i go to the vibrating home of the Devil
and scream.
I’ve been waking up at three am and pondering
for an hour.
I start to notice my gestures change.
I begin using the collective we freely
and i’m soft like butter.

ok ive thought about it,
ill finish the spell.

we are bound until
i finish the spell
should have started with

well, you’re probably just thinking about me too much

taciturn but for some
icy speech and bleak;
caustic prose in
squalling breezes that freeze
and stick to your cheeks,
harden               bite your tongue
in frostbit chomps so it takes a while before we
cut those
meek coughs off
just as they start.
before they form into spit,
white noise, handwritten
cards,
I sprout into a raging sun

you need a break

I went from being a frozen tundra:
algid, wide and growing fields of
ground to cover with
no visible tracks to follow
unless the wind was kind and left
the prints
which it wasn’t often.

she said to me
(and remember no one asked i tell stories like this)
it is such a wonderful thing to be surrounded by ghosts.
ghosts give you power.
do not be afraid of the ghosts.

it was the way she held the
king of cups,
almost like an afterthought.
she said this
king of cups
person and i
just started laughing.

the witch today told me
i need to talk to you
and there is an end to this quarrel.

I laughed,
she said
send a loooong thought out
email or message explaining
the thing about Spotify
and that you’re paranoid
and your weird behavior
and just reach out and try to talk to him.

and im laughing and i say to her

i did that.

i already did that.
but ok, i say,
if this is the truth, how about
(i believe in harm reduction)

I just write a draft of what i want to say first to start

you will know me
by my fang-toothed
smile.

“morphic resonance”

one day I had a dream
you bit the head off of a blue jay
and spit it back into her nest.
when I asked why you said:
To prove you will never leave me.
here I  am,
on command about to run
across the canyon and I
laugh real loud in my
skin tight
dress:

the one cut real low in the back
in the shape
of an obtuse
triangle, jarring contrast
to my scared-straight spine
but I still
slouch,
don’t I?.

I twist the straw into
crooked pieces
and tell myself things:

   make sure they know
  you are having
a real good time
show your teeth
hearty laugh
with belly and mouth and your
lips are stretched to the limits like your
social apathy.
show your full moon eyes
and hide.
hold your tonic like a wand;
fall asleep inside of
yourself

in the middle of
everything.

later, he will show
you photographs
to prove you were
there.
if you are lucky,
he notices
the door opening,
the splash
of scarlet on your tights
as you replace each page,
as you become the
walking lake flooding
the wake that held
you, and he becomes
the witness that love
is shaking sometimes
but still sharp
and with purpose,
the utility that seizes
to deconstruct,
to create with its
generous efficacy;
make more of less,
make more of one solid square,
make moats of larger masses
retaining density.

not the surgeon or the stitch
but the undulation,
the quiver of the knife,
the first wave
hits.

“tributaries”