Tag: creative writing

when you find me
I am sitting on the dirt
twisting  a mask
in my fingers
and you could not catch
what I said only that it
was muttered,
repeated and there is something
not quite vapid about me,
but lost and then
filled with something
else. the first thing I say to you
is it’s torrential.
I expect you to know what to say
back. 

are my hands changing colors?
 I examine them myself,
fingers spread, string
around index, mouth cover
dangling.
I expect you to know what
to say back. 

“Carey”

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A neighbor once caught me staring at the license plates on my block.  I was five years old.  We lived in a court and I was allowed to play in the court by myself so long as I didn’t wander off too far anywhere else which I did often but I had grown used to crouching, hopping fences and often could slip in and out to Lea’s house undetected. I don’t know the circumstances of why I was outside but I do remember it was overcast. I do remember I had a light jacket on, probably a shade of pink. I am sure my hair was uncombed. I am sure my bangs felt too long. I am sure that I was trying to rid myself of this hindrance even so young, tossing it away with my hand constantly or tying it back in a ponytail, patting the back of my head when it was sopping from the heat wishing I could peel it off. When it was cooler, I left it alone. Left it down and I am sure I was wearing pink corduroy pants with brown spots in the center of the knees and they were permanent. I was sure I had been tucking my chin to my neck and twisting the pine needle with both hands and crouching, my knees strong then. My white sneakers scuffed. The tips of my shoelaces drawn brown with mud and I am sure I didn’t hear her approach me from behind. I am sure she heard me muttering. 

I had been going up the driveway of each neighbor’s house and sitting behind the car, in front of the license plate. She had seen me from her window.  I was looking closely at the license plate, that is all she could see. I was looking at each piece of information. VA for state tags. To be clear it was VA, like VAH. Like the sound it made. Vah. I would say it.  The letters in front of the numbers. Some would be doubled. Some in doubles. That felt special, like they were chosen to be doubles. Like some plates required scrutiny. This one had a green tag in the top left corner which was usual but also did not have repeating numbers. XGH-2879. It would have sounded better, I am saying out loud, XGH-2873 when I hear her.

“Honey?”

 

I was five and soft and supple and ingenue and so much deeper than I am now. She said what are you doing? from behind me which scared me. I was tiny and crouched there with my most favorite one to hold; the withered needle. I am sure she heard me. 

 I said I’m trying to read the code.

 

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if i was a man,
i’d have a big dick.
I got a nine millimeter, I say,
casually, waving my hand over the wooden
board. hidden in this house.
I got this house lined with weapons.
I place the orange butcher knife
on the linoelum counter,
scraps of tomato still clinging so
I can
scoop the slug up from beneath the
dishwasher and put him
back in the shade.
he follows me out.
easily distracted.
we were having vegan charcuterie
and he is drinking chardonnay.
with me it’s always
something, plentiful,
homemade.
he’s seen half my knife collection
now and every inked guard;
the other half tucked in various places.
I gestured to the antique table,
to the pepper spray,
the hammer by the door.
I point out the ants
lining the sink.

swathed with charms,
I can’t kill a thing
and half the town has figured it out.
I wear my arms in
muscle, others’ biceps.
keep them around cuz
I can’t kill a thing
and half the town has figured
it out. point to the baseball bat.
show him my pearly growl.
this is where the poem begins

we both eye the slug moving
through the garden
til he disappears.
I begin pointing out
webs.
it’s 7:42 pm,
88 degrees and
the sun is out,
my shoulders dark.
we are both tan,
hurt, a possible onslaught
if we were not otherwise
stuffed and I am practicing
silence,
sitting on my bench.
we are two inches from each
other and I can’t help but
melt when the cool breath
hits my left cheek.
I’m plucking at the hem.
he grabs my hand
to stop my ticking.
what’s that?
he says.
this is where the poem begins.

 

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they say I talk too much
and I’m inclined to agree,
perhaps I’ll
show them the scorpion etched
on my clavicle and no one
has ever seen my childhood home
but
I’m compromised
by the simple fact I think
I might be a ghost so I’m
always checking mirrors
and calling 911, waiting for
the fireman to touch my arm.
they say
“your leg is not numb, ma’am.”

but I can’t be sure so I make
him touch it again.
one trick is never tell them
anything. I like my men
to think I wait in lonely
cavern, ache
and pray for them.
palms clasped and reverent,
sort of rocking like that.
real southern too.
just sort of worshiping
the idolatry of shadow.
please.
they make me repeat it:
please. and thanks
for everything.

my men remember me
incessantly and always
cut out of starry dough:
soft, head half cocked
looking up at them
with servitude but
sideways like I’m
about to laugh,
grab their wrist.
“let go of control.”
then me in my day skirt,
hair covered and
muttering.
candle lit or twenty seven
if I’m out of time.
devout.
pocket full of them.
what a violent question.
you’re sunburned,
gone for weeks
now a wash of here
and forehead fervid,
humid wind clasping
the back of the choker
I’m wearing
while your left hand lifts
my skirt.
my thighs are soft,
reminiscent,
it’s the skin that brought
you back.
what’s that?
you say,
looking at the blue and
black ring of shadow
mouth
above
my  birthmark you swore
would identify my body
in a crowd.
bet no one sees this.

it’s the way your jaw
bulges as you bite your
ocean wet tongue
that was just kept safe
under my earlobe
before you begin to
pull the rope
til the emerald center
pushes hard against front
of my throat
almost as if you are going to
bring the stone inside me
and please.

what a violent question,
love.
“Five of Wands”

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(this is for house of leaves circa 2013)

there’s this girl I killed.


she’s dancing for me
in black:
black blindfold,
black panties,
black fingernails
scratching at my larynx
pulling questions from my lips.
she wears a morose and
cloying smile.

the hallway is closing in on her:
it is inches from her bare breasts
speckled with black marks, charred
from spare matches when she conflated
masochism with trust
long before I ever came along.

when uncloaked, I breathe in
her sterility     a virescent mass
 growing from her chest;
toxic moss that threatens the whole garden
everytime she hoped
her wounds would be given a sadist
 to hold them.
her eyes fall on mine like heavy snow
in spring: it blinds,
it’s unexpected and
unfortunate,
damages everything
nascent in the ground
and causes wrecks,
she says to me.

     

             it’s like the way the moon drives men
                      to madness when she finally
                        disrobes, as she goes and sings

  and stings with her guardian tail,
her ferocious sadness,
her ubiquitous laughter
never seen, heard everywhere.
she should have grown tulips
shaped like daughters,
but instead slashes at them
like a God on fire
begging to be humanized,
 touched with bare hands,
begging to be boxed
one last time.
       it causes wrecks

each time she smiles,
she is gnashing teeth.
she is twirling.
she is pouring it out in blizzards.
when she cries,
she is screaming.
when she wakes up
      it causes wrecks.

there’s this girl I killed.

the blossoms are frozen.
everyone is celebrating a
resurrection of water
and she’s thirsty,
she’s sunk,
evaporated and coming back to haunt;
raining like God,
Sisyphus.
a storm of a kind that
wears the equator;
how she bore the world
on her spine.

there’s a crack in the world
 tonight and
    it causes wrecks
she tells me,
you have opened it.

“the corridor”

 

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(transition)

what’s it like looking east to west
and men for miles?

but nice smile.

small.
unmonitored fidgeting.
nervous laughter.
seems to force her way through small
talk and presents as
calm but quite fanatical
about some previous existential
crisis that she says
was“indelible.”

she doesn’t show me her skin
or much of her teeth when I
am watching. she’s
 currently being touched and
it seems,
does not like to be touched without
motive.
she is currently being undressed.


she is currently turning from ice
to flood,
to steady stream of
cold, red blood
and asked me to sing this
last part out loud.

 

“how guys save me in their phone”

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in Boulder,
it was the same reason.
it was called “Unity.”
I was invited by a girlfriend.
we talked a lot about
life and mysticism,
the way currents showed up
for us. I wish I had
documented more of the tension
of the room. like the gratitude meeting,
I stayed with meetings that forced
everyone to share.

they went in a circle.

 I sat in a room
among them, mostly
men, always mostly men:
some young,
some old and reluctantly,
shared when it was my turn,
becoming chair,
inviting others. 

once I remember saying
I can be really manipulative
and a guy that I had reached
out to about something,
never responding,
made eyes at his sponsor.

at the risk of being
labeled shrewd,
I still liked being seen. 

“unity”

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I used to
leave class
in high school,
go to the bathroom stall
and masturbate whenever
I let dirty thoughts
build too long.
usually it wasn’t
the subject of the class
but the way a boy
brushed my sleeve
on the way to pick up
the beakers.

I used to ask men
 to reach under blankets
at house parties
and touch me.
my shorts not so
tight they couldn’t
be pushed to one side.
I used to pay their
way in when there
was a cover,
crawl up
their stomachs,
my mouth smelling
of Bud Light and
cigarettes and smiling
bright asking them
if they were still seeing
Mariel and if they wanted
to reach under the
blankets.

I always had a spare
five dollars on hand,
at least three cigarettes
and a way to materialize
fire, a way to morph
into lap cat
for whomever I
craved.  my name
is a whispered name.
a baleful sweep
of syllable in halls.

“the rooms”

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after each meeting,
I stood awkwardly and
made small talk.
I would give almost any
woman my number and barely
kept up with what I had told
anyone but I

 made efforts.
one day I got a fortune cookie
that said
“focus in on the color yellow
tomorrow for good luck.”
this meeting held
a lot of talk of God,
as it had a few catholics
and devoted disciples like
I, interested in the supernatural
themes of faith and
manifestation.
we spent many days
focusing on the third step
regardless of topic
and the passivity of that step,
being actually a willing action,
yet a passive stasis to uphold
is what kept me under spell.

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives
over to the care of God
as we understood him”


the carpet was blue
with yellow circles everywhere
and that’s probably why
I made it my home group
shortly after I got the fortune cookie.
after much reluctance to join
any of them, ironically,
I picked the only group
that was mixed but
mostly men.
just me and one or two others.
and these men were
not young, but old.
I slowly invited more women
and they showed.

what they always ask me
is what my motive is.
I cannot simply say
that I looked at the carpet
and saw it was yellow
as someone spoke about the
divination of action into form.
I did not intend
to build the group,
amass it,
celebrate it,
throw an anniversary picnic,
show up weekly and
listen, share, open
vulnerabilities but listen.
To wives and the ways advantageous
players play,
then let my serpent spine
sizzle in its case,
one day call them all sexist,
balk at the coming year’s celebration,
do nothing but exit
and get all of the women
to leave.

“God”

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sometimes when I think back
to my fuck ups or falling down,
I come here and I see all these
women and I think,
whose answered prayer am I?
she said
and that struck me.
when women speak
I put my head down deferentially
but also out of my own
need to curl up
inside myself.
It’s winter, 2015,
just past the new year,
I’m broken hearted
and knee deep in
some fucking secrets
but whose answered prayer
am I? who called
the wounded shepard
here? It’s 2015 and I had
just been gifted three thousand
dollars from my grandmother
that my parents called and asked
for back.

I gave them two thousand and
used the  rest to move out of
the townhouse
into a one bedroom
in the heart of Kensington.
embraced by the “Auspicious
Coin Laundry” service next door.
no one would ever miss my house.
I didn’t have anything left o
over but I never did.
it’s worth mentioning that when I was
eighteen and just home for
the summer from college,
my mother told me they had
cleaned out my savings account.


“family”

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