it was the way she held the
king of cups,
almost like an afterthought.
she said this
king of cups
person and i
just started laughing.
the witch today told me
i need to talk to you
and there is an end to this quarrel.
I laughed,
she said
send a loooong thought out
email or message explaining
the thing about Spotify
and that you’re paranoid
and your weird behavior
and just reach out and try to talk to him.
and im laughing and i say to her
i did that.
i already did that.
but ok, i say,
if this is the truth, how about
(i believe in harm reduction)
I just write a draft of what i want to say first to start
you will know me
by my fang-toothed
smile.
“morphic resonance”
one day I had a dream
you bit the head off of a blue jay
and spit it back into her nest.
when I asked why you said:
To prove you will never leave me.
here I am,
on command about to run
across the canyon and I
laugh real loud in my
skin tight
dress:
the one cut real low in the back
in the shape
of an obtuse
triangle, jarring contrast
to my scared-straight spine
but I still
slouch,
don’t I?.
I twist the straw into
crooked pieces
and tell myself things:
make sure they know
you are having
a real good time
show your teeth
hearty laugh
with belly and mouth and your
lips are stretched to the limits like your
social apathy.
show your full moon eyes
and hide.
hold your tonic like a wand;
fall asleep inside of
yourself
in the middle of
everything.
later, he will show
you photographs
to prove you were
there.
if you are lucky,
he notices
the door opening,
the splash
of scarlet on your tights
as you replace each page,
as you become the
walking lake flooding
the wake that held
you, and he becomes
the witness that love
is shaking sometimes
but still sharp
and with purpose,
the utility that seizes
to deconstruct,
to create with its
generous efficacy;
make more of less,
make more of one solid square,
make moats of larger masses
retaining density.
not the surgeon or the stitch
but the undulation,
the quiver of the knife,
the first wave
hits.
“tributaries”
shredded letters I tried using
as fertilizer,
grow something from our
sudden valediction:
calendula,
jasmine to lighten the darker parts
of my libations;
the ones that tease my hair and
take me pull me under the bath
water gently
as I kick and try not to
scream.
violets, honeywort, scent of honeysuckle wafting
from the roach holes,
mugwort to get my blood moving again.
Easter lilies the cats shouldn’t touch so I
hang them from the rafters
and let the leaves fall brown
one by one;
let the paws scatter the ashes of that,
mice, my previous
laurels.
cheery dandelions burst from
the cracks in the linoleum and
I keep a bromeliad at the doorway
to protect me with her spikes;
self-effacing, straight and strong unlike the
hard, twisted ways I grow to be.
orchids to wilt in too much sunlight when I’m
doting myself to death,
a bouquet of roses to give my daughter
when she becomes moss
in someone else’s garden,
feral evocation an arboretum
started at the ankle. or
a whole cherry tree,
rooted and I can chop
it down to gorge.
something sweet to chomp
while I’m choking down
the acidic no,
extra pillow space.
my place: curtains drawn,
devoid of moons.
my place:
curtains open,
enveloped in
the new full sun.
my place,
giant cobweb stuck with
stem and black succor.
I prepare the dried lemon balm
in the mason jar,
two cups of hot water,
watch the window blanket itself in white flakes
of anesthesia,
embrace the change in seasons
openly without any phone calls,
any text, any hexed
postcard,
or really,
much incident at all
considering my history.
“perennial”
i’m turning another year and
I’m looking for checks,
counting my reasons for staying
or for running the other way.
I have overdue things.
recycling and wrinkles
and Kombucha bottles
pile up
like the hairballs on the floor.
I avoid without cleaning sometimes.
make a zig zag to the door
where I cast spell:
the fits of importunity,
little raps at my neighbors door
sugar, that’s all
that make me wish I had chosen the life
of a mendicant
but my knees always hurt.
I have unchecked messages everywhere:
voicemail reminders and
grandma’s leukemia is pretty bad and
I’m rotten and everywhere like
her snaking liver spots.
Mom bought me a new chain to carry him on.
i’m allergic to anything that looks like silver
but doesn’t hold its weight,
including nickel-painted gold
so I’ve gotten good at tearing things apart
to see what they are
made of.
and the red spots line my throat,
white dabs of cream and my
strapless dress taking out my earrings to dance
with the new one who laughs with
Delphic intention,
and I’m obsessed with the way men
strangle anything dear to them.
I got a new mural and icing lips
and white teeth.
no mercury caps unless you include
my orbiting lips.
dream of Christmas, cinnamon buns and
him choking out an
“I love you”
with my color by numbers.
I’m remembering hugging an unnamed kitten and
trying to hold onto
this feeling.
I didn’t get impermanence,
just a new bike every year
to run away from home.
and suddenly my phone chokes out a reminder
that the living are
hunting me.
here we are.
my heels in the dirt, his hand in mine,
smile
I say for no one.
nail polish named kerosene and
gums as red as love.
my hair is auburn in the sun
and today is partly drizzle and partly
made up in my head
congratulations, baby, you made it.
wet cheeks and leftover streamers
and trick candles
and weak knees when I’m
bobbing to the rhythm.
polaroids on the table and
girls that try to
tell me secrets.
I tell the sky all the things.
I’ll show you all the films I like
we barely talk.
we watch films.
he finishes
on top of his fingers
and my wrapping paper.
i’m half asleep
but full of sugar
and thoughts like a
wadded piece of past
shaped like rope
tightening
and
I wake up in his forearm
biting through his moles
to get to you.
“ the birthday party (26)”
lightly doused
in panic:
the atmosphere,
the violin,
the food, it’s
everything.
I am scared, shaking and
cradled by my
gnawing contrition.
your hand is in mine.
you are stroking a painted thumb
this nail polish is called kerosene
smiling openly.
I return the gesture:
show my unkempt life in off white teeth,
sore tongue,
gums as red as love.
someone gently rubbed glitter on my
forearm to make me
*pop* a little more and I
meant to respond.
my heart is a brass bell,
frozen, staid,
caught between two
hungers.
my hair is up and partially mussed,
dark auburn when there’s sun.
I don’t wear my brother’s ashes
around my throat
anymore.
I think that’s more telling
than I let on.
today is partly drizzle and partly
made up in my head.
you stand taller than God and I
shrink; gothic in a mixed
drink and someone else’s
dress wrapped around my hips,
daydream of someone else’s
rough lips picking at my thin skin,
someone else’s orgasm
propping up my knees,
someone’s meek kiss carving diamonds
on a weak spine
that is atrophying
on a bleak night,
and I almost turn twenty five
like this.
someone taps me,
asks me for a light.
my hair is half down and
covering my eyes.
my feet are bare,
rooted in mud somewhere near
a soggy paper plate
that has a dot of frosting on the rim
scraped from a cake
that probably read
congrats on breaking indigent!
but we devoured it without skimming
as if ten plus years of
bohemian arrogance is anything to celebrate.
I should be dead.
I should be erupting.
you are muffled laughter and
showing another woman the view from the balcony,
holding space for her pain in a way
that romanticizes internalized rage.
I am watching.
I am the dark breaking sky
who forgot how to storm
so she just lightly pours
another flask full.
my chest is broken and brass and
coughing politely.
“Ahem,” I hear
them say, still waiting
for my matchbook.
I point to the moon
and start running.
“the birthday party”
and suddenly elucidated,
I remember,
I am the dark thing
inside of me.
“datura moon”
seventeenth set is most definitely
about you.
i hope you find my gaucherie
amusing.
i find it excruciating
to even stand
near a thing I admire.
i like starting things,
putting them out,
my parents rushed me to
the sink at five years
old; i laid my finger
flat to feel
what leaves feel
right before they fall.
right as they hit the
burning metal trashcan
in my backyard
as we removed evidence
of debris and a precipitous
October,
I touched my finger
to the flame.
it was the brilliant orange
that drew me and force,
contained like that
right here in our backyard.
shapeshifting to a final
face like
me, a hot knife
and warmed up,
having sliced through
tendon and you just
suddenly
soft like warm butter.
I will publish an anthology
of all my hurts.
“Brevity.”
daturamoon.com 