it keeps no record of wrongs.
i’m saying it out loud
and I’m noticing my drawl
drawn out that’s how I know
he’s come round.
placed toffee on the other
mantle the way he likes
try not to ask about
whatever wayward lover
that’s been side eyeing
me or just puckering
their lips and I’m
hor d’oeuvres.
disentangled.
waste.
of time.
but here we are
marking everything
xxx with my fire finger
so I decide to
begin again:

love is patient.

I am trying not to get lost
in the mirror
which is a tall fucking
order (but drawing it
out so it goes
t aaaaallll fucking
ordddderrrrrrr)
when the little girl
enters the room.

the audience is lost,
I know. ok, so
there’s me plus
my reflection
plus it’s
what year and
there’s
how many
folks
in the room?

“Formula #2: Descriptive”

November 6, 2020 0

I know I’ll always be ok.by purpose, my namewill be forgotten. my real name.I am thinking back.if you can’t keep up,this is winter 2014. but it is alsowinter 2017.it is also spring andsummer 2020.the day I arrived in the hotelin the financial district of New Yorkto meet a Russian photographerwho promised me a night in an expensivesuite and a binding contractthat has been violated over timewithout my awareness,my nails were paintedblue to match mybruised knees.spread more, all the way.I thought that wascute.

I know I’ll always be ok.
by purpose, my name
will be forgotten. my real name.
I am thinking back.
if you can’t keep up,
this is winter 2014. but it is also
winter 2017.
it is also spring and
summer 2020.

the day I arrived in the hotel
in the financial district of New York
to meet a Russian photographer
who promised me a night in an expensive
suite and a binding contract
that has been violated over time
without my awareness,
my nails were painted
blue to match my
bruised knees.
spread more, all the
way.
I thought that was
cute.

he gave me a fishnet
black onesie I ripped a hole
in but wear on dates
to remember us by.
and even though
he took advantage of me
and you felt betrayed
by some unshaved labial
part of me,
I made my half of rent
for once.
in the car from the bus
stop on my smile
spread and the bickering
couldn’t dissuade
the new confidence.
the way cash feels
sizeable in an envelope.
ok, chill.
fuck,

I got rent, right?

“doors (#7)”

November 6, 2020 0

at three pm,
I show up to the church
just my tourmaline in
hand, hair wrapped
and I begin.
God, I renounce all
evil in me.
my hands twisted
like roots, the white string
of my cuff ties
between my knuckles,
nervous
and he says
daughter,
take your time.

beads of sweat
ride my back, pull my
camisole tight to skin and
I can feel the pleather
stuck to the bottom of
my thighs so that if I moved,
the flesh would have to be
ripped from bench.
I’m obsessed with time,
and that’s not the issue
but how I count it
in riddles.
he cannot see the way
I move my leg;
the natural tremble
it’s developed.
it’s what I say in
blackouts, or even now,
the way it has to be correct.
the way it spills out of me.
I’ve twisted the tie til the circulation
is cut, tightly around my
ring finger.
and that I need to be subsequently
scourged, promptly.
begin unraveling it when I feel the
pins start up my knuckles.

I’m nodding
my head in some sort
of agreement with something
internal, with the
rush I feel from purge,
the glow of sun
through pink stained glass
across my cheek,
the bend of legs
on pews,
the comfort of
the ailing, the
rhymes,
to ailment.
the comfort of beads
in hands, or
anything, the
alms.

I am here and
practicing throwing
my arms
open
when people
first
walk into the room
but also
remembering what
I
scream
at doors
in panic.

“the recitations”

November 6, 2020 0

I have a recurring vision
of me on the ground
twisting string in my fingers,
delirious and
I swear I can’t breathe.

I swear I’m not forsaken,
I say out loud to them,
I swear I renounce all evil in me.
tell him this is urgent,
my legs are jelly and I
cannot walk
sir, I cannot walk anymore,
I repeat to the EMT that refuses to
give me oxygen and
you materialize, suddenly
screaming
I am praying for you.
you are not making it happen,
you are seeing it first.

wait, back up,
that’s too complex
.a fire engine blares its horn
and I’m still wavering
in front of the park.
the little girl is doing
cartwheels for a small
blond child but when she sees
me looking again, she skips in
a circle and smiles.
I know never to bet on
anything that talks
so I push the whole thing
aside, keep walking.

feel a bone
in my knees
bend.

“nine of wands”

November 6, 2020 0

all day long
I vacillate between intention;
maybe a couple steps forward
or skirting one craving
and then the immediate withdrawal,
the later three walks and
four coffees, twelve cookies
and picking a fight;
my habits,

my beloved
hermeticism and the double meaning of
everything and I’m
ambivalent about every choice
I’ve given myself over to;
even in completion,
I shrug.
let the wind take me.

now I am
in Philadelphia,
and I have an Access card to
buy toilet paper.
I am also writing letters
to Colorado llying
saying I got into Temple’s
education program and I’m
raising my hand in meetings
to volunteer for service
earnestly.
getting invited to social things
and showing up early.
crying endlessly and in public,
which refreshes me.

I am dog sitting; house sitting for
money in Queen Village,
and I spend the days
drinking their coffee,
sneaking their chocolates.
using their washer for my own
heavy blankets,
and walking the pit bull
without the choke chain
she gave me.
not trying to make a fuss
about it even though I do want
to put it around the woman
walk her on her fours and
then tug a little bit.
that’s a part of
innate ferocity,
an ardent step, a
boil.

I observe the doors of people
in Society Hill:
clean black or
mahogany
with the numbers painted on
them or in brass next to their
outdoor lanterns, their empty
flower boxes soon to be leaking
zinnias, petunias, geraniums.
soon to be fingered,
picked by me.
I am obsessed with the material
possessions of others
and knowing I’m no good
marked this place for
later:

we should rob them.

begin to circle the area
with the pit bull
understanding clemency only
gifted to the few who
have smiles like
little sunshines
and white skin,
tanned but porcelain
otherwise.

“doors #4”

November 6, 2020 0

when you came home
with the giant brass
industrial art piece to hang
on the wall at the top
of the stairs, first I noticed
it had no smooth
edges like a pinwheel
fringed with daggers.
in fact, I was afraid
it might cut me in the middle
of the night and the second thing
I noticed was
you were a libertarian
but I had the grace to not even
ask how much it cost.
I had bought us an entire chocolate
cake using food stamps
so I cannot judge and I
have learned
life is meaningless.

the third is ennui.
you become overcome
with a sudden fatigue.
you can’t even argue.
you can’t aggress or retract.
almost as if you are floating
through it all.
but not as happy or light
as that. like you’re being
controlled by a beam.
it’s more terrifying the
grip this new surrender has.
your arched back,
your upward gaze,
some kind of nothing
and the laughter is braying:

so deep and directed
at you.

“ennui”

November 6, 2020 0

it’s midnight.
i’m with you
in a ball
on a quarter of my side.

you’re taking up a quarter of
my half of the bed with your engulfing
speculation and a partially harbored
rage marking pages you skimmed
to later find your place where you felt,
at the time,
some things are better left theorized
than openly enslaved.

I’m investigating an inner stillness
that dissolves when exposed
and counting
to ten, my sponsor said
contusions around my throat.
you’re learning about economics
this week:
hyperbole & statistics;
which way my freckles move
depending on my
frown,
the likelihood of a temper tantrum over soap scum
on anything I scrubbed,
unloved refrigerator pictures circa 1991,
premature forgiveness when I’ve still got to
fuck the bitter out but
someone gave me two weeks of yoga passes
so I’m suppressing it in down dog and polite nods
on a borrowed mat
on the other side
of town.
I’m crooked but
I’m hiding my scoliosis
in poses.

the amount of times my palms moved from open to
across your cheek and at what velocity,
how much of my useless back will face you tonight,
how long before one half of the bookshelf is strewn about
the floor,
how long before it’s all cleared out.
you’re a poor investment, Sarah
simply put,
how not to trust
anything that has to do with
us.
(count the marks on my throat)

you already know
about sharpness.
my Christmas tree is in a dumpster
in another state and most other things
shouldn’t be brought here or
shouldn’t be touched.
I’m in child’s pose
hiding in the closet
and tonight
you are learning

to never bet on
anything
that talks.

“the economist”

November 6, 2020 0

I start taking wagers on who
shows back up first
knowing it’s wrong to bet
on anything that talks
and quite frankly,
you can’t,
Mrs. Shepherd told me in the 12th grade
during AP stats, still proud I aced that
class but you can’t stop
a sociopath
from never feeling again,
can you?
I say to him.
I have a Smith and Wesson.

but I add
people think angels can’t have
guns and
that’s not true,
hand him the weapon.
we just can’t fire them.
hold it.
get comfortable with it.

pink collar says
PRINCESS, I’m wearing
antlers and a dirty blonde
wig. mock latex bodysuit
that rides my hips and
I am
only half bitch
three inches from you
on the bed and
half loading bb bullets
in the cartridge and
plainly drawing up
variables marked
xxx.

laugh out loud
cuz they
don’t really get it yet.
it’s not just execution.
it’s not just
having the arsenal
but where to put it.
pull back my curtain,
show him the basket
with the blue calcite,
the burned scripture,
the crown.

“formula #1: inference”

November 5, 2020 0

the first thing to go
is emotion.
that’s why I gave away

my clear Garfield mug
that was impractical in size,
made for child’s juice
and reminded me of my first home.
I cannot take everything every year.
you know, moving every year
precludes you just lose things.
you cannot survive harsh conditions
and also be struggling with
some kind of emotion,
trying to name the fluid
mood swing, you needed to

think and snap out of it.
it was easier to manage the complicated
process via fable.
but
it was not easy to communicate
any needs,
desires.
the first thing to go is
emotion.
could not carry all of these things
and had adult sized mugs to begin
with.
you cannot survive any attack
while hysterical.
histrionic,
I practice that word.

I cannot pass up cravings.
I am on my fourth cup of coffee
walking to the El,
paranoid and running through all of the scenarios
in which I will die,
planning my escape route for
each one and having zero emotion
or hope.
the second is hope.

to go I mean.
the first thing to leave
is all feeling and the
second thing is
hope.

“second wave (grief)”

November 5, 2020 0

you are only as sick as your
secrets the old man says
and I nod emphatically
like I found them and
am going to unabashedly
review my inventory
right here but
well

I have just
applied a fire engine red
gloss to my lips before
walking in and
I didn’t know this was just
for men, readjusted myself
in the middle of five.
I’m all black
monochrome
and partially velvet,
hostile,
internal,
set out for departure
since arrival.
my friends say I have a
clever way of falling up
and the ones I fucked
said anything
but easy
but taste like strawberry
which gets me in the door.

I start by confessing
that I shoplifted the kombucha
that I am drinking
cuz I honestly
just have to start.

“doors #2”

November 5, 2020 0