“Brevity is the soul of the witch, after all.”
–witches, sluts and feminists
I’ve ended up in lots of cities on whim alone and I ended up in New Orleans twice. Each time for a different conference and each time I snuck out to feel the waves of winds tremble in my fingers when the dead walked right through me. I didn’t return to any graveyards knowing that was my issue the first time. The way they followed me home and snarling. They way they wanted me to say their names. The way it was in December: the first vibration of my floorboards. I went to the same reader twice. Each time, I was assured. Hydrated. I was called darling. I was looked over with tender curiosity, a visitor but some unnamed breadth to me. She was looking through me to test my transparency. I was limpid having once been a dusky vapor, returned to self a crystalline child; emptied and not wanting to be full again. Only in front of her. I needed her to see things accurately. The stakes had been raised. Disappointed but avid, I wanted the same man and I wanted to tell him about the year following him. The coffin of psychosis and the habitual reordering of items in my apartment. The cleaning. The women I fucked. The men I hassled. But it was a woman and she was fixated on Hawaii.
“You ever been to Hawaii?”
“No. I’ve thought about it though.”
“I think you’re gonna go there.”
She said it many times. Hawaii. You’re gonna go there. Definitely being called to Hawaii. I thought Hawaii was beautiful and she showed me the way the leaves formed kind of a volcano and I blinked. There are many volcanoes actually.
“Lots of place. Many places. Travel far and wide.”
She looked me in the eye.
“You’re going to end up in the west coast.”
I accidentally growled.
“You’re not happy about it but you will.”
I wanted to tell the man I almost moved back to Colorado. I wanted to tell the man I had visions upon visions of a woman with green eyes and a crooked smile and sometimes in my dreams, I had green eyes and a crooked smile. I wanted to tell the man that I once tried to get to Barcelona on a Canadian passport. I wanted to tell him I made it there anyway and navigated the entire country and Portugal knowing no Portuguese, very little Spanish and spent some time in Morocco during Ramadan without a cell phone and only American currency and no hotel to sleep in when we arrived and the whole city asleep for holiday. We spoke no Farsi but covered our heads and arms and legs and my friend cried in the taxi. I smiled because I saw four sharks on the ferry over, never having seen them up close like that. She cried because I asked men for help everywhere we went. She didn’t like free dinners and I showed her seven euros in our pockets.
“Let them pay,” I said. “They like it.”
“You will meet many people,” she said. “Remember what it felt like with them the first time. When you first met. When you feel unsure about them, go back.”
She said I would go everywhere, have whatever job I wanted, get training when I need it and land on my feet. A feline. It was no shock to me the day I showed up to the JFK airport on my way to Barcelona with only an expired passport and a Canadian passport and no explanation about how my usual meticulous manner had fallen apart. I couldn’t explain to anyone how I ended up in Barcelona the next day, cutting my trip only a day short like I had just forgotten it at home and rebooked the flight. Not that I had to sit in a New York waiting room for three hours to get an expedited one faster than any other person in that waiting room as I charged my phone, as I argued with my airline. And on the only day they were running workshops that month. We found the one workshop in Manhattan. And in under 12 hours. I wanted to tell the man I ended up in Moscow on that trip that year. I wanted to tell him I thought they might be right. I wanted to pull the evidence from my pocket; the scroll I received from the fortune cookie I was given and devoured on my sixteen hour flight from Moscow to New York City. It says in both Russian and English: He who stands at the place, goes back.
The day I arrived in Barcelona the first time, I said Hola so loudly you would have thought I was born there. But then nothing else so clearly.
“The woman who followed the men” or “The vampire story”
By the time I sat down, my entire back was soaked and my little silk button up dress, the one where the buttons just start unbuttoning as I walk, was stuck to me like I was stuck to this. Mesmerized by the way he swirled the cup with the coaster on top. The way he said darling. Not this right now but this then. This first taste of heat in New Orleans, the swelter of 3 pm and me, just drenched and begging for air conditioner and this swamp city’s revenge. Even then, I had only two concerns: us and them. In front of me, he picked up the tea cup to show me the leaves and I was out of my depth completely but trusted his eyes. Kind, soft, a mellow green and shining.
“Oh wow, this looks real good. Real good, honey. Oh yeah.”
He could have said anything in that accent. Honestly. I have mimicked it many times. And to keep me out of that oppressive heat for one more minute, I would have paid for one more hour. There was a cool glass of water next to him and I watched the sides condense and licked my lips regretting denying the second water bottle. Having to urinate now, but enraptured and barely having a sense of what he was really saying, I just fidgeted like usual. He was recording it.
“Well, darling,” he began in his thick southern accent. “You are just the luckiest thing, aren’t you?.”
When I meet readers, I try to keep my face still and not glint that they are right. You have to test them. However, this was July 2016 and I was healthy, free, still young and there had been no promise of a new dictator yet. I smiled big, wide, like even though he had said nothing, the clock began ticking.
“Oh, there will always be a job for you. People just hand you things. Nothing to worry about there. Nothing at all. Oh, this is looking good!” he squealed.
This was before anything hit. This was when I was tan all the time from walking and my hair was too long and glued to my neck and I was gay and in love and dreaming of a woman. This is when I was playing Pokemon Go. This is when I was not informed of ritual but mired in the emergence of it regardless. This was before. Anything. My thighs were red from sun and hurt when I pinched them to keep from moving. I smiled.
“Do you want children?” he asked.
This was before. This was before.
“I’m not sure.”
But what I really meant was that I don’t always have the poignance to explain what it means when I can’t honestly say no but I know what happens when I try to say yes, and it’s immense. The dissonance in feeling and action. Wanting and then reneging. Or pursuing but knowing it’s vanity. It’s better to waft then make demands of men. This was before. Before I began to follow them, I once asked a cup of tea if I might be the luckiest woman alive. Before I chased their cologne around alleyways and into the corners, I once consulted the occult to show me if I’m playing the right cards. Before I entered their brownstones draped in black turtleneck and a very calm virile, I hedged my bets. Before I met you, a reader once said our hands would shake, like not a greeting but an uncontrollable tic and our eyes would meet and it would be known. Before I followed the men, I only stared back at one to melt like the skin of my back today in the plastic chair in the silk dress that is becoming unbuttoned as we speak. Before I followed the men, I wrapped my thighs in garter and letter opener and knives.
I always lift my skirt to show them the left leg with the letter opener rather than the right one with knife.
“You ain’t got a thing to worry about darling. Not at all. Like a cat you always land on your feet. You have nine lives.”
“The woman who followed the men”
I’m assiduous. That’s the first thing I write down. Sometimes I make notes like that to start my day in hopes I become the adjective I claim. I’m really wasting years of my life passing the same trash barrels daily. I read graffiti: BET. It’s everywhere. I cannot tell you what intersection I am standing on at any given moment and sometimes I pretend I don’t live here to get out of giving directions when I’m caught, staring, confused. Assiduity. The ability to persevere even in hostile climates. That’s not the definition. That’s how I remember the word. Acid. Harsh. Hard to swim. But I can do it. God’s favorite mermaid.
Today was a normal day. As in I was myself, not an alias and dressed like it: hoodie, sneakers, jeans and beanie. I wore no makeup. I wore my reading glasses. I really needed them to be honest but I hate having obstructions. They always get smudged and I fear that my predilection for constant cleaning is scratching them. There’s always glitter around the rim. Nothing stays clean. I could clean for days if the world just stopped. On these days, it’s easier to just exist without defense so I am perpetually softer as the walk goes on. Not that I don’t stand tall, but I don’t feel it necessary to walk on tiptoes as i do on days when I wear dresses, my wigs, my lips painted and my red nails out. Today, I crouch. I am wearing a surgical mask over my mouth and nose and purple latex gloves. There is a gray cat with green eyes mirroring me.
“Hey,” I say and can feel my hot breath stick to the mask and bounce back to me. It’s not acrid but unpleasant, unusual. Not an odor but a temperature. This is how I know. “I’ve seen you before.”
The cat makes no move and looks a bit quilled. I had seen her before. Yesterday, sniffing around old bean cans in the recycling. I don’t make any moves and miss the way strange fur feels in my bare hands. I miss the way cat’s whiskers feel on my cheeks. I miss the way they rush your lap if you sit long enough. It is trash day, or trash day(s) now that we don’t know when the trash is being picked up. It can be Thursday. It can be Friday. It can be Saturday. Today is Saturday. She was picking crust out of a pizza box before I came along, but she dropped it when she saw me. Now, she is crouched under a chair someone tossed out and I am on my knees, hands on my thighs, three feet away and squaring her.
“If I come back this way later, will you let me pet you?”
I can’t pet dogs anymore. I am not allowed near their owners. The cat makes no move. My back hurts. I shouldn’t have gotten on the ground. It’s hard to get up. I open the purple gloves to see little bits of gravel and wipe them on my jeans. I shouldn’t have touched the ground. The cat makes no move as I ponder my hands. I can feel them sweating through the gloves. I want to take them off. This is a protection for me and my tactility; my assiduity that forces me to case the town in wonder. To trace the tips of my fingers along the lines.
“I’ll be back.”
My right knee pops and a knot tightens in my lower right hip. Assiduity. The ability to age during a mass contagion. I continue walking east, feel droplets of moisture build on my wrists and a ray of sun hit my cheek. I turn around at the corner and the cat is still staring at me. I wonder who pets her. I wonder if she’s been pet.
There are several cats on my walk, nothing else. The only people out have dogs and I avoid them. I cross the street. The dogs nearly choke on their collars trying to get close to me and sometimes I look their way but it hurts. I do sneak my finger out sometimes to feel the wetness of their snouts and they lick my fingers quickly. Their neck strained, almost in gallop. I count twelve dogs and five cats. I would normally touch them but it’s not for me, it’s for them. Their owners. I’m immune. Assiduous: ability to adapt quickly to hostile environments by giving close care to detail about what is now and what is required to continue. That’s not what the definition means; that’s just how I remember I am immune to the wreckage but carry it daily. Like a deluge, I’m constantly respirating.
I am in front of a bodega that is still operating and I see a man in a mask like mine carrying a crate of oranges inside and I don’t put distance between us but I don’t cough either. BET. It’s everywhere. I am looking at the brick wall in front of the bodega so I don’t make eye contact. In bright white spray paint it says BET$. I used to spend my days making eye contact and small talk and saying please and petting dogs and being the most innocuous thing in the world. Today, I am a stinging particle of breath. Immune but trapped in it. The contagion herself and I can’t stop walking.
“The woman who walked for miles”
Right before it hit, I began counting all the items in my cupboard. One can of chickpeas. Four cans of black beans. Four cans of red beans. Four bags of split peas. Three bags of lentils. Four cans of white beans. Three cans of tuna. One box of crackers. One container of popcorn kernels. Half a roll of paper towels. Spices, innumerable. This is not enough. I was making one to two runs tops, hopefully. Soon. Replete with agitation suddenly, I change direction even though the cabinet task is not complete.
I begin to count my knives. One lithe Oneida blade, skinny, sharp both blade and handle; a coveted one I use often. I tuck that back in the drawer. To be used for slicing vegetables. Twelve regular steak knives. Some of them were rusting but still capable of cutting. I pull out four. Placing two on the kitchen island, I make a mental note to take them upstairs. Placing one a little near it, I make a mental note to tape the other under the seat of my car. Placing the one near the french press, that will be my altar knife. I move to the wooden block. My parents had gifted me a knife set years ago that I did not use until now. It was one of those that came with a dozen different kinds and they all stood tall in their slit. Rusted as well but capable. Butcher knives and meat cleavers and little steak knives. Things I didn’t use because I didn’t eat meat but always kept just in case. I took one of the large cleavers and placed near the back door, inside my house but under a vase. Not obvious to anyone but me. I took one of the butcher knives and placed it under my couch next to a hammer and a baseball bat. I don’t like to feel limited in choice. I go back to counting:
one large orange butcher knife, separate and a favorite that I keep for slicing tofu, and five other meat cleaver or butcher knife types left in the wooden block. They are dulled but can cut. One switch blade. One box cutter. Two pairs of scissors; one regular size, one tiny. Seven butter knives which are good for spreading butter or peanut butter but nothing else. I also have two pepper sprays: one in my bag and one on my nightstand hidden under lace, near a flashlight. I have two packages of batteries, two flashlights, a case of potable water and two jugs of water as well. Someone dropped off bleach, alcohol, gloves and methanol on my doorstep last night. I add that to the tally.
I tuck the switch blade back in my pocket to become used to carrying it everywhere I go. I take it back out, realizing I havent opened it in a while. I practice. That is, I squeeze the indent with my thumb and middle finger but I am not fast like in the movies so it always takes a second. This embarasses me. I don’t consider myself greatly agile but competent, but also crippled by time and my straw habit that I push from my mind. Generally, I’m also cumbersome so I just decide to keep it out. The blade that is. It is relatively sharp though I’d have to get close to you to press into you. It’s dainty looking and unassuming which is what drew me to it in the first place. Blue tint with a painting of a woman taking off her bra, not facing us so all we see is her back and hands reached to clasp. Coquettish and pretty. A man bought it for me from France as a gesture of good will. Something I crave. Not the goodwill, but his submission.
I close it and put it back in my pocket of my pants. I know I will leave it open hidden under lace. But just feeling the weight of the weapon is enough to calm me. As I begin to count more things, I begin to rest my jaw. I have one canister of coffee, one box of trashbags, two bottles of dishwasher detergent, plenty of forks: both metal and plastic, as well as spoons. Half a bag of sugar. Countless cartons and packages of tea. Enough pots. Enough pans. One kettle. Half a pack of vegan butter. Half a carton of almond milk. One container of ketchup and mustard respectively. Many bags of frozen vegetables. My jaw is set on relax. I love counting, addition. And theorizing. When you take one thing away, how many more do you need to replace to feel safe? This is innumerable. That is, you can’t manage that thought because it’s gaping. I feel prepared for things when I have more of them. I feel safe in math.
What I will remember most right before it hit, is all the doors slamming shut and me laughing later. Big and hearty like the way Santa Claus laughs on television. When we used to touch our faces, I used to slowly graze my cheek with my finger nail and whisper things to men.
\
Right before it hit, I began counting all the items in my cupboard. One can of chickpeas. Four cans of black beans. Four cans of red beans. Four bags of split peas. Three bags of lentils. Four cans of white beans. Three cans of tuna. One box of crackers. One container of popcorn kernels. Half a roll of paper towels. Spices, innumerable. This is not enough. I was making one to two runs tops, hopefully. Soon. Replete with agitation suddenly, I change direction even though the cabinet task is not complete.
I begin to count my knives. One lithe Oneida blade, skinny, sharp both blade and handle; a coveted one I use often. I tuck that back in the drawer. To be used for slicing vegetables. Twelve regular steak knives. Some of them were rusting but still capable of cutting. I pull out four. Placing two on the kitchen island, I make a mental note to take them upstairs. Placing one a little near it, I make a mental note to tape the other under the seat of my car. Placing the one near the french press, that will be my altar knife. I move to the wooden block. My parents had gifted me a knife set years ago that I did not use until now. It was one of those that came with a dozen different kinds and they all stood tall in their slit. Rusted as well but capable. Butcher knives and meat cleavers and little steak knives. Things I didn’t use because I didn’t eat meat but always kept just in case. I took one of the large cleavers and placed near the back door, inside my house but under a vase. Not obvious to anyone but me. I took one of the butcher knives and placed it under my couch next to a hammer and a baseball bat. I don’t like to feel limited in choice. I go back to counting:
one large orange butcher knife, separate and a favorite that I keep for slicing tofu, and five other meat cleaver or butcher knife types left in the wooden block. They are dulled but can cut. One switch blade. One box cutter. Two pairs of scissors; one regular size, one tiny. Seven butter knives which are good for spreading butter or peanut butter but I had threatened a man once with a knife like that. We got nowhere.. I also have two pepper sprays: one in my bag and one on my nightstand hidden under lace, near a flashlight. I have two packages of batteries, two flashlights, a case of potable water and two jugs of water as well. Someone dropped off bleach, alcohol, gloves and methanol on my doorstep last night. I add that to the tally.
I tuck the switch blade back in my pocket to become used to carrying it everywhere I go. I take it back out, realizing I havent opened it in a while. I practice. That is, I squeeze the indent with my thumb and middle finger but I am not fast like in the movies so it always takes a second. This embarasses me. I don’t consider myself greatly agile but competent, but also crippled by time and my straw habit that I push from my mind. Generally, I’m also cumbersome so I just decide to keep it out. The blade that is. It is relatively sharp though I’d have to get close to you to press into you. It’s dainty looking and unassuming which is what drew me to it in the first place. Blue tint with a painting of a woman taking off her bra, not facing us so all we see is her back and hands reached to clasp. Coquettish and pretty. A man bought it for me from France as a gesture of good will. Something I crave. Not the goodwill, but his submission.
I close it and put it back in my pocket of my pants. I know I will leave it open hidden under lace. But just feeling the weight of the weapon is enough to calm me. As I begin to count more things, I begin to rest my jaw. I have one canister of coffee, one box of trashbags, two bottles of dishwasher detergent, plenty of forks: both metal and plastic, as well as spoons. Half a bag of sugar. Countless cartons and packages of tea. Enough pots. Enough pans. One kettle. Half a pack of vegan butter. Half a carton of almond milk. One container of ketchup and mustard respectively. Many bags of frozen vegetables. My jaw is set on relax. I love counting, addition. And theorizing. When you take one thing away, how many more do you need to replace to feel safe? This is innumerable. That is, you can’t manage that thought because it’s gaping. I feel prepared for things when I have more of them. I feel safe in math.
What I will remember most right before it hit, is all the doors slamming shut and me laughing later. Big and hearty like the way Santa Claus laughs on television. When we used to touch our faces, I used to slowly graze my cheek with my finger nail and whisper things to men.
\
“I am prepared now to force clarity on you.”
–Louise Gluck
I wish I could keep accurate track of myself. I am wearing my armadillo suit now. I left the store tonight and gave a man change: a dollar bill. I always do it at Wawa. They always ask and I always do it. When I am in line, I get a dollar bill out and hold it and hold the coffee in my other hand. It’s not a thing to me. I walked to get decaf knowing it would disgust me to have it but feeling high and untethered and needing some mission of some sort. Something docile and childish to control myself. I had lost all mission or virtue. No. No no no. Something else: the bellows of the daily news, the sleet, the thirty degree weather. I was staving off the winter blues. When I began to leave the store, I could feel another man closely behind me. He told his comrade not to beg for money after I stuck a dollar in his cup. That was Muslim law, he said. I could tell by his tone that he was going to keep pace with me, or rather, I would keep pace with him.
He followed me for twenty feet and began to whisper slut, I know you can hear me. Which was factually true though, I am promiscuous at times and I had earbuds in and a song playing so I could have drowned him out but I didn’t. He quickly got in front of me too, even though I was in front of him, he made sure to pass me. He chanted slut, you think you’re better than me. Which was factually true though only because of my sheer politeness. Rudeness annoyed me. Although I have screamed at people. I have lost it before. He yelled slut, I know you can hear me and you’re following me. Slut, why are you following me? It was like when my brother used to put his finger close to my face but not touch me, or or follow me throughout the house six inches from me at all times, bored full of hormones and I would collapse squalling because factually he was right. He wasn’t touching me. All my mother said was: “Alex, don’t touch her!” Whenever I begin with actually, you can say I’m being smarmy.
“Actually, I have music on and I’m trying to listen and you’re following me.”
He turned around, and because he was in front of me, my case was weakened.
Before he could say anything, I said, and when I start with a swear, it is because my spine has bubbled into acid and is eroding slowly all the way up.
“Motherfucker, I’m not following you, I’m just walking. You’re the one who keeps talking to me,” I said.
We carried on for a solid minute and I passed him to say:
“See, you are following me.”
Most women won’t do this I learned. Especially at night.
“I can’t even walk without being harassed, I am going to call the police,” he said.
I then crossed the street out of politeness and absorbed my temper which was blaring and sometimes really honest. I felt like I had hurt him differently. Somehow with my charity. I had proven my point anyway. Factually, I could walk really fast, was walking fast, and was going to walk even faster so if he kept it up, I could stop a stranger and present to them a simple math challenge. They would nod and say: “Indeed, based on the direction both parties are walking, I would say he is following you.
My arms will be crossed and I will squint. Sometimes when people squint, you have to watch their mouth. When they cock it to one side, that’s the peacock.
Two other men appeared to be following me that night and when I turned around, one went the other way and one seemed like a fluke. I had stopped many times, engrossed in a thought about the man who called me a slut for fifty feet. That may have been why two men were watching me later. But that’s what danger does. Conceals. It’s 830 pm, I’m alone walking the city of Philadelphia. Danger conceals and lurks. That’s what I do. Lurk. If the two men looked at the note in my phone, it would simply read:
I want to be soft.
And they would lower their arrow.
“december 17, xxxx”
The first bird I left was gold. The paper was waxy and had a sheen to it. Like the sun. That’s why I used it. Because it was bright and conspicuous. The shiny paper was recycled; a wrap from the store when I purchased my newest stone. Today it jostled in my pocket as I roamed the neighborhood. A reminder of resilience. Maybe more like magic and desire. The stone itself more of a red sparkle than gold but very Hollywood which is what attracted me. I like ostentatiousness in affection. When I am interested, I will dye my hair blue, set a patch of grass on fire. I might wear all white in public. Set amongst the other pebbles and all black anything (obsidian, onyx, Tibetan smoky quartz, they begin to blend like that) I was used to rubbing my fingers over, it called to me first. This is back when I could touch everything.
“Goldstone,” I said out loud.
I have seen you before. Give me reciprocity: some shiny, shiny thing. I didn’t need the woman to wrap it but she offered thinking it a gift for someone else. I felt no remorse pocketing the tourmaline or the tiny garnet as I plucked the roundest black one first. Then, let my fingers feel over to the red ones to grab the smallest one. I always wore clothing with pockets. My bird looked slick sitting in the shop– almost perched for flight– on the longest branch of the potted wicker succulent. Color on a chilly, gray day. Not brutal but I needed to wear a scarf which always told me how cold it really was outside. I always wore a hat, even today, even though I had a wig as extra protection. I was also wearing sunglasses even though it was overcast and drizzling. I spent $5.13 on Earl Gray tea and a vegan lavender cookie. I got a free cup of water. I sat in the back with my earbuds on and turned up. This one didn’t say anything. I just drew the triangle with my fingers over the gold paper, stuck it atop the center of the branches, where they all converged like a waiting basket, and walked away leaving my half drank tea on the table. My mouth was dry. I bit my tongue with my teeth to stop my jaw from bearing down on itself and began to count: five stones in my pocket, two pennies, eight straws, my keys, and seven more pieces of paper. Plus a receipt. Plus some dust or dirt. This was before we couldn’t touch anything.
The second one I left was a purple frog in a pot outdoors and inside it, written neatly in pen, so neatly in fact it looked like someone else may have done it: Leap before you look. That was the very first one I made but the second one to go.
When I began to plant the nightshade, I began to leave the origami animals with it so you would notice. Stare at it. Study it. Photograph it then rub your fingers over the shiny wax paper. People love touching wax paper. Pluck it from its hiding spot. Pick the white flowered plant next to it. She has no cats. You are not thinking about noxiousness but beauty. This started days ago: first the plastic butterfly, then the felt spider, then the paper crane, the paper bat, the brown dog. When I saw where she lived, I planted the queen anne’s lace along the way. I planted them both at the same time. I planted the evenly cut red Valentine heart and I knew that you would pick them for her, pick the animals from her without revealing the secret.
The heart read The theme this year is homemade and hidden. It was so neat in presentation it was as if someone else wrote it. In my pocket that day were three stones, a lucky twig I picked next to a big orange cat, three quarters, eight crumbled straws, and a dirty handkerchief. This was when we could use handkerchiefs to blow our noses still. I hated waste. My finger nails had bits of dirt from the twig when I bent down to pet the cat and saw it was a wishbone. I licked my pointer in front of someone. It had chocolate on it. This was when we could touch our face.
When you arrive to her apartment door, you see the second heart,
My love please enjoy.
A basket full of muffins covered with a red checkered cloth.
I didn’t have to watch things to see them. Didn’t have to be near things. I knew you would bring the basket inside. I knew you would try one. I knew you would fall to the floor in little poked pieces. I like to think you thought of me sometimes and the way I used to wear my face: unpainted but shaded by light play. My hair short and fine and auburn in the rose colored window. Glasses. This is before I wore wigs or eyeliner. This was with a budding causticity. I was always finding the sun in my apartment to diminish mood. You’ll remember me as aimless and walking. How tan I got in the summer. My chokers. My short nails. The way you knew I’d be smug when the news first said “pandemic.” I like to think you tasted the muffin before you drank the wine, impressed. Such a stern rule follower you had found. It’s devout Catholicism. Even grinding those cherry seeds with my mortar and pestle. A rhythm in my arthritic temper. Knuckles sore, knees sore, teeth clenched. I like to think of you there looking at the basket first, long, remembering the way I wore my innocence so hooked like a line. The way I looked down when unsure. Hid my teeth unless an accident. Such a tumult inside. The way I wore my fits in lines. I’ll remember you, even if I’m a little unsure of the final faint, always tasting the thumbtacks first. Then the juicy black berries. Then the seeds ground to a fine wine; thirty apple cores, plus the five ground cherry pits plus the dash of rose for the smell. You’ve always called me flagrant. I would say I’m a perfectionist, being sure I’m never sure, I really do try. Sometimes you have to make sure. Cutely, you said, damn sure.
Deftly, I sit so in my mind I may maunder.
I like to think you picked the white swan off the open cork, the red wine in an open canister to aerate before you put anything in your mouth. Smelled like rose. I like to think you smelled it and said, must be rose, my favorite. The theme this year is handmade and hidden but the swan says,
Better safe than sorry. Drink up.
Even though I barbed the whole place, filled the cake with stones and ran a bath of oleander in case you are so tired. Such a hard worker. You deserve this. But I like to think you tasted the thumbtacks first. I like to think you remembered me: curt. The way I looked down then up. The way I couldn’t hide it. That laugh. Big, in ballgown and sudden like you are just the funniest thing in the world. And you narrate me saying it with my slow southern drawl, imperfect in her vernacular but so pleasant to hear.
Well, you are just the funniest thing in the world.
“Valentine’s Day”
What you remember first is the first time she showed her teeth to you. You expected something less than that and it stuck. If you could have touched it, it would have smeared a bit on your knuckles like honey does. The first thing they want to know is how she always knew. Well.
All the blades had been painted to match the handle. That was the first clue. She had pictured it being windowless but it was even worse than that. Pitch-black and tight like a chrysalis, but in permanence and superfluous in cruelty. Pitch-black. The first time passivity took over, her jaw shut tight on instinct but she had practiced relaxing it so it would first open, then pop. It would fall back into its natural stasis: that little half grin in which she bit her tongue to stop the grating and then fell into its final full relaxed half smile. The first time she showed her teeth to you, you obliged.
Stuck at the entrance, it was the ground that eventually moved her. Something shook and then something skewered her shoulder. The cut was quick and bit as it landed in her flesh. It was the sharpness of the knife but also the things remembered too. Her movement generally was subsultory. She was very erratic in her walks, her gait, her general presentation and affect and she had really chosen this. She was clumsy . She had chosen to stay frozen in a final quiver but the ground shook. Like the doe letting paralysis sheathe her before the arrow hit, she was forced still. Awaiting.
First, there’s physicality. These are measures to grounding in synthesis. Touch a wall beside you. Touch a dog. Touch the bike rack. Touch the tree. Suddenly coughing is a problem. Suddenly you can’t pick the trinkets up. The wall has become coated with yellow respiratory droplets or little Oneida blades. If you can’t touch a wall or railing to ground, hope something touches you to wake you. What a brush of a hand or fork scraping a plate or television turning to static or the weather warning system that scared you with its alarm does. Physicality, olfactory senses, audibility, tactility combined. It all brings back old feelings no matter how long ago or no matter how many times since then you’ve been caressed. Touch is a constant need. Something stuck in your head. The way it felt. Something stuck in your head: felt sense memory–a bee landing on her leg in line at the water park. She was thinking then of a snow cone. She was thinking of the juice running down her chin, waiting for the way her lips would be rubbed gently with crushed purple ice. Her lips dry, full of blister and blood from peeling the skin off all day.
“Stop picking your lip!” Mrs. Dyson screamed, embarrassed by the unkemptness of her hair.
She never combed her hair but wore it past her shoulders,
more like a wild dog or boy
then girl.
“I can’t help it.”
She was meek in some ways.
She also loved killing slugs
with her bare hands. There were other warnings about
her but she could also run very fast and hop fences
and pocket quarters and suddenly be the
hero of July as they threw their pennies on
the counter, counted them in front of him
and pocketed Blow Pops in their jean
shorts. Sticky.
“It’s gross.”
“I can’t help it.”
And she couldn’t. And she meant it. About everything.
Subsultory
(adj):
Involving or characterized by sudden leaps, jerks, or starts. (Also as noun): something characterized by sudden leaping or jerking.
When he asks what you want, tell him knife fight. You had written that down. One of the last things you read to yourself.
She felt her arm burn and begin to drip like honey down her tricep. She couldn’t stand still, couldn’t move, couldn’t discern the difference between a thousand knives pointing at her and the one handle she was supposed to grab. The first thing felt was the physical and the first thing to go were emotions. The dribble of blood down her arm and a sudden burning. You can laugh unrestrained, forget decor, more when you’re alone then detained in front of people. You can suddenly let go in endings. You can stay entombed in exit when you shut your jaw like that but when you let your neck fall backwards, you become incorporeal. You’re illustrated privately. Floating. Best when you’re solo. Here you go screaming softly when the first sword hits. Daintily hung like the picture. The cross. These are notes to yourself, you say: I want to twirl publicly but they’re are too many people outside. You write it down. Like you’re tracking earnestness. Like you’re tracking deceit. Like you’re monitoring your own steps in code. You kept an eye on yourself but so did he., Kind of like the way you eat, you laugh the same way: ravenous, bigger. They never expect you so tall. The way she hated the blisters on your feet, your skinned knees, your knotted hair and your laugh. That’s how you announced yourself. Always with stained and wrinkled shirts. Always teaching her daughters how to dig under the wooden fence to make a tunnel or build a fort of rusty nails. And your fingernails full of dead skin, lips cut, cracked and bleeding as you ask for peanut butter. The child so painfully oblivious to decor. The first time she showed her teeth to him, he touched them.
It was always the surprise she couldn’t take. She thought the tip of her zipper of her purple jacket was hitting her thigh but she was wearing a bathing suit. She let her hands drop from her mouth. She had no jacket. She was at the water park. It was 84 degrees out and her legs were coated with sweat, her stomach poofing out, mouth dry from dehydration and the tips of her fingers and toes wrinkled from being in water too long. Something pinched her skin like when she got her purlicue caught in her binder.It’s flight, fight or freeze. She froze most often but sort of in trance and dead eyed but they’d say she was bright. They’d say you notice her teeth first then her eyes and then vacillated back and forth between them both. She would freeze like that and then jerk, like she was about to sprint but she’d just sort of settle right there. She squinted her eyes. Second, it’s the reintroduction, or interjection, of thought before any movement starts again. You’ve lost emotion but you’ve gained your interest in cross analysis back without looking at what is happening. Without facing the trickle nearing elbow. Why would you feel a scratch that sharp suddenly on your thigh? But you’re only thinking about it and not actually touching it. The first time he touched her teeth, she let them graze his index finger tenderly, slowly.
She heard the buzz first. Then she followed to see its black and yellow zigzagging body cutting towards the front of line. She didn’t even get a chance to swat or run. She didn’t even get a chance to be afraid. A trickle of blood made it all the way to her forearm before she could orient herself. She held her hands out. The first time she touched his finger, she bit him lightly.
Then there’s the other way to touch: a measured control or vy for power or a melting or softening: the antithesis of thought. She lost all words. She wasn’t all accident but mostly very clumsy, always bruised, always hurting. She would let lovers touch her in ways no one else could. If she loved them, they could tie her wrists together. If they loved her, they could hit her. He had a sudden gentleness. Even after all that time to fume, he still struck her so lightly. Like fog, he appeared murky so she almost didn’t notice. They both tickled. Besides, he was reposed in his bloodlust and carrying a sudden recompense he wanted to give. That always wooed her: the repercussion. Once she sucked the ends of her hair and stuck them to her lips before a nap so when she woke the two would be fused together and she would have to carefully separate the crusted over skin from her hair and lip it would hurt to pull them apart. She knew her lips would bleed. She would spent minutes staring at them in the mirror, torn to pieces, shredded. She would take the sharpest nail she had and the second sharpest nail and begin to pinch her lips until they bruised. The bluer the better. She would spend all day pinching it to make it fat like someone split her with their fist and she would stare at the mirror. Watch her mouth shredded, removing each finger nail to feel the relief after the pinch. She would rub her arms on poison ivy and begin to spread it so she was hived and rubbing her body all over the coarsest sheet she owned. Over twigs. Letting the welts pop and bleed. Feeling the sensation of the grater slide across her palms, up her wrists, hold cold compresses under armpits to both cool off and then she’d be wet. Eight years old and dripping with the covers over her. Covered in tears and moaning. The first time she bit his finger, she stuck her tongue out too. Licked the tip of his nail and then swallowed.
She kept her hands out. What she remembered first and how she was so acutely aware of what she remembered first was the weight she carried now. Outside, the world moved. She would say the world was racing. She would say the haze had come and there was no turning back from the gauntlet. She would tell you one way or another she was being stalked very slowly by a man. They let her keep the memory of him until the end. He had examined the silver and sapphire urn around her neck, fingering it and looking at it closely, then back at her. His fingernails were dirty from the woods like hers. His eyes were bright like hers. His eyes. She will say it was his eyes no matter who she describes. The first time she made eye contact with him, she showed her teeth on instinct. The first time he felt her tongue on his finger tip, she felt his other hand around her throat. He moved his sullied black fingers up the chain threatening to rip it off of her. His mouth was gritted holding a phrase tight between them. Your tenacity, he hissed and dropped the locket so it banged the deep bruise that had grown in her sternum from wearing it every day, is what I admire.
There were about two short seconds between her standing at the entrance and the first strike. She knew what had pinched her shoulder wasn’t the lever she was looking for. She was three centimeters from the blade that just cut her when the next bomb dropped. She hadn’t moved herself; the floor had continued to push her. Her heart felt a hundred beats in and she couldn’t keep accurate time. She considered her body a metronome but she couldn’t keep one story in line. Everything was a rush of noise and tremor. She had broken out into hives from the anxiety. Only days earlier, she had taken simple pleasure in digging her acrylics up and down her bicep at three am. She stumbled backwards and the heavy locket suddenly became airy and light; moving, swinging around her throat with ease. The chain hung loose then tight pulling her backwards onto the knife. It made a high tin sound as it was cut from her body and dropped to the floor. What is sharper are always the things remembered; noticed differently last, noticed differently in processing and close and obedient examination. He had asked her in a cheery voice if she wanted to keep the locket. Taking her silence as a complicit yes, he let the blindfold drop so she could see what graved her. It was only three seconds between the question and the door slamming behind her.
It was the touch of her mom, she remembered, stroking her hair so she could fall asleep. Not starved for touch, born in it, then removed from it. Over time, removed herself from the arms of others. The way her partners had stroked her hair until she fell asleep. The way she turned from them. The way they said she was pointed. The blade touching her neck like that, softly at first, pull the trigger, enter, hard. That’s how she remembered being touched, soft at first then braced for impact. When he felt the way her neck relaxed in his palm, he pressed his thumb back to her lips, doused in her own spit and open, needy. Pointed.
She remembered a warm bed and hugging a bitten rabbit. Her mother patting the back of her neck, thanking her for watching the rabbit as she called the local animal services to come receive it. She remembered gripping it in a pink towel and staring at its little bloody wound, right there in its side in front of her. The bite from her cat. She stared at the red dribble, unphased, precocious and stirred up from seeing the pain. Not wishing it but enjoying it. As a child, sore. Her father’s friends recognized that all all eight year olds contain an infinitely dark and squishy pink secret. There is more to this than movement. There is also staring. Staring at wounds and hoping they close. Staring at objects. Looking at eyes. Pinching your own lip until it’s black and blue. Staring at mirrors.
“It’s called pleasure-pain.”
That’s what her mom told her. It was pleasure-pain. What the child did to herself poking safety pins into the pores of her skin. She hugged the thing’s neck and told it
I hope you live forever.
Her necklace had fallen but she was still chained to the wall. As her body was drawn backwards by gravity, her neck curved to enfold the weapon and something thudded at her coccyx. It didn’t sting or rip. It didn’t pierce her. It didn’t mutilate her. It announced it was there so she would know I am lever, touch me and walk through my wall of knives unscathed.
You will know it because it will not pierce you, he said. She settled on the handle and let out a long sigh. It lasted only half a second but a long, embarrassing half a second before a pond began to form at the bottom of her throat. There were two seconds between her standing at the entrance of the doorway and one second between the next two strikes and her throat hanging on a knife. Not one millisecond before her throat gushed open. To your left and you will know it. Beneath her gallow, her tailbone knocked the knob that swung the door open and as her body settled, every sword started up her calves and thighs like vines of thorns were climbing her.
To your left and you will know it because it will not pierce you. Red, viscous streams ran off her chin and dripped onto the blade going through her stomach. She tried to lick her lips on instinct. The way she clenched her jaw to suck back drool. The way she retracted spit, as if she’s drooling. When he touched her lips, she closed her eyes and he felt her breath release unrehearsed. A tiny sliver of light bounced off the tips facing her. Every knife pointed at her from only about three feet away. The wall was opening to another hallway. She willed her eyes open, tired, flittering, desperate for resolution. Let me see Santa Claus. Let me see what I won.
open, tired, flittering, desperate for resolution. Let me see Santa Claus. Let me see what I won.
The weight she carried with her were the last two words he said: his prediction, not his warning but his knowledge and mercy, a mercy she hadn’t trusted until her final half heartbeat. And fast. He had said, To your left and you will know it because it will not pierce you. And fast. The things you remember last, you carry these with you as you pass. And fast. When she closed her eyes, she felt his mouth press her mouth and his hand trace her clavicle. They never suspect how bony she is in their arms.
The way he held the blue and silver heart in admiration and removed her blindfold to show her the trap, she held that in esteem like it was the agape promised by god. You are a sly bitch. The necklace had fallen somewhere on the floor and she was free. The wall had turned all the way around and she was facing another wall of swords hundreds of feet long. Her eyes shut and she held a colored gaze in her heart
a gaze starving
usually promises
returns
They always want to know what she knew and what she meant by that. They tilt their heads and move their knees closer to hers.
“Well what do you mean by that?”
“By what?”
“By your stories.”
“Nothing,” she said
in that cocked gun head way,
lips pursed, oppositional
and lips kind of turning
black.
I’m honestly just trying not to touch my face.
She held the corner of mouth
between her purple acrylics
like she wanted to peel it off.
I’ve been frank with you no?
When I was five years old,
I perfected a smirk.
It’s my only craft.
To look.
they would push
their knees closer to her.
when their mouths met,
she bit his bottom lip
on instinct and he pressed her
hard into the wall;
felt his hand pull her ribs
in and she began to shake
a little like
vines of thorns
were climbing her.
.
“the woman who saw her own death”
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