went to the store,
hadn’t stolen in a while.
I paid for the bananas,
yellow candle and Gorilla tape.
But I pocketed the green
Ogun candle.
and no one faulted me for
that. I brought home
the red roses like they asked.
set the spiders.
most everyone
applauding save
some faceless lonely
bitch crying.
we don’t know her or owe
her anything.
“seven of swords”
“But women have survived. As poets. And there are no new pains. We have felt them all already. We have hidden that fact in the same place where we have hidden our power. They surface in our dreams, and it is our dreams that point the way to freedom. “
–Audre Lorde
-17 Square between Jupiter – Pluto
He might be tempted to manipulate or exploit to realize plans.
He is rarely satisfied with his achievements unless they are big. He is an opportunist, very resourceful.
-21 Square between Jupiter – Lilith
He may run the risk of ruining himself in order to please his partner. On a sexual level, he may go to considerable effort to please his partner, but a partner can remain insatiable. There can be disappointments in love until moderation is practiced.
keys,
a shuffle,
my half smile directed at a
windowsill and a forced
dulcet pause to
wrap a throw around bare shoulders,
strapless bra i’m mussed enough
to form new creases,
stretch my tousled jaw
into a long yawn.
I can see your long trail of spit
glisten lightly like snow
from elbow to the scar
above my wrist when I was
really hitting the wine.
wipe it on the pillowcase.
my lips are sand dry,
knuckles crack a bit when they reach and
my toes are curled for a different reason
this time, I am emptied.
your shadow’s growing larger:
an elongated feeling that stretched and stretched
and stopped right before
it got to mine,
bit back,
ran.
toss a look over brawn shoulder.
i’m no feast, you know,
but you wait like March hunger
for full spring, so close
yet still light blizzard,
you want that
hot spot to hit the ground
but snow lingers you want
that drizzle then moist
and green, some sunflowers,
a tomato plant and bees
offer their honey from the bottoms of their
black bellies.
sniff a tulip,
take all you can get.
feast on cool breezes of
me
when I’ll have it.
I cough or sneeze
and make no motion to ever
be haunted;
to ever be eaten,
to ever grow something from the arm
you licked that used to hold little butter knives
threateningly
towards him, towards me,
us hold scissors and
think about it,
hold shot glasses to not;
where I used to force myself to hug my brother
at Christmas
and nights, nowadays
any holiday,
etch his name everywhere it fits;
where you watched the sun
shadowplay with branches on my olive skin
and you mistook them for
fingers to grab,
hold,
where I stretched myself,
a bored tiger and lifted my once
impaled bones, my once river bones,
(wet for it every time)
up, held my hand up,
nails long and dry,
held your gaze,
waved without change in
expression and
your back is to the door.
i’m sitting up in a fetal position.
my profile is reflected in the
dusty whites of your eyes.
I have developed a new shade:
smudged green eyeliner and
the rest some kind of
lovely barren.
.“beds”
this next section is called Apotheosis
I did not want to throw up. I’d only thrown up once in Santa Fe when I took a strong and high dose but my best friend was there. she was very supportive of me throwing up and I was able to lean on a tree. she was able to calmly say let the tree hold you. and there was no fuss about it. now, I was alone and resolutely said no! out loud. fearing I’d choke to death due to recent medical problems with my throat and swallowing, having almost choked to death three times in a year. I would not even entertain the idea of vomiting ever. I laid back down. it was like this. the come up.
the coming up is hard and the coming down. at two intersections, your balance will be the most challenged. first in the body, then in the mind. this was brown jasper. I was staring at the pillar next to the framed black fox melting down white paper; his body containing a black and white dotting of a forest at night. these are my idols. that also soothed me but the mirror next to it didn’t and I had to look away. I had to take the pressure off. I laid down. even with weed, you have to periodically remind yourself you have ingested a substance and there is a reason at times that you are mocked by something in your house. this was true purpose. when you ease the tension. when you ease up on yourself, I am on drugs, you are actually able to let go of the thoughts better because they are inherently flawed. they are in a new untested equillibrium. the come up is resolving the equilibrium and the thoughts in the come up are sneakier; not as sensational but can be insidious. charming and hidden, depending on your character. me? I’m a snake. because they are so closely related to the thoughts you were having before you dove deep, but now intensified, they are unabashedly louder than ever.
the pandemic is the perfect time to live in delusion and memory but I have chosen presence as a display of servitude to my deities who have gifted me with vision. I am deified here on my cross, my orange quilt, my loose way with everything and everyone. and the truth was i’d been dodging life in an effort to sit down and type and this felt like the best first way to do this. to actually cave and give in and to start by allowing yourself to be taken by something that you have little control over once you ingest. to surrender to commitment. to commit to time. to commit to something. loyalty. loyalty is madness, love in a form, a manifestation, is loyalty. love is loyalty. true love is madness. I wasn’t thinking of my parents so much as being subsumed by them. every time a thought of my father passed I wanted to get up. how to sit. you cannot outrun this. what I value: loyalty, first to self and today was the day I would prove it.
What is more concerning, he was thinking, was the space between us and our religion which governs us.. He was setting the votives carefully along the stairs and praying quietly. A sense of mania surrounding him but it was muted, almost invisible. Like an electric fence. Daydreaming again.
Together, they marched but separate, each in their own quiet obsession. Catarina was counting hours. Catarina was reviewing lists. Catarina had practiced this walk, had a deep resolve, a spine made of knife and her knees were going to buckle but she knew what adrenaline can do. She drew hearts on her hand with each passing hour. The only time she pulled down the glove. Pockets devoid of cell phones, only a sharpie and some protein bars, there was no cell service here. She had advised Leana to keep her cell phone in the car so she didn’t lose it. Pliant for show only, Cat reassured her.
“I have a metronomic heart, you know. I can always tell the time”
Leana trudged behind her, adjusting her parka and getting ready for the first small incline.
“Cat..”
This was hours ago, when they were friends. She turned, bright, dawning, her auspicious eight am self: well fed, hydrated, head covered but face still exposed. She smiled to show her teeth.
“You’re full of shit.”
“do not seek closure here.
endings have all passed.
you are synthesizing. Girl,
you are just beginning.”
–responses from God during meditation, Wed 11:01 pm
I spent a week
cleaning out the bookshelf
and trying to decide what toread in the short
time I had left with
his books.
I was also debating
how I should present
myself next:
wholly, or
with my rigid cuts.
things that I remember:
painting my toenails blue
outside under a clear sky
and a very bright crescent moon.
we sat in front of each other
on a bench outside of the supermarket,
and you were amused
that I asked if we could
stop walking so I can paint my toes.
“that way I can stay out later,”
I said.
when you said
you wanted to see me more.
I make myself recite
love is patient
from Corinthians daily,
however, I let too much time
pass and I always have to go
back to the first line as
I am learning it but
today we are at
does not dishonor others
lucky you,
I think.
I’ve been reading some
leftover Anne Waldman
and your Eastern philosophy,
lucky you,
today I eschew making
myself a porcupine
and then making things brittle
enough to break
and
just chewing the inside
of my cheeks
as you pick up the boxes,
leave the antique china
cabinet you promised
you’d keep.
“the bookshelf”
daturamoon.com 