“your end game is establishing psychic stability
with extreme ordeals as part of your
metamorphosis.”

my need for superfluous
fluctuations in behavior,
lifestyle and mood.
I am  God-drawn,
celibate,
obsessively
testing myself and
binding myself to
new conviction,

I am wrapping myself
in my insistent
unhinging,
and my lovers’ brides;
for the way they scream my
name into the pillow.
but I am distant.
I am giant.
I am waving my hands
in the air and calling it
time.

the solution to all things
is to wait. oh, I am far,
far away and
quiet in my cave,
becoming whatever I say
am.
becoming whatever I say.

be careful what you think
but more importantly,
be careful what you say.


“the magician”

“am I always the lamb?” 

I envisioned myself crying earlier and then I felt the beginning ripple as I stood on my bedroom floor, suddenly up again.  I wanted to stay lying down but the shadows all over my walls moved. I could feel it rise in me. I would think of Hecate. this is what you asked for. this what you got. nothing. I started to sob unhinged:loud and childlike. knowing that your parents will vanish and so will your childhood. the house full of mold, soft. falling down. having hardly any remnants left of it living. many things gone too. the structure of your family dissolving. and the shell of it, me, here. heartbroken. missing so much of my childhood that will never be again or be seen again. the house itself  rotting.. it will be abandoned. it will be torn and something will be rebuilt on the land. I cannot explain or mention these things in passing, therefore I don’t get into them. here I am still, standing, facing the cream of the wall between paintings. 

only a second has gone by.

I wanted to go back outside and also never leave the bed again. these fits are normal for me. these spurts of energy. this was a breaking of chain. ground it, bring it down your spine and sit. rest. become a maelstrom of your own, not the tornado. watch your conjecture. get to the faces. I always tell people not to look in the mirror when they take these drugs because they will be unable to look away right away. they will inevitably see themselves deform and if they are unhappy with their body already, it is not the best place to start to pick yourself apart. especially as it becomes amorphous and takes on the superpower to morph into what you say it is. however, I looked at my face in the mirror twice already; once intensely for minutes in the ring light and upstairs, here, briefly, as I reorganized the jaspers. caught in the mirror. this was grounding today. 

“this is an unusual trip. there are no hallucinations.”

I noticed the brightness of my eyes; both the color, a real honey amber in sun, but also the light that came from within.  I was squarely inside of myself and squarely inside of my rowhome seeing the flaws: the cheap paint scratched, the floorboards coated with cat hair always, the general illusion and my greedy landlord. I saw it better and inspired by it, could affix myself to my eyes. not changing. not structured. not a form to step into but my real eyes. my real container is not the rowhome. I still felt like dust was hurting me. this was a day before cleaning. I had planned both trips this way so I can become comfortable with any dirt reminding myself that I had done this on purpose. that I was confronting a deeper part of myself today: the iterations, the obsession, the thought patterns that looped and forced both the organization, the sweeping and the burning of the house. the burning of the whole house down. you cannot outrun this. this is ground. this where you live. 

im a liar watching my men like clocks. I looked at the journal again. the journal information about sun. this brief nebulous of him but really me, not us but the relation I need. comparison. speculation and mystery.  and also relating. I turn the page. in big letters I had written DONT BE A MARTYR. I saw that downstairs. too late for that.

I spent an hour in that graveyard,
sobbing openly over a child
named Catarina.
I held my hands out to the
trees and told her I was
so sorry for pushing her
down the well.
it was an hour of
distortion and public
theater. know the hour passed
because I left with three hearts
on my hand.
they say grief slices you

and
I returned to my slanted
cat piss house covered in
tarot cards, my smattering
of piecing the way I push
and pull and you,
a mirror in the afternoon
sunlight;, now pink in a yellow room
from the rectangular stained glass
windows that I watch move
as I lay naked on the floor,
let my neck rest,
so deserving, all day
tense and up and vigilant
and watch the glitter coat
the ceiling. let my
mind race to empty

and it felt dramatic,
the walk there and back
and the way I stated it
like that as I threw my arms
out to Ebby, I am back
from the graveyard
and ok, no falling,
my biggest fear is
falling off the Earth,
I’m talking to myself

unsure of what had passed
over me- I began to draw
myself large and
cartoonish, figure myself
against a backdrop
as I let the sweat
roll off my back.
she beckons:
throw change on the floor
and make way for an assiduous
pursuit of more but
she only gives me one future
and that is a rift
that I have caused.
I wrote some other epiphany somewhere
right? in my large sketchbook,
it’s all

phrases like the way
systems reflect larger pictures.
we’re all in conflict now.
we’re all detainees or holding keys
and then longer processes:
in one lifetime, I’ve collected
several horror stories especially
if you tell them from the
bug’s perspective, as I’ve been
known to switch

narrative  direction and you didn’t
cross my mind at all the day
of August in my sweat,
the last confirmation that I was
scared to feel a void so deep
the only word to
muster, God.
like falling.
coming down is
like falling into
the fourth wave
which is waking up
but you have to be careful
what you say.

also be careful what
you think.

“fourth wave”

“I’m always knives-out,
a chain of razors folded
behind each gesture.
You who loves me: are you
paper? Or plywood? Or stone?”
–Christopher Morgan

I never write about blossoming but
I’m seeing inflorescence in
dejection: my censorious
portraits cascading and
my unpolished toes
at the edge of the kitchen
where the carpet meets the tile,
an unwashed bowl of almond butter
next to my tea,
empty half of a house,
my patient sponsor and the
tail end of my
frantic texts    public mania;
an affinity for
inscripting every feeling
somewhere permanent.
begin to plan the next
black mark on my body;
a large alligator named
Milo. I’m flagrant when
offended and they
say I turn violence
inwards.

I could have been
sitting still,
saving face,
explaining through private sessions,
watercolor,  the grace of
long sleep, ten am and
fresh and lucid still
immured in dream.
she mentions  doing the
dishes         she mentions
deep breathing         

I see a bud in the daffodils
you left,  a water filled horizon
that distorts my perception
of what “leverage” really means.
and the big picture,
obscured by my choice of lighting;
all fluorescent,
            it’s cheaper
blinding        everything overdone
with explanation and
cyclic editing,
ornate,
constant litter.

I liked some things about us:
two dirty bowls to wash
but saw clearly.
we were soaked in
soft lighting and I held
your gaze,
your torso,
your incogitant rage
that I managed between fits of
self soothing and pleading,
placating.
mouthful of bitten tongue,
some little good timing,
ready for
          hi there
some little soft haunting.
for you,
always:

a toothy smile,
walk for miles,
fingers crossed for some
little soft revenge.
you?
I think about you
every now and then.

“milo”

the pressure of the headache. I am so tense. the movement of my hands across the head. calming in very small doses. I had taken my hat off but at some point put it back on. it feels soothing to have weight on me. on my head, on my body: a blanket or pillow. I like wearing hats. I like hiding my hair. I stretched my forehead again. it was so much pressure. I unclenched my jaw again. I began to run my fingers all over my face again and my whole body tingled and it was incredibly serene right there. I had to keep my eyes kind of open fluttering, closing them was too confusing. the mushroom wants you to see the visuals they present; not to dream but to experience. every time I closed them, the drugs willed them back open. 

I was staring at the painting again and thinking, people who go outside to take their drugs to escape are really missing something. it’s the nest you want to take them in; the cocoon, the place you spend the most time to see what it reflects back to you. in this kind of bubble too where you feel trapped, stifled. any dust is intensified. the first trip in this house I had in the middle of cleaning.

“surrounded by chaos inside and outside.” 

It’s March 2020 and the pandemic just started.

I guess some things you
can’t forget and
I couldn’t stand the sight of me
so I watched the willows
perfect their melancholy
some days

when I walked to the edge
of the city and back.
they carried it naturally
and I tried passing windows
without looking at my face.
it’s dark at four and
forget about the moonlight,
or a headlight
or my sun lamp.
my body sees no glare or
person and
my head is drawn
in hoods.
I am their winter rival.

my pores were lined with bentonite,
steam and suffered
prayer; a nihilist effort’s
worth    my skin was
exfoliated but my heart
was still blood-thirsty
in knots.  Nana’s rosary
draped across my wrists
and most of my fingers stayed crossed
becoming a space containing little breaths
of God.

I scrubbed the dirt from every inch
of my scalp,
the bridge of my nose,
under my elbows,
my kneecaps.
any crack that light could fit
I tried to rinse it first.
sometimes I took the long way to the store.
29 degrees and someone drew a giant sun
blanketing a tulip garden
on the side of a wall in an effort to,
I only assume,
preserve summer and cure their own
raging seasonal affective disorder.
I focused on the colors.

tried to pay attention to the subtle shift in greens
as the stems got closer to photosynthesis:
the yellow stamen, orange petals,
tint of turquoise in the grove of trees
hovering in the distance,
the way everything tilted towards the right
on instinct
with no speaking masters
and no shadows beneath them.

I leaned left towards your block
focused on feeling the weather change
in my tights and mock
wool mini skirt
in hopes it would
cure my malingering,
would halt my bloodlust,
my persistent inner child
pleading with her hands out
looking for touch and I am
suddenly spades out in your dead garden and
running forward,
something pinned between
my teeth:

lines, the way that
pauses form a book,
my thirteenth draft
to you.

“Saturn returns”