we are here,
that little lie about choice.
the way you can’t seem to keep
the gloves  on and your knees hurt
from walking to the center of south
philly and back and
(I didn’t touch anything but I didn’t wear a mask)
and the way your tongue forked,
when you began to share the
story of your violence.
what’s been done to me
now done to them,
you begin the ritual
of candle setting.
it’s half pure ire
and directed intent.
say their names aloud:
Oya, Sekhmet, Lilith, Hecate.

I am Artemis. 

they say be careful what you say.
you say I am very good
with a word,
a sword, and
un boligrafo
to show you’re trying.
I heed each warning and name
them again

  1. when the first thing comes true, the second follows swiftly.

that little lie about
choice.
we are here at four candles,
name them again,
 love,
namely,
what’s missing:
(let’s review)
anything palpable.

  1. be careful what you say.

love–a thirst.
will–a birthright.
take justice–not vengeance,
but perception and the gentle
 folding of my hands in my lap
as things begin to be done to
them..
time–something I can’t wrap
my head around.

  1. love is a choice.

and choice. that little lie about
“choice.” write it again without blinking
and what then do you see?

  1. love.
    will.
    take.
    time.

 

“the choice”

0

it’s saturday, and we are
processing some hard truths
like not everything is
meant for you to
win and hold.
it is meant for you
to (open palm now)
grow:

 

“I did not come here to teach you.
I came here to love you.
Love will teach you.”

0

 

be careful what you say.

I believe in overflowing
chalice.  you believe in
holding space for snarl
with distance and
your lover at night
or your girlfriend,
whomever.
it’s up to you to name them.


you watch me lay the
dill in bowl, line the bed
with tourmaline.
run the bath with
chamomile and yarrow oil.
it’s all for nothing.
you found me but
I am full of tincture now.
the best defense is
to cripple yourself
like victim, spiny
with a shaky lip
but spiked and
squared right towards
them.

what you catch about me
is the amorphous not
the steady heartbeat on your
ear, at night, and here
 and to be fastidious requires
no real feeling
but constant poking at
all possibilities,
pausing with the probable
but still lusting.
almost thirsty for your
deluded thoughts,
your diluted candor
that you say is grace
but you have bitten even more
 of your tongue today,
and you are now piked
and squared in another princess’
face.  what you meant
to say was
be careful what you say.

 
there are some voids
that
are so insatiable you
collapse with the
 craving instead.
I walk for miles:
slow and black and
hungry like that,
a hole and
reaching.
waiting for the echo.

I am game.

“Datura Moon”

0

deep breath.

 

I carry tempest in my
lungs,  a cold black murmur
that hooks it hums
in earthworms and writhes
to surface after rains
 winding street lamps to
devour them like dirt cake.
I hit the corner as
you are walking up.


the light goes out
and somewhere near
a tire screeches drowned
by the sharp inhale
you take when
a cyclist scrapes his tire
on a criss-crossed track
and spins into a tumble
that splits his helmet
on a bumper and someone
screams: are you ok?
(this city is full of
accident lately).
I stand still on
the flashing yellow,
not afraid but respectful.
your hands are clenched
in pockets waiting for
the red, face turned away.


I’d been walking slowly,
wearing cotton sundress and
consenting saunter.
a practice.
my hips are wide,
lips are pursed and
I am quiet, light and
diffusive but lucky for this
place mostly mired in
my own insides.
there are twelve dogs
with meat in their eye
nearby choking on their
collars.

I am wearing a blue alyssum
in my hair but
you will know me either
by my touch
if in enough of a rush and
close proximity to brush
an elbow with a thumb,
or the sudden sun I permit:
open laughter near your
chin, grabbing you
with force,
 inordinate apology
for the accidental brush
and really everything,
moist I’m sorry spills over
my freshly-done, pink
velvet lips as we collide.
wait for green or
similar direction.
there are sirens in the distance.
I open my mouth
to say this city is full
of accident lately,
isn’t it?

you?
you will know me by
my fang-toothed smile.

“morphic resonance”

0

I have a fear of swallowing pills
sometimes, and sometime I am fine
but sometimes I stick my zinc
inside my water
and wait for it to dissolve.
dress the glass with
lemon slices,
don’t cough at the medicine taste.
daily I take:
*I put my thumb up to count*

b12, nasal spray, rose hips (for the vitamin c),
vitamin c packets (for the vitamin C),
liquid chlorophyll for the lungs, elderberry for
the immunity, and aloe vera for the reflux.
(that’s one way I almost choked).
plus I dab in mugwort for the dreams
and movement of any sluggish blood,
coltsfoot for the throat, mullein for the
allergies, cohosh when I’m cramping
up or need a baby out.
nettles for some iron.
marshmallow root to coat my
irreparably dehydrated throat.
 chamomile at night to rest
my wanton soul from leaping
out her skin.

honestly, I’m just trying not to go outside
 or touch my face.
wash my hands.
bathe the day in isopropyl alcohol
and bergamot.
I ended up increasing my walks
to twice a day.
I don’t touch a single thing.
honestly. also
I almost choked to death five
times so this kind of means not a
thing to me.
plus I’m a nihilist.
my jaw clenched shut twice while eating
and a mouthful lodged itself.
a cherry pit got stuck in bolus,
two pills got caught in esophagus
and once I swallowed a safety pin
after placing it in a shot glass I then
used for vodka.
I somehow managed to cough and pull
it out.
oh and once I am pretty sure I got
alcohol poisoning.
oh and once I ran headfirst into
a cement mixer with my car
and broke my sternum and now
have a traumatic brain injury,
once I fell down some stairs,
once I got sucked in by a wave
and almost drowned,
once I leapt off my balcony after being
locked out and my landlord even
walked by me.
I waved.
could have told her but
I had a cat I was hiding.
we weren’t allowed to have cats.
I waited til she went inside the other building,
she was showing a couple around.
I took a breath, jumped  and
 barely missed the pole
that was poking out of the ground
right below my apartment.
 it was about five feet high.

honestly, I’m just trying not to go outside
or touch my face,
i’m not thinking about anything.
just sort of
twitching uncontrollably
which is why you maybe think
I’m more frenetic or stressed than
I am.
oh and I’m not allowed to eat
turmeric,
*I smile to show him my white teeth*
so I had to buy a capsule.

sometimes I’m scared to take that one too.
but no, I’m not any  more anxious
than before. what did you ask
me? Im sorry. 

“OCD” or “the iteration series”

0

(insert image of woman screaming outside surrounded by nothing here)

0

I’ve been learning
performative emotion
to keep the ones I’m fettered
to warm, and to feel their
slippery manacles tease
the tops of my feet
like feathers as they pull
me.
paint my lashes black
and they’re wet  and
shaped like little
bolts.

 

we watched fireflies and I
licked your earlobes,
tried your fingers on
while I played with truths,
denied them.
felt your chest pressed hard
against mine.  we clanked
with ease
and I took in the scene
of two people unclothed and
unseen
underneath some crescent
in your backyard
without friendship between them;
without people between them and I dared
to stare in a way that endures more than
deciduous planting.
I broke at the
not now
you spoke back
with a masculine fragility
I had never known     envied,
tried on later with pants,
unplucked eyebrows
and alone.

you became red.
  I became an unwatched bull
headed to your porch,
snorting and you were
bare faced and guarded
 in all the ways
I have yet to learn.
I’m so obvious:

a scarlet blaze that starts with a joke,
two bodies parting,
an unreturned question that ends
with a sharp exclamation,
annihilation of something.
ends with a reminder from someone higher
to stop destroying something
to eliminate one part.
I am a wave of coercion
pulling you in and under
when I should have been
patient;
when I should have been laid in the grass
gently, next to the ant hills,
where you can learn my lifelines:
breasts,
spine,
toes curled without injury.
when I should have been pausing to notice
there are no people between us.
when I should have been gracious,
with you and bare-faced,
or wet cheeked or

I remove the rest of my top
and close my eyes deliberately
to show you the length
of each thorn.
wear my eyes like a hooked rose
with my tongue pressed
against your chin,
my lips trace
your jaw       I say
more softly
than  ever before,
having been tempered
and forced close:
you know,
darling,
let my teeth hit your lip

I have never
become divine without first
becoming storm.

 “ascension”

0
I like looking at pictures
of old flames with
new lovers because I like
the way the shards of
heart cut internally
as they break,
float away.
almost like I’m a
masochist
0

I’ve been learning
performative emotion
to keep the ones I’m fettered
to warm, and to feel their
slippery manacles tease
the tops of my feet
like feathers as they pull
me.

sweetie, we think you are
a masochist.

0

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