sitting in front of the fish tank
again,
after now having what i believe to be
my 9th panic attack,
there is a man with his ear
bleeding.
I am familiar with this place.
“I’m fine.”

you can take your knives in here.
they didn’t even notice my taser this time.
I am concerned that I am going to
suddenly stop breathing one day.
and you will,
the little girls tell me,
if you keep mixing drugs this way.

but remind the audience that no one ever believes you
as a precursor to understanding how
badly

you

just

want 

to be seeeeen.

“the hopsital series”

0

but i’m a martyr for this,
I crave
repercussion;

even self-abnegation
needs an audience
or else it’s just plain masochism
                  lonely and caustic
without the gentle recompense,
the moist poultice,
the final amends:
the touch of her
sadist’s fingertips
after she laid her.

all cathedrals use pain as payment
and my crucifixion,
while self inflicted;
is just as spilling brook,
and baneful.
my bloodletters will wash
the splashes from my feet,
take their time
with each laceration;

stitch
my gashes
into temples.

“Lilith”

1

I saw this quote. I had written it long before I understood what it meant. shifting from one section of the Earth to the other without leaving my house, I read it again tonight.  “I am a boundary to something else, but I don’t know what.” I was a thread.
Soon after, we took a bath
in chamomile
and I told him
every scary dream I ever had.

0

********

but I feel the root rot and darken

without altar, water

or speech.

you walk in and

I’m here now

growing into a black stem.

you walk in and look

right at me

and I don’t know

where to begin.

but I found the

aperture.

you walk in and

look right at me and

my shiny white teeth

forge a new smile.

I begin to grow,

unfurl, hum

softly.

“datura moon”

0

you just have to begin.
you hold my hand
when I speak.
I am nervous inexplicably.

just existence is a trial.
count the candles.
set the rocks.
sip the Angelica root and
begin to drool an acid fire
into the bubbles.
I feel your chest behind me,
moist, throbbing.
in my waking hours,
I practice walking across a lake
with black boots.
it’s an icy sidewalk on
a ledge but I pretend
that it’s a long pond.

when he first comes around,
I notice my wrist,
then my jaw,
surrender.
I have an urge to burn the
house down first
but in a long quaver,
forget the nonsense:
the counting of the pulse,
the spotty mason jars,
my blood dripping on a red
throw blanket, laundry,
my childhood–effete,
mold speckled shingles,
my sullen dead father
and his one last breath
alone–we think–
sometime after midnight,
right before Christmas.

“the bath series”

0

I begin to teach him.
put the cayenne in the bowl.
I have blessed everything in this house.
sprinkle black salt.
put the kyanite here to
infiltrate their thoughts.
we are asking for nightmares.
it’s easier in pairs.

remind him how no one believes you.
my biggest strength is no one believes
me so they never see me coming.
here,

put the wormwood in the bowl.

0

 i’ll remember you a distant
coward, back turned save
the way you had to face
me momentarily
(when I was pleading),
your fingers laced
with blade to turn.

you’ll remember me bleeding; a 
frenetic champion of unfurling
without witness,
your rival Phoenix,
more quiet than you think
and less likely to withhold
my secret passion,
years practiced.


got the agrimony and
ague root to prove it.
got the mirror laid.
got a stone of yours.
got a really belly laugh going.

“black magic”

0

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.
tongue pressed
against your chin,
my lips trace
your jaw       I am softer.
having been tempered
and forced close:
you know,
darling,
let my teeth hit your lip

I have never
become divine without first
becoming storm.

 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 back.
paint my lashes black


and they’re wet 
and
shaped like little
bolts.

1.

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

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