this one’s for the soft touch
in me, signs and
I won’t do anything more.

you’re vacillating,
playing scenario and
victim. I am ten inches
taller than I was before
becoming volcanic,
moving neck up
to a martyrdom
I not only asked for,
begged for, wept for.
and first, I want to
say I hope it all works.
second, hope is a feckless
drug but I still walk outside
everyday hoping strangers
let me brush the dogs around
their collars even with
this ill air and I have not stopped
praying since the fervent need
first took me by the
finest strands,
held me under

look,
there’s love.

January 7, 2021 0

it’s not just execution.
it’s not just
having the arsenal
but where to put it.
pull back my curtain,
show him the basket
with the blue calcite,
the burned scripture,
the crown.

“formula #1: inference” (use this again)

January 7, 2021 0

but I add
people think angels can’t have
guns and
that’s not true,
hand him the weapon.
we just can’t fire them.
hold it.
get comfortable with it.

pink collar says
PRINCESS, I’m wearing
antlers and a dirty blonde
wig. mock latex bodysuit
that rides my hips and
I am
only half bitch
three inches from you
on the bed and
half loading bb bullets
in the cartridge and
plainly drawing up
variables marked
xxx.laugh out loud
cuz they
don’t really get it yet.

January 7, 2021 0

I start taking wagers on who
shows back up first
knowing it’s wrong to bet
on anything that talks
and quite frankly,
you can’t,
Mrs. Shepherd told me in the 12th grade
during AP stats, still proud I aced that
class but you can’t stop
a sociopath
from never feeling again,
can you?
I say to him.

I have a Smith and Wesson.

“the coup”

January 7, 2021 0

it was true, I left a candle burning. I laugh out loud. I am wearing a mask so the three people walking towards me can’t hear me say, “. I set my altar on fire three times and never burned it down.” both the smoke detectors are beeping in my new house. I left a candle burning. it was a way to get me to go back. “I was really going to walk all the way to rittenhouse like this.” I was walking slower than before, kind of crawling while standing and crossing the street at the intersection to get around them. the people with their dog. I couldn’t pet the dog, make small talk, and couldn’t grab a real thought. I can’t believe I left a candle burning. I needed a reason to go back. the outside was indeed the antithesis of joy. in breezes, it was algid and everyone was boarded up. I was walking slower than before, kind of slithering across the intersection, leaning slightly to the right and heading back home to ensure I had left the candle burning. to sit on the living room floor, weighted. to feel the tendril wrap my head and whisper: c’est la tien, but in her brevity and english again.

it taped me to the living room floor. my anguish ineradicable and now grown legs. the sensations, the swarm. I had the thought once I was back inside that this was going to be extreme but due to superstition thought I might want to rephrase it. shaking my head, I said out loud, “no, this is intensity. you like intensity.” and I tried to remember the French phrase. not remember it, because it wasn’t forgotten but how to say it. I had practiced outside on my ten minute walk. vous saimez l’intensite. I repeated l’intensite to get the inflection down. it is best to get one at a time. j’aime lintensite. I was grateful for the candle, first, for the ritual that started this, then for making me sit and wait. it wanted weight. I wanted weight and I wanted to break through the leftover things.

last time this happened, I laid down and let myself feel the pull of the earth. I imagined being toppled with dirt. I imagined the coolness of the rocks and my body nestled in a grave. guffawing, letting the cat sit on me for grounding, I said things that had no meaning like I’m lying on top of a carcass or I feel less above the ground and more beneath it. a lot of things about a girl named Rebecca who I felt was tricking me. the realization there may be no Rebecca. the confusion and me this time thinking firmly no ghosts today. I don’t want ghosts here.

note book try tarot then lay down. I grabbed my notebook and I flipped the page to see the Virgo in the second house and in big all caps DO NOT PLAY MARTYR.
it’s too late for that isnt it? I laugh out loud

“I need to get upstairs.”

January 7, 2021 0

I’m trying to read the code.

She grabbed me by the arm and
gently pulled me up,
said

let me take you home.

They say don’t start the story with something traumatic. But my first first memory was me standing up in my crib and looking out in the hallway to see my mother pass by dressed like a witch. That memory is boring and so is the second one; me screaming at nap time refusing to go to sleep. My mother’s reproving look. That is also boring and my third memory they said is too traumatic. They said don’t start with trauma. (No, I said that once). I said I wouldn’t tell a rape story in my own story but my third memory is before the license plate. I think. It is my babysitter’s brother locking my door and telling me to get changed. Then I remember cutting my hair and hiding it behind the dollhouse. No then, I remember my babysitter’s brother making a face as I stood naked throwing clothes over my head dramatically, theatrically, and being wanted. Histrionic. I do remember cutting my hair and hiding it behind the dollhouse. That was my fifth memory. I also remember being on all fours, naked in my daybed. That was part of the fourth memory. The way he told me to take of all my clothes and try on outfits. I made it a gamel smirking, throwing them over my shoulder. Nubile. And wanted. He made a face though. Some crinkled nose face as I pulled a cotton ball or some sort of lint out of my belly button. I turned around and saw him make a weird face like I smelled. And
histrionic,
haunted.

I remember looking up at her with the limp brown pine needle in my hand unable to explain any needs; the way I hold things, the way I need to pace alone and mime, the necessity of reading the numbers in order. I’m sure my parents felt no worry when she returned me. I would be more careful when I needed it now: checking to make sure their brown car wasn’t there first, and skulking. I would sneak into the yards to watch the numbers.

The sixth memory is the one that I feel still, like it’s palpable and mine to hold forever, no matter how leather my flesh turns: swinging the screen door open and running outside in my favorite blue and white sundress, my hair in a ponytail and my mother nearby. The sun hit my shoulders, that’s what I remember. That’s what I crave every day. Grass was green and soon Alex would be home and the sprinkler would be on and the sun would stay on my shoulders. Laying stomach down on the lawn, I placed my summer reading list on the ground and began to twist a blade in my fingers. Began to read the titles, excited. I had been the first child to read in my class, and in kindergarten, younger than anyone else. My teacher had paraded me across the hall when she found out. Had me read to first grader’s so they could clap which I liked. I didn’t understand what I was reading. It was about a blue dog. I knew that from the illustration. Only I could read it proficiently and perfectly without comprehending what I was reading. Same way I speak foreign languages now. If you heard me say the phrase, you’d think I was fluent. But I don’t always know what I mean.

every once in a while on a walk around town i say
vous avez envie d’intensité
to practice and

It was the applause I liked. The way the teacher beamed when she caught me reading, creeping behind me like they do. Me, big eyed and small as she held my hand and pulled me. The way I tossed my dress over my shoulder towards him like that. The audience’s jaw shift. Me, practicing Vah and the numbers to follow. Trying to give them all cadence. Like songs. The way they hear me humming round the block. The way they creep up behind me. The way eyes befall a mouse. The way eyes befall a garden. Heading to the dandelions and even with the hoverfly squarely in center, what are shoes for? Curious, learning about consequences. Learning to lift from your center. Learning to approach in whisper. Learning to

step on
things that are
small
and
quiet.

“first memories”

January 7, 2021 0

only two days ago
your hands circled my throat
to toss me on the bed.
still dutiful,
merely dotted with color,
I am on my way
to pick up a bag of cutlery and dishes
for our house from the front porch
of a stranger’s
when I stop to admire the cracks
in the side of the building.
the wall is coral, faded but
garish, still stands out.
it’s brick and

this building has no doors and
one broken window.
each time I run an errand,
these defects catch my eye
and I pay my respects in
photographs.
I’m trying to get my memory back:
stopping at each one,
trying to remember how the boulders
haunted too how the ocean felt
on my wasted ankles at dusk when I guzzled
vodka Big Gulps and watched the
white crabs roam the bay.
watched myself dissolve into
the bits of me and can I remember
how the sunset looked draped over both
tide and flatirons,
hold two things at once
without favor?
how it feels to lose several
small countries you claimed.

the way men have held me:
(invaded)
all claws of resplendent mortar
and cracking at the edges
even with the scrape of thumb.
I snap a picture of the broken
glass pane and the beginning of
the first layer peeling into
white; the fissure.
trace my finger
over a chip and watch
it flake onto the sidewalk.
snap a picture of
that with my boot
in the corner of the frame.
things to remember us
by: namely,

the way
things have
left me;
split.

“doors (#3)”

January 7, 2021 0

(or the thing with Spotify)

A neighbor once caught me in someone else’s driveway staring at the license plates on my block. Five years old. We lived in a court and I was allowed to play by myself so long as I didn’t wander off too far which I did often but I had grown used to crouching. Had grown used to hopping fences and often could slip in and out to Lea’s house undetected. I don’t know the circumstances of why I was outside but I do remember it was overcast and I had a light jacket on– probably a shade of pink. I am sure my hair was uncombed. Sure my bangs felt too long. I am sure that I was trying to rid myself of this hindrance even so young, tossing it away with my hand constantly, tying it back in a ponytail, patting the back of my head when it was sopping from the heat and wishing I could peel it off. When it was cooler, I left it alone. Left it down and I am sure I was wearing pink corduroy pants with brown spots in the center of the knees. They were permanent. Sure I had been tucking my chin to my neck and twisting the pine needle with both hands and crouching, my knees strong then. My white sneakers scuffed. The tips of my shoelaces drawn brown with mud and I am sure I didn’t hear her approach me from behind. Sure she heard me muttering.

I had been going up the driveway of each neighbor’s house and sitting behind the cars, in front of the license plate. She had seen me from her window. I was looking closely at the license plate, that is all she could see. I was looking at each piece of information. VA for state tags. To be clear it was VA, like VAH. Like the sound it made. Vah. I would say it aloud. Vah, she must have heard me. The letters in front of the numbers. Some would be doubled. Some in doubles. That felt special, like they were chosen to be doubles. Like some plates required scrutiny. This one had a green tag in the top left corner which was usual but also did not have repeating numbers. XGH-2879. It would have sounded better, I am saying out loud, XGH-2873 when I hear her.

“Honey?”

the first card I pull is the Magician.
say nothing about it.
my couch is stained from cat vomit
and chocolate ice cream
but smells
like alcohol-spritzed
fresh linen spray.
I am uncomfortable
at all times, at all
hours of every day
and tonight is no exception.

I am trying not to look in
the mirror behind you and
instead focus on the red wine
in the glass,
the bottle on altar, not comment
on eye color, guess placements without
ado, turning over cards to let you
know.

I try to explain to someone one day
what I am seeing in the mirror.
no one is there, I say this first
to myself on a walk
around, pass a little girl in pink dress.
fuck.
a haze, like a fog surrounding my body
begins to build and my voice,
almost like it’s been previously
recorded and then played back,
comes through me and I have to
repeat what she says.
but sometimes the track is off
so I am two seconds ahead of myself
and it’s hard to watch
the way the mouth doesn’t
fit the soundtrack
wait, stop,

back up, I’m muttering I think.
too complex.
stop myself when her brother looks.
no, don’t tell him that.

Australia looks better than Alaska,
that’s all I tell him.
we have some wands between us.
that’s all.
keep it to myself:

predicting
deaths of
others
and also
practicing
hugging people
when they walk
into the room.

“the magician, abridged”

I was five and soft and supple and ingenue and so much deeper than I am now. She said what are you doing? from behind me which scared me. I was tiny and crouched there with my most favorite one to hold; the withered needle. I am sure she heard me talking to myself.

I said I’m trying to read the code.

“the magician, elongated”

January 7, 2021 0

I wake up to a bunch of witches
at my door, cooing,
green eyed and velvet
lipped,vying for my
one open eye
like I’m some patch picked
prize of theirs.

i remember the agreement.

do not ask to see your own death.
2. do not ask to see the death of your mother.
3. trust the witch (which witch, pumpkin?)

amended:

4. the only men we (redacted) are fascists.

January 7, 2021 0

“a modicum of ennui and dissatisfaction are part of the price of admission to life.”

January 7, 2021 0