truth is the great surgeon:
it will cut you open
but it will also heal you.
it’s Friday and we are
processing hard truths
before we seek the auspiciousness
of everything; before we rest,
pay altar on Sunday
like
:
sometimes some things
just aren’t meant for you.
it’s true, the blur,
life is rushing and swamps
with it’s shades of
blue; azure
(you name things)
sky, or cobalt fluid
or nightmare
like a wall of nail polish
you’re reading every
dressed up inch of you,
every feeling to decide
what to bathe your magic
tips in tonight.
with or without your
undivided presence,
your inquisitive fantasy,
the moon moves.
time heals all those
unsewn wounds and you embrace
things now with reticence,
but you’re open to the aphorism,
to the temperance,
to the tombstone epitaph
you made him carve across
your eyelids that night
on Jupiter:
I remember everything.
everything you grow to love,
you lose.
“xxx”
“i was dazzled by the way he talked to me, without any subservience.”
you’re shrouded
in caricature of self
under pressure:
embosked in
crouching vines,
twigs and berries, my clothing
and your permanent frost that
molds you into something
statuesque–a snowman frozen
in my front
yard but I’m suddenly feeling
myself so sun,
so warm,
arms wide open,
cherry lipstick,
leper with no island and a
strong want for community.
need to touch your fingers with
my tongue,
audacity,
some ire,
some unresolved bleak black,
and I’m mad at God for every season
that brings the buried back.
I’m not over it,
I’m batshit and
I’m terribly bereft.
I’m hot
they say.
you’re melting a
little and I keep talking about
myself to fill the space.
I used to be
a vacant room
but now I’m full of
places,
suspect,
other people’s things,
vindictive trust and other people’s prayers;
the hurt of how they wear me once,
or at night or in their head
and then hang me like
an amulet above their door
to gawk at, clap at,
ask for favor like I’m God’s
only walking angel and really
i’m full of enmity and
you and I are both full of
me. pinch your carrot nose
and wait for the high noon
rays to hit your coal smile
so you become the puddle
at my feet the thirsty
dog I leashed laps
quietly and you asked me.
what do I long for?
the cloying puffs of air
near my ear saying
come here and
the weather changing.
i’m adding a hat to your costume when
a man taps me on the shoulder.
he wants to ask what’s become of the
others that came before you
and I want to get to the
bottom of it.
“the sun”
women are scared of their own violence.
I start by slaughtering
your brothers in front of you
to see if you can stand it.
4.
I’m the fairest thing that ever happened to you. I know because I once saw the whole thing. You could say I asked for it.
“God,” I began.
I was centered in sigil. My spine was straight, although I usually slouch. I usually admonish myself for taking up too much space on my couch; even alone, even in privacy, I shrink. This evening was different. I felt propped by something and sitting up, breathing softly, not nervous and with intention. The gasping I am used to transmuted into long, deep inhales; long, thrumming exhales. That night even the callous on my palm where I lay the plastic straw I can’t let go of, can’t stop twiddling as I walk around the city, felt soft. It felt healed and my hands smelled like cherry blossom from the lotion I rubbed on my knees as I took care of myself, my needs, for once. Once a day, I drink water and rest. Once a day, I pause to smell a honeysuckle. Once in a while, I cease compulsion to drop the straw, pet a dog, move on.
I was melting; suffused with the moonstone resting on my lap, becoming waxing crescent. I was becoming spring. Dust around me tickled my shoulders to remind me: We are here to help you breathe. I immediately became breath. The room rocked like a cradle and I was swathed in her gentle nightlight. I was enveloped. Call the dust what you want, the noise what you want: dirt, fantasy, demons, guides, saints, Lilith and her coven (I light candles to all kinds), they were there that night using my forearms, using my hands, using my throat to sing. My diaphragm rose and fell with ease. God. I asked for breath. Breathe. I became breath. I became nestled in large silk strands.
“God,” I waited and then started again.
I let the fire in my chest build with each name I said until I could feel the slow burning rise to full flame. I waited until I could feel the full pounding of the floor dropping out, until I was hovering in air, until I was on the cloud. It’s the pyre I’ve been waiting for: the charred ribs, the suckled breasts, the ghosts that waft out of the ropes. I waited until I knew who to ask for; until I heard someone say it.
“God,” I started again, and let it be known I was not in fear, I was not shaking, I was not anxious. “Whose answered prayer am I?”
There is no trepidation. You only enter with one affirmation. You only enter with perfect love and perfect trust or you do not enter us. I waited.
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