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once, after a meeting
a woman went up to another
woman and told her it was
inappropriate to share about
her rape.
I was sitting on the gray couch
debating having an eighth
cup of coffee when they
both turned to me
for support.
I used to think there were
rules. rule #1

KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.

“raped”

I got a nine millimeter, I say,
casually, waving my hand over the wooden
board. hidden in this house.
I got this house lined with weapons
since the first warning.

I place the orange butcher knife
on the linoleum counter,
scraps of tomato still clinging so
I can
scoop the slug up from beneath the
dishwasher and put him
back in the shade.
he follows me out.
we are both easily distracted.

we were having vegan charcuterie
and he is drinking chardonnay.
with me it’s always
something, plentiful,
homemade.
he’s seen half my knife collection
now and every inked guard;
the other half tucked in various places.
I gestured to the antique table,
to the pepper spray,
the hammer by the door.
I point out the ants
lining the sink.

swathed with charms,
I can’t kill a thing
and half the town has figured it out.
I wear my arms in
muscle, others’ biceps.
keep them around cuz
I can’t kill a thing
and half the town has figured
it out. point to the baseball bat.
show him my pearly growl.
this is where the poem begins

we both eye the slug moving
through the garden
til he disappears.
I begin pointing out
webs.
it’s 7:42 pm,
88 degrees and
the sun is out,
my shoulders dark.
we are both tan,
hurt, a possible onslaught
if we were not otherwise
stuffed and I am practicing

silence,
sitting on my bench.
we are two inches from each
other and I can’t help but
melt when the cool breath
hits my left cheek.
I’m plucking at the hem.
he grabs my hand
to stop my ticking.
what’s that?
he says.

this is where the poem begins.

“doors #9”

before I ran upstairs, I went to my kitchen to grab my water bottle and my straw. I wouldn’t want either but they would be seen as a source of comfort to my eyes in some cases. it is already so harsh; the shifting walls and brightening of any room when you’re on it. I need these comforts. the stairs are steep and they were steep climbing them especially with the bend to my back. I wasn’t scared of the stairs, although truly, one could die if they fell the wrong way down them. I didn’t think about this too much honestly. my room felt safe. no one is ever in there but me and the cats. I considered closing the door to lock them out briefly only because their obsession with being close to me can feel  smothering, which is why I keep announcing to them that I am on drugs. to remind them. such a volatile state but I also wanted them around, and on guard. they had a knack for reading me and knew when I was too far out. years of practice. I knew they’d follow me immediately and better for it. they were familiar and moving, a constant distraction if I needed one. watching cats is a pleasure in itself. I wanted my journal that I had been reading the night before about astrological placements. I brought that upstairs.. I wanted the decks too.  deferentially, I asked if I was able to remove the placement of the cards  on my altar to use them. it felt reverent. I feel more comfortable in devotion. I am a fanatic.

I placed them on the bed and sat down. I also had a mini composition book and a pen. the composition book only had a couple notes in it to begin with. it was an emergency notebook. in an emergency, or a flush of energy, if I feel the need to write something I can reach over and grab it. the pages were all falling out but I kept it in some order. I liked things neat even in deshevelment. I focused on keeping the pages together as I swirled in place. what am I looking for? began to read about the sun and its meaning for a person: the ego, the way, and the second house of possessions.  and how they conjunct in natal and synastry. possessive. sometimes I see things I’ve written in different places, breezing by become a saint. so much pressure. so much pressure in my head. flipping the pages but my handwriting is scrawl and perfectly coded so only I can read it in my most lucid state and requiring patience. to read my letters requires patience. things would lose meaning and be regained later. that’s synthesis and letting go of what you read. I used to have a photographic memory.I found the pages and flipped back and forth between two of them not certain what I was looking at or if I was truly looking at anything of substance. this  was the house of self esteem. there is a theme here of scarcity. my room I mean. it’s full of things and outfits and art. its also a square altar. it’s also full of money, these walls. I keep thinking. I want less of what I own. I’m not really reading but scanning my lines to see what pops. my handwriting is slanted and shorthand, like a doctors. my signature is merely a lowercase and cursive s but drawn big sometimes.

“the sun is active not reactive.” I put my pen back down. was I writing? i’m incapable of holding any thoughts which forces me to breathe deeply. it feels nice to do it and my spine is pulsing and I can sense more pressure coming. don’t look at anything. I lay on my back for a second. it is impossible not to be stimulated in this world. I feel a buzz in my apartment all the time and noise. what always sticks out about the second house is the possession of friends. the love of buying gifts. the generosity that comes with owning someone and with a will to succeed in some way that forces you to lie down on your orange comforter and plot the burning of your house. I began to imagine setting my house on fire. I was staring at my dresser, at the framed picture of the fox and a little ways past that to a mirror that felt warmer. my brother’s ashes which didn’t cause any alarm or overwhelming grief so much as the polaroid of my dad next to a backdrop of a dark woods so the two blended. I looked back up and sat back up. opening the notebook again. it’s hard to focus on anything. it’s best to comfort yourself too. “tail wraps inward for Virgo, outward for Scorpio.” I’m on my south node journey. . I’m simply observing the process of what I noted and what I’m noting now as I’m reifying my old words into the alchemy. I am looking around my room a lot. not in alarm, it is safe here. no one has been in this room but a couple people and no one has ever slept in this bed with me, or fucked me. not in this room on this mattress.that thought is soothing.

I used to cut my hair and hide it behind the dollhouse. I used to hate when it got past my shoulders. I don’t quite remember what I did with the hair but I assume that I let it collect back there in globs. The way I find dust bunnies under my dresser now. When there was an opening, tuck it in my shirt, run to trash can. I was a surreptitious child. I am sure I mostly tried to sweep it under the dollhouse as if it would disappear into the carpet. Hoped my mother wouldn’t dust. That’s how I hid everything back then. With a wink. And scissors. A smile. A wish. Staring at lights on my closet door.  I don’t remember my mother ever finding out so I wasn’t terrible at it either.

“I have never let my hair grow past my shoulders,” I say out loud. “Some say that’s the weirdest thing about me.” 

He looks at his hands.

“Remember only one sentence has to be a lie to discount the whole thing.”

I smile.
  You sneer.
And try not to laugh
and try not to give
a single thing
away.

“doors #5”

When he turned the corner, I turned the corner. When he stopped at the orange hand,  I stopped at the orange hand. When he jaywalked, I jaywalked, although sometimes that’s when I lost them. I moved with him.  Watched his gait, uncertain shuffle, the way he was always running his hand through his hair with some timed tension-breaking. He held inconceivable space for his own self-assurance; feigned and toxic and unable to yield. He would play with his keys sometimes, or a pen and his forearms brushed people constantly. He would always have his head way up or way down and in his phone but never on anyone unless it was me and it was intimidating and it was meant to invoke subordinate laughter. A subordinate curtsy.   He was heavy on the sidewalk, heavy in the air.  He stomped his way through people, indifferent to the chasms he cut into couples walking.  He passed right through them like a ghost. Like they were ghosts. They were forced to make their point abruptly or cut the thought short or turn around in disgust and the mood would be inevitably lost no matter how they chose to approach it. They came back together aware of the split, aware they can be split, aware they are not one. They came back together and then I did the same thing.

  I mimicked his carnal prowl, the way he ruined things, the way his arms hung at his side like a big, hungry primate. No purpose, I saw, but to smash rocks, strangle things, dangle things above me. I made my movements wider.  I flexed the whole walk to make my arms stronger, larger, strong and large enough to smash rocks, strangle things, dangle my sex above them.  I channeled the Earth’s orbit and became giant space behind him. I wanted to loom. I wanted someone to feel something looming behind them. I wanted them to be the victims of a person constantly walking in and out of their relaxing silence.  They demanded interruption. I became stifled violence.

 I became indiscriminate in my hunt. Sometimes whole groups I would follow. I would be in front of them to start, choosing all my movements slowly, carefully, deliberately, aware I was being watched. I was being followed. I would tense and untense my hand so they had something to focus on; so they could see my nails ripping at the inside of my palms and then releasing. So they could see my nails were sharp and sharpening. My biceps flexing so they could see my arms were strong and strengthening. So they could see my palm was pre-callused. Sometimes I sauntered.  Sometimes I turned around without warning and walked the other way and caught all eyes now locked straight on my pussy. It was my ass they were just hungry for. Sometimes I laughed loudly to no one right in front of them and at them. Sometimes I relaxed; stopped dead in my tracks in front of them to check the weather forecast for the evening.  I responded to texts and let giant groups break in two just before hitting me, move around me, a wave crashing right before my feet and parting their own sea. I lingered there, responding, taking my time with my choice in vocabulary, choice in emoji sequence. They assumed frivolity. I assumed a wider stance and let another group scramble to pass me gracefully and then I suddenly changed direction.    

Sometimes I’d make eye contact for five hundred feet, or if I felt confident, I’d make eye contact for a mile. I walked right towards them, my lips set in a straight line. My eyes unblinking. My intent muddy. I waited until we were close enough to get a sense of each other. I stared until we were close enough to catch a whiff of each other.  I could smell their begging cologne from the first five steps of this mile. They anticipated a contact, maybe a word spoken, an observation about the mild winter we were having, a rehearsed joke, or unrehearsed nervous choke last minute, one chance, fuck it up.  Deep swallow. They hoped for something unbridled. Something untamed and extricated from another.  At least, a once-over we both would perform a smile. I held a bit of a smirk but never anything wider, and then I looked up at the sun suddenly, looked directly at it. As they passed, I stared up at the sun the entire time. My head was completely back and I gawked.  Or if I was passing a window, checked my reflection. I ran my hand through my air with a feigned apprehension.  I watched my dogs perform and repeated it in front of them.  Whole groups I saw in my peripheral looking at me, waiting for me, watching me, wanting me to interrupt, but kindly. But please do it kindly. And I always checked my reflection, my lips set in a straight line just waiting for it.

“Hey girl,” they started.

I would suddenly change direction,
start running.

“the dogs”

my guides said that one was mean
and a waste of talent, here
is something more
buoyant,
flattering,
pointed, yes,
i am so pointy
in challenge but
also when resting.

when I meet someone
I pay attention to what happens
next more than what they say
which irritates everyone
so I cannot recall a detail
of your life so fast and hope
I am not caught off guard
with inquiry, and let’s
move now to the daily humming:
the way I flutter,
if I flutter,
when my heart jumps in
my throat
and when has that started.
how many tarot cards
are on the floor.
what’s the song repetition
look like?
do I fall into clouds
of clenched jaw keeping
aloof, keeping eye on my fingernails
at intersections like I’m fiddling,
busy too busy for this
or do I seem to succumb to some
wrought sink hole
dug for ages
euphoria buzzing bout
me on these trysts
all over town
seeking conclusion.
not conclusion,
seeking armory,
seeking justice,
seeking lovers worn
like kites to call
the others back.

also replaying the way
I perhaps said too much
then flinched and
what is the playlist
looking like?
and how many times does
the word like fall out.
I think I am in like
some deep crushing must.
it is not about getting
it is about
waaaanting
liking,
the black panther who sits
on my sacral in slow
stalk reminds me.

I want you to
late at night
like this and
think of what it would
feel like for you to
slide your fingers beneath
my skirt, rest me up against
the wall, your cheek on mine;
tell me
you are shocked at
how wet i am
and then keep going.

dig in. rub me,
dig in, grab my neck,
push my cheek against the wall
and suck the line of salt
from sweat with your
baby panting tongue
before you throw me
on a bed and
slip your calloused palms
clean around my head,
push my face into the mattress,
get a scent of me and
whisper of shock
(how tight whores can be)
tickles my earlobe,
I want you.

I want you to think about it.
for weeks,
this imagery.

I can’t believe i went this long
not writing about you.
you stare so incredulous
from that water distance
and I haven’t had the decency to moan

this is the poem:
you will never forgive yourself
either way and I don’t waste time
in reverie like that
anymore.

I’m a sociopath,
I practice in the car window.
it’s 92 degrees and I 

am only half melt,
half kept a bitch
in a yard but
with a water bowl,
no chain. polyester
pink collar says “PRINCESS”
watching the screen door from eight
am to nine dark.
see if they’ll wave me in.
there are two kids with snow
cones dripping down their arms
nearby. I smile
      you sneer.

he wants to know everything.
    I tell him everything,
I say, turning towards the
young girl.
she is wearing a pink dress,
has long uncombed brown hair,
stick legs, her older brother nearby
and is taken by
my insouciance.
my foul mouth that
yelled fuck
earlier for no reason.
my centipede tattoo.
he takes her sticky hand
and they race to the swings.
she turns to see if I’m still
wavering in the sun.
truth is, I’m actually
six feet in the ground
and only children can see
parallel lines.
I smile.

I’m wearing a mask,
not touching a thing,
sweltering. practicing
honesty.
practicing the idea of
hugging
people
right
when
they
walk
in the room.

“affection”