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.
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 story
dripping from your
eyes, 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 a quivering knife.

“tributaries”

0

Later, I took a bath. You laid on the bottom and I could see a giant cut on your back. I felt water rushing down my neck from the sky. I rubbed my ankle across your ribs and you could breathe underwater suddenly. I was naked. You saw me.  You didn’t seem bothered by any of our history.

 

“dreams #2”

0

smirk,  black lipstick, lied about time when I asked her, dulled, currently sharpening

 

“how guys save me in their phone”

0

I drove through
all of middle Earth
to get here;
to lean into the sharp points
of middle hurts.
in true poet’s parlance,

I am nothing but
death rehearsed.
I am nothing but
kamikaze and the
soot palms that steer it,
practice typeface.
I smile to show you
some white in this
hot, red place tonight.
I’ve got my cat suit on:
solid shoulders, strong,
curved back and a heavy head
that is full of
it    a blue cracking
heart to match.
I say where?
and you say
nothing.
smile to show you
my canines.
I come over wearing
 everything I own:

a pack that stalks
and stays together in lunge,
a freshly oil-stoned
suit of knives and|
the bled-dry opaline
home that I nest in,
my cozy coronation robe:
my clanking vest that
announces my arrival to
your home.

it is me
wreathed in
all my men’s
bones.

“Hecate” or “the red book”

0

She was walking out of the woods and it was on fire. Not a real fire but a painted fire, like with yellow and orange cardboard cut into the shape of flames. She was wearing a cardboard crown she had made. She was speaking softly into a microphone. No, she was humming.

“dreams #1”

0

I had been waiting to show you
self immolation.
You had been waiting with kerosene
and some promises to hold
 my pretty ashes
hostage.

“fidelity”

0

I unzip my hoodie
slowly
letting my finger trail
 from the end of the zipper
to the front of my pants.
let my index lull
 somewhere near the heat.
(some guy puts down his phone)

with the other hand,
I remove my hat
carefully,
wipe a stray hair from
my shaded eye.
reapply my chapstick,
then lipgloss,
then fire engine red
and I stick a finger
(some guy removes his earbuds)
very slowly in my mouth and pout
 before a loud
SUCK
pops at them
and then
slowly pull it out.
check for the ring around my finger.
(there’s one shifting in his skin)

cross one ankle over the other
delicately before lifting
a pruned eyebrow in the direction of the one
that resembles you the most,
smirk at my reflection in the window.
(a clearing of the throat in the distance)
drunk on memory and the
 cessation of feelings about it,
let one side of my hood fall
revealing a velvet bra strap,
a bone white shoulder
crowning through a sheer black sweater
like the heavily saluted moon-break
on a murky night in late December,
i’m worshipped for an instant.
(all mouths open now)


wrap my thrumming fingers around the pole
assuredly and
(the way i never was with you)
squeeze,
(they’re all watching now),
bite my lip and rub the palm first down,
then up
but with stifled fervor
(do you like that?)
like it’s alive and pumping and
 I want to enjoy
the ride for awhile before I
(retreat inside my gut)
grit my teeth and grab it harder and
 go a little faster,
little harder, little wilder,
 little wolf girl caught in moons,
chafes my life lines
 the one where the money should be,
or the love or the way I was
 before     I keep trying and
(some guy is walking over)
I can’t even
(do you even hear me?)
I can’t stop
(this train is full of breathing)
and I can’t even
(“Miss?”)
(finish them)
finish them.

I can’t even finish
them completely.

“the aviary”

0

file your nails into
sharp points and
lean into them.

“flood”

0

I believe in wormwood,
dried root,
my brother’s ashes
in a silver heart or
a ceramic urn
locked in vase
locked in mirrored chest;
a chant, a poem.
datura when the time
is right.

sometimes I do ceremony,
sometimes I just let things pass.
we do that for others:
carry our grief quietly,
we bury things deep
within ourselves.
but sometimes in a fit,
I spill over,
tell you everything.
you said
I like to swim
so I am braised with razor;,
become a carnation lake
at your feet and
you said rain:
I like gardens.
so I condensed and
waited to show off my new arms
lined in fresh alyssum.
my cycle: I always meet them in
winter where my only
light is moon.
my flowers blossom
under the chilled night:
drip a dark nectar and
I am thirsty and
you already know,
I believe in
altar.

I believe in overflowing
chalice.  you believe in holding
space for growl,
holding me with
distance.
you watch me lay the
dill in bowl, line the bed
with tourmaline.
run the bath with
chamomile and yarrow.
I am full of tincture now.
I can move like a jaguar:
slow and black and
hungry.
I am hard to see that way.
you said
I am game.

you’ve been watching
jaguars move,
you’ve been memorizing motion,
 I drape myself in constellation
so you can better see me,
storm so you can better feel
me and I traipse across the forest
floor waiting to be found.
my tonsils growing
chelicerae,
my rib cage growing legs,
my bottom becoming fat
with thread and
I know what you like
and I know that
you are game.

you are writhing
game in tiny, tiny
snowflake threads
hung far above the
ground.
I said let’s switch places
and I know you said
my name.  I become the woods
encircling your howl and
you become the kicking,
screaming, young and
drowned.

in winter,
it is long and dark
and hard to contain my
grief.    I
am gorged with nectar
and hidden by
the wind.
sometimes we do that for
others: hide our
spines.
you watch me prey;
sip the drip of
the effulgent crescent
bulb I worship
and become the
nightmare you fear.
you become the shivering
deer, caught fly,
gutted bunny hooked in
jaw.
I become the bath
of blood.
you were right:
we’re the same.
rewind to the night you asked
if I would ever kill someone
if I knew I could get away with
it.

we become the woods
 and you become
my game.

“datura moon”

0

under my therapist’s guidance,
I switch chairs to talk
to my inner predator.
 now, now,
   listen to the guilt,
   it’s talking,
I want to find out more about
her; what to call her,
where she hides sometimes
before I feel her seep into
each step.

I decided to have some boundaries
with the universe;
lined the edges of my bed with
geranium and lilac threads,
lined the sills with limonium,
wove my weave with daisy.    
my tub dripped nightly:
 an altar of salt and
lavender sage.
watched my toes glide to the surface
 by a dozen votives.
tease the cat
with little splashes at her nose.
forget everything.
my entire winter
was littered with
shards of celestite
and low violin.
 I could see the sky when I wanted
from my dining room table
or on a brisk walk
to pick up oranges and Earl Gray
for the morning.
rediscovered medicine in prayer
 and herb and
 open mourning for my karmic retribution,
suddenly rectified,
suddenly deserved.
           (do you deserve the good?)

amethyst in my sock drawer and jasper
near the lamp, I held
one shout in my throat

in an effort to continue to
subjugate myself.

protect myself from myself.
protect myself from herself.

but it’s so tiring;
that anorexic
bloodlust,
insatiable mouth,
the doe eyes and
planned outfits,
the scent so close
you begin to change shape
without notice.

you begin to grow a
mandible heart.

you begin to drool.
you begin to chomp
a little at their
wrists as they hand you
something.
 I decided to get rid of my light
and aventurine,
I calmly tell her
the following week.
I tell her:

I plan to spend the year
fat; replete in web
and feast.

“gestalt”

1

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