friends are those who watched me
grieve alone and then called me
stoic
so they didn’t 

reach
out.

I guess I reached out to the wrong
people cuz I walked home alone
at 1 am after asking if you could
come watch me after poison control
told me someone should keep an eye on me
but
you told me to drink water
and lie down
and it will pass
and you’re a fucking
narcissist if no one have
told you.

friends are those who watched me
grieve alone and then called me
stoic so they didn’t
reach

out.

“i told you to drink water and lie down and
you’d be ok and you were.”

I spent that night in the ER
and walked home at 1 am.
This is three months after my dad died,
two weeks after my landlord evicted me,
two and a half weeks after the guy
I was seeing told me had herpes and
ghosted me (but don’t tell them that
cuz then everyone panics), and five months
of continual construction
across the street of my house:
7 am-7pm, six days a week after one year
of there being a giant hole in the middle
of the road and intermittent
drilling being done on that.

and I’m not even really getting into itall just the highlights
just I hope that you have the worst life
imaginable.

“the panic attacks”

I begin to swirl the powder,
wipe my finger across the counter to
where the crumbs have landed.
I remember throwing up
on our coffee table:

purple wine spewing out the
moment I put it in my mouth.
stomach gurgling.
I remember being alone
then too and bending down,
licking it up immediately
and the panic.
the panic that only alcoholics
at 4 am understand.

there’s no more after that
and I’m still awake,
alive, standing.

“Kratom”

the way men have held me:
(invaded)
all claws

“i’m not happy anywhere if im still in my body.”

being obsessed with inequity
creates lines on
your face.
your teeth clenched
with scowl and stress,
mired panic, just something
so familiar about lack
and urgency.
empty stomach. subway,
one headphone working
so the sound is all the way up
to drown out the right’s tinnitus
and you’re eyeing her up and down,
pining for her jacket.
it provides a catalyst to
all movement.

 people are scared
to admit a big motivator
to success is
their unremitting desire
for vengeance.
and money helps.
takes away the change
of facial shape.
fills halls, fills
spaces with things.
little decorative things.
fills lips and
money assuages.

and money goes but
comes eventually.
or at least that’s
what you tell the
little tree you water
on the window every day.
what you tell
the little girl shoved
deep inside the well,
hands out, slack jawed
and frozen.

“The Money Tree”

I carried little pieces of God
everywhere;
a pint sized celestite
I broke off from a bigger
cluster on the windowsill
to twirl in my fingers. 

I am surrounded by men
who are wolfish and
repentant, sharing stories of a
a lifetime of substance abuse.
my “allies.”
I nod when they say
things that are aptly
reflected instances in which
they felt a guilt greater
than their desire.
they usually begin with things
like
I took advantage of her
and I cross my legs.

I am wearing brown tights, brown
heeled boots and a cream turtleneck
sweater dress.  my hair is
short, uncombed and strange
and I am mostly plain.
I wear light blush, mascara and
chapstick but I don’t spend all
day about it.
it is important as a woman
to catalogue what you were wearing
and how you generally look
in any moment.
also I had gained some weight
before I  discovered that
starvation will gain you
money.
when you tell the audience the story
they can gauge reaction better.
were you homely, girl?

I was neither homely nor
exceptional,
merely watching the blue chips
of nail polish flake onto
the floor as he spoke
about his trespasses
against women,
finding my hands to be urgent,
suddenly needing my
full attention.

and remembering the whisper
of the woman who shushed
the girl who shared her rape.
watch the celestite break.

“fury”

*****

“it’s hard to talk about anything anymore
when half your family is dead. it just wells
inside of me.”

“The tears?’

“The scream.”