nothing to win, just want you to see me.

but then I retreat.
then  I linger near the
exit the rest of the night,
alone,
with the crumpled straw
in my hand
and the temper on my tongue
contained.
my earlier rage not expressed
or not handled as boldly
as it deserved to be;
the proclamations,
the ways out.

I like the way you held my hand
and I like the way you
said my name.
      my name is artemis.

Artemis, without
pause and
aloud.

“the introduction”

I spent a year there in physical form,  just to spend another two wandering its empty halls as my shell, my panther costume, glowed yellow at night. just the eyes and the teeth, bright white like a lantern softly brightening the steps laid out before me. nothing more than that.  this idea I held entombed me. it started with the first parting, the night I slept in jeans at his house and said “ I feel like two halves of myself coming together” as he snored. laid my head in the crook of his elbow, unfettered and imperceptible at times.  

 this is January 2015 and in a month I will see you for the first time, drawn to something else but distracted by you
nonetheless.
like moths fly
right into bulbs
looking for the moon,
I crashed headfirst into
the glass encasing
of you.

“phototaxis”

the first thing you notice about me is
the way I saunter.
even to grab a ginger ale
from the cooler
              “it’s my favorite.”

brush you, smile at your friends
and kind of swarm them
like an imposition.
starting conversations
that are really my to do lists;
assuage shame, assuage
guilt, anxiety publicly and
always alluding with  gesture
and wink
to my prescience without
saying anything.

if you ever said a word,
which I highly doubt at
this point, you’ll say
its the smirk
I mastered,
not the crowd.

“the warehouse”

“sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time and the arena and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle wherever we are standing.”

–audre lorde

i feel the miracle.
the edge without crossing.

take me right to the edge.

don’t jump,
walk the line.

give it to me, God
can be a risky request.
immured in soft crystal, I felt
on the verge of crossing
borders and mostly unhinged
all winter.
my hair was combed,
my lips were never chapped,
I wore blush every day and
stockings with no
runs.   my tongue  was tied
completely
so no one asked
what I may have needed.

chased an impartial sun
half of December
and spent the other half
shrouded,
soaked in flower essences.      I preferred
helenite draped in tiger’s eye so I’m more
sudden hot eruption
than slow boil
but tonight I try more
benevolent blooms and pausing
and
watch my flimsy, cherry-dipped
ylang-ylang scented fingertips
shake unsteadily
and without any observable provocation,
suddenly stop untying my velvet collar,
suddenly shy away from the mirror,
suddenly lunge and land
on my ball of green obsidian
delicately scraped from the bottom of some
dormant volcano;
still mired in sudden climax,

rinsed and smoothed for my
handling pleasure. 
it was
heart  activating
and protective
and my heart;

poor, twisted carnivore
always unsure
can shift her way into a
permanent snarl
with protection.

I stomp into the other room and
shatter the rosy bowl
he let me borrow.
leave it broken, shiny
pink on the kitchen’s peeling
linoleum.
strip my skin of clothes and scent in
a hot steam bath
  i’m idling
and let the pieces
rest.
watch my step.

my place is
cracked and
full of ghosts
all bled:
a carnelian web
that sits atop a post.
you see my long legs
dangling before you see
the rest of me.

“Arachne”

learning to relax
via looking at Bulgarian maps,
tracing the Maritsa river to
a point of death, ice,
collapse.

the breath of a little girl
laughing, her fingers
on my sleeve, grabbing
then shoving me.

“the little girl”