girl,
simply freaked the fuck out when
a man touched my thigh.

one day I heard encroaching
steps and turned around
just for the scent
of it. sometimes men
sniff your hair when
you sleep and enter you
before you wake up
just for the scent of it.

“the black book”

February 19, 2020 0

“perfect joy excludes even the very feeling of joy, for in the soul filled by the object, no corner is left for saying “I.”

–Simone Well

February 18, 2020 0

every day up at dawn
on my knees and thanking
God for letting me stay feral,
hand drawn
and as sick as all my
secrets.

February 17, 2020 0

i am the magic,
they are the drawn.

magic magic clap clap clap
look who got her fangs back!

February 16, 2020 0

God made me a monster
and God makes pacts with
predators, (redacted)!
I scream at you as you make your way
to your fifth meeting of the week.
me? I’m
chilling in bed,
reading Louise Erdrich and
when you see me again,
I will be serrated.

all day long I do equations
in my head.
as I walk to the laundromat
shifting the hamper beneath me,
I think about how many quarters I brought
and what that will get me doubting
my skill yet every month,
I still have some left in my cup.
what chore is coming next.
I need to wash the windows
and also I’m ankle deep in someone
else but that might
be conjecture
I think as I place the bin on the
ground knowing I have two more
at home and three flights of stairs
and I think that’s an understatement

I think.

I think a lot about my
own divisiness and the ways to get
more or away or someone.
how I mask it.
what I can do.
what I’m doing.
how what I thought I about
yesterday compares meekly
to the euphoric way the sun
hit my shoulders just today
and no other day will compare to
this feeling so I mold it into
tangibility, twisting a straw,
photographing the figures of me
opening the door for someone
on way to get my second load
and thinking, so happy
to witness.

also
I love probability
like
what’s the likelihood I’ll see your
friend again, seeing him three times
already and you never there cuz
I don’t set foot on your lawn,
your territory, not mine
to fight for and
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
if I devote myself entirely
to one thing vs. side things
and how honestly bad I
crave the hustle
but also I would like to crave stability
and statistically speaking,
we have to look at patterns,
not just equations but
trends so then here comes
more of the past.
I’m real used to it:
being three places at once
if I’m any less than nine.

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
big, and I thought I loved
you. I had gone upstairs to
change into a sundress
and tore a muscle near
my spine.
I called down to you.
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
my way.
someone else drove me to
the doctor and doctor
confirmed it,
prescribed me Flexeril
and wrote me
a note for work.
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 Sunday 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.