I watch the ants circle the trash can
without any interception.
let them lick the chocolate
flakes, the cinnamon
does nothing,
they’ve built homes in the
copper mounds.
I sip water and
press play:
que es esto?
Es Caballo.
que es esto?
Es Gato.
que es esto?
la influencia
de la revolución
y una venda
en los ojos
porque estoy
asustada.
girl, you better
run.
“correr”
what I did first was stacked:
learning early how to pocket
quarters and joint wrappers from my dad’s nightstand,
I also began the slow theft.
stacked: names, cash,
cans of beans, loyalties,
tasers, pocket knives, wigs, stockings,
nail polish, candles, rope, pepper spray,
eyeliner, lighters, marijuana,
mushrooms, different flowered
teas, boxes of pasta, crates of
methanol, bleach, batons,
baseballs bats, hammers, and
tarot decks.
I named the loyalties on pieces
of paper and placed them
in the abalone next to
Bastet.
Whispered Oya,
blew three candles out and
drew an R over everything.
the truth is,
at the bottom of my arms’ length
where I keep them
is a stark allegiance;
the things that raised me,
kept me,
grated me and remolded me
like slivers of soap being
made into one ball
and they are right I love being right
and they are right
I wouldn’t miss the end of the world
for anything.
I’ve never walked away from a fight,
I start
my name is Artemis.
I reset the table, one
candle for her.
“Philadelphia”
it helps me to fall
into haze in these
moments of adaptation
or just length,
time that has
to pass and my
adjustment to fluctuations
in my general
circumstance or
mood is dependent
on the haze.
i like fighting, I smile.
I have a few blocks to go
and every man is facing me
forming a crooked
cock so I just step
into the haze.
I remember this
one day where I met you
to get a Slurpee to
cool off for a while.
your face was most open
outside
drenched,
you tried to hug
me but I am
closed,
drenched in day old
bourbon sweat,
show up unshowered and
in a deep swallow;
a persisting contrition
coated in plum wine,
whatever else I just said,
Bourbon,
I wave my hands over the glass.
that was last night.
that was last night and it
was pretty bad.
but we sit side by side
like it’s something
non-contagious about me.
well except when you smile,
he said.
but I blush and I couldn’t
stand that so I
focus on my knees
remembering
what it felt like
under sheets
and I fell open.
then there’s my brother.
then there’s the new
hard edged smile
on the top of a frosted mug:
ubiquitous half smirk.
“I used to be in love,”
I say out loud
and I’m about one
block from the El
in front of another group
of men with their crooked
cocks and leering.
I close my mouth,
probably drooling,
adjust my strap,
walk forward.
I wake up like that
often and here
sometime,
in the middle of Kensington.
“August pt 2.”
when we met, I was
inching my way back
to my robust self having
established myself as a
case manager. having
scraped my savings to
buy an oil leaking car
that almost caught on fire
in the first week of work
back in August.
I then borrowed money
to buy a car that didn’t.
I had paid rent for three months
without much to do.
I was high on repayments,
seeing I could repay,
in fact, and
adding cookies back into my diet,
unworried about my teeth
for seconds at a time.
the party had vegan brownies and
I made sure to get plenty.
still I could touch my ribs
and almost wrap my hands
completely around my waist.
a measure of security.
I often squeeze my ribs to
see if I’m still thin.
when we met,
I had freshly chopped
pixie hair and clear skin,
green eyeshadow to make my
brown eyes pop.
limited eyeliner and a shy
way about scooting next to
you, feeling contagious.
when we met, I had a wardrobe
that consisted of colorful
and flowy items,
hand me downs,
and a reticent entrance.
I was seeking incorporeal
thrills via touch and
you were
(too tired to change seats)
freshly
out of love.
“the rebound”
I spent a week
cleaning out the bookshelf
and trying to decide what to
read in the short
time I had left.
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”
I’m in the doctor’s office
trying not to laugh
as he keeps pressing me
“what was your father like?”
I don’t have time quite frankly.
this man is asking me if I ever
feel like I am watching myself from
outside of my body.
I say sincerely,
sounds like you think I’m a ghost.
I’m trying not to laugh.
he is outlining various traumas
I may have experienced in my life:
my drinking,
my family’s drinking,
my previous assaults by men.
we talk MS, autoimmune
components.
we talk allostatic load,
latency of neglect,
the firing of nerves.
the confusing compression.
I’m just talking about the mirror
and gesturing a lot to the air
about the fact I asked for it
and then my legs went numb.
that was the first time,
I say.
when I asked for her to enter me.
before, she did it without asking.
I nod as if he is
answering the questions.
get on it with then.
Sir, I am possessed.
I don’t have time for this.
I stand up,
suddenly able to walk again.
“LILITH”
I ignored his question,
showed him the
callous on my palm,
referencing my need
to grip.
sometime I have rough sleep,
that’s all, I shrug the bruise
off.
he licks my hand with his tongue
without questioning my need to
hold everything so tightly
I’ve succumb to carpal tunnel,
arthritis, delusions of
grandeur and infancy.
“has anyone ever talked to you about splitting?”
the doctor asks.
where am I?
I was twisting the straw
in my fingers, contorting my
face and confessing things,
sometimes i like to shoplift.
“Who is Catarina?”
the doctor asks.
numb.
“splitting is a phenomenon in which you sort of leave your body
to allow another persona
to take over.”
the doctor says.
sometimes I like to squeeze worms in my fingers
until they pop.
“like possession?”
my posture is severe,
having been found hunched over I am
upright, hands crossed and
waiting.
sometimes I peek at Christmas presents.
“no, more like split personality.”
the doctor is taking notes and
eyeing me so intensely, I almost
laugh. don’t tell him my name
is Arachne. not
yet.
sometimes I watch the mirror dance in candlelight
and wait for her to come in
I break men
like the swell that rises over bridges
engulfing islands with her mouth,
we break men with turns of
tides.
“Sarah, have you ever felt like you were standing outside
of yourself?”
we break men with
dulcet metronomy,
or the way words do:
harm.
“Poltergeist”
we left with our hands
uncurling
in separate pockets, fingers
strained against the denim.
I left a place where I found
God and
a studio apartment
with no utility bill,
foothills with no rain and
zero percent humidity,
sun 300 days a year and
a rose blanket that smelled
like my parent’s room.
I left my
first incantation,
my brother is dead
in the margin and
you left me with this
townhouse.
an abrasive echo
that scratched marks
in the walls,
no budget for paint.
one half of the utensils,
a couple of wicker baskets
and no end table.
you gesture to the antique armoire,
remind me it’s yours
even though it’s not your
taste, you see the value
in heavy wood.
you took the bigger bottle of
toothpaste.
five chairs,
all the curtains, the area rugs,
the broom and your
glare lingered on me
counting dollars
in a borrowed sundress,
feel my clavicle
jut out the skin
as I rationed meals.
you took the kitten and
the lighters,
every last card
(left the armoire)
and so abruptly like when
you took my waist that
one breathy night,
pulled me into the crook
of your body. said
you were going to
squeeze me in this bad neighborhood
rolled out of that soft spot,
grabbed a litter box,
took clean off.
“doors #13”
freedom,
as with any other illusion,
is a cage; square
of smudged windows
or
slowly cracking doors,
screened porches and you’re
watching the kids chase the wind
into the gulls at the shore.
brick walls with a hole in the
mortar and you’re peeking
through the cracks of your
latest lover’s absence,
trying to catch sight of
the tips of their nails
for the synesthetic trail
down your breast or
the scourge and
when settled
and mended and feeling
very tall,
broken glass on the sidewalk
as you leap from your
place:
burning, indelible
in char.
doors #12
as if I am even hurting anything;
some embittered tremulous
thing shaking her fist at the
moon and praying for a tidal
wave.
you notice my arms are toned,
you say I really wear my weight.
you watch me lift bone to sky
and notice the notch in my veins
before you even notice
the flood.
“flood”
daturamoon.com 