“only victims have a destiny.”
–Louise Gluck
(to survive you have to become impervious)
we think it’s a good
thing to be suddenly mad
at everyone,
rage just means
you’re alive.
“sekhmet”
rage just means
you’re alive.
you can find me
angry
seething
red and
dripping little
balls of
past
up your steps
up your hall
up your banister
hovering above your bed.
we call this next section
Sekhmet’s turn
light the fucking candle.
stare at the mirror,
a little past it.
what card do you see?
they ask.
I see the moon.
turn it over.
it’s the moon.
they do this all day long
to prove to me the existence of God.
I have a jar of oil, bayberry, my own spit,
blank check signed, prick from my finger, dash of
rosemary, rose petal from my dad’s
funerary placement (private, just us)
and my menstrual blood
on the mantle.
“I give it all to you.”
(I’ve done this before)
take my blood,
drink it like pomegranate jui ,
get drunk on my rage.”
turn over a card:
Justice.
just to prove things to you,
princess.
I wake up the next morning
bleeding again,
a week early, moon in Leo.
pour a cup full to her.
candle lit.
to the lion’s head,
drink up, love.
it’s pertinent you take it
one bitch at a time.
Justice.
the first thing you notice about me
is my smile, wide, bright like a star
and the second thing you notice
is the viper behind me.
the fifth one i call is Sekhmet.
“five of wands”
it’s the skin that
brought you back isn’t it?
January 5, 2014 and we
have arrived in
North Philadelphia.
the first thing I notice
isn’t the black plastic bags
lining the blocks or the
Auspicious Coin Laundry Service
sign boxed in blue lights
but the way you don’t
seem to look at
me and the way I seem
to blend in with the
tan upholstery of the
passenger seat
even though I am
wearing a bright red
turtleneck,
coughing, asking
if this is where we are
going to live and practicing
pronouncing
K e n s i n g t o n.
mired in the habit
of saying everything I think
aloud without
expectation.
of tapping a finger on
my thigh. of checking
time, twisting a plastic
straw in my hand and
fading.
something building
in my chest;
emergent waves
pounding at the
sternum like
irate knocks
when they want to
be sobs then
fading.
“hypothymia”
“what do you do when something loves
you? do you love it back?
I’m volatile.”
when i was a child, I felt happiest when I was
daydreaming alone.
daturamoon.com 