good profile.
have never seen her hair
she was
wearing a platinum blonde wig
when I met her and
then a brown one and then
a head scarf,
floral, purple, I
remember.
bangs peeking out but
the rest an
all black everything
including dress,
boots and nails,
eyes lined like soot
tracing the chimney top,
and she was a
studious observer,
a witch.
told me she “burned a sigil”
for this and then she
licked her lips
(think about me)
touched her nails to her tongue
(listen to me)
ran her wet nails down
her neck
(wait for me)
and I’ve just been waiting.
“How guys save me in their phone #11”
nice figure and
sharp glances.
obsessed with her wrinkles when
passing window.
thirty three years old and can’t seem to
thwart her own self persecution.
but an alpha.
told me to sit down on the bed.
told me to lay face down on the bed.
told me to consent.
said she liked ass play
and pegging and
doing things in pieces.
“how guys save me in their phone #10”
mood swings,
kind of mired in
a circular prophecy
that she keeps repeating.
silent in spurts,
frozen when alarmed but
then bursts in and says to
me: “are you fucking
watching me?”
like we’ve been talking
all this time.
“how guys save me in their phone #9”
if you shrunk her to the
size of a pine needle
and hid her in the bunk of
a barn underneath the bales,
she would shine like a comet,
possibly set the house on fire,
so you would find her.
“how guys save me in their phone”
the first thing I showed him was the callous
here look
and he licked it with his tongue
without questioning my need to
grip things so tightly
I’ve succumb to carpal tunnel,
arthritis, delusions of
grandeur and infancy.
“has anyone ever talked to you about splitting?”
is what the doctor said to me once
after observing me mumbling to myself
in my room.
sometimes i like to shoplift.
“Who is Catarina?”
sometimes I like to fuck the men with wives.
“Catarina is the girl who does bad things. I am Sarah. I am the good girl who does good things.”
sometimes I like to hunt.
“splitting is a phenomenon in which you sort of leave your body to allow another persona to take over.”
sometimes I like to punish bad boys.
“like possession?”
sometimes I like to peek at Christmas presents.
“no, more like split personality.”
sometimes I watch the mirror dance in candlelight
and wait for her to come
I break men
like the swell that rises over bridges
engulfing islands with her mouth,
I break men with turns of
tides.
“the journal”
They stuffed myself and three black women around a metal toilet in a cage designed to hold only stray cat. One was pregnant and kept asking the time and the guard always replied “Why does it matter to you? You ain’t going nowhere.”
Grace is being able to count the beats of seconds by secretly tapping your finger on your inner thigh while the pregnant woman pees right in front of you; spreads her legs and you don’t look but it’s hard not to. In here, they just let you bleed all over your panties. Women’s cells always smell like blood. I can’t make this up. (Call your wolves). I had an idea that it was close to 1 pm but I didnt dare say anything in case I was wrong about everything. I kept looking at my shoes and hoped no one here was going to shit in this toilet but I already knew that one of us was trying to forget her cramps and I was forgetting my broken body and the pregnant woman had a man to forget and two others had to figure out a way out and the pregnant woman slid off the toilet back onto the floor.
“I’m sorry guys. I’m pregnant. I gotta go a lot.”
We nodded.
“The women who robbed the men”
Court was fine. I wore a blue button up and my long black wig that made me look like a soccer mom or a very modest witch. I barely remember a single thing except I was convicted of a first DUI due to a technicality in paperwork. I had spent all my family’s money on a lawyer who spent all his money running late night TV ads which is how we got here.
Grace is the bruise the ankle bracelet leaves so you don’t have to smell the menstrual blood fill the metal toilets all day.
“Good news. House arrest. But you gotta sit in booking for a while.”
I nodded. I remembered booking.
“How to forget everything day 61”
all day long I do mathematical equations
they say I’m calculating.
in my head.
as I walk to the laundromat
shifting the hamper beneath me,
I think,
that’s an understatement.
I think a lot.
I think.
I think.
I love probability
like
what’s the likelihood I’ll see you again
believing I both convinced myself in this reality
and believe I convinced you it was true
so imbued in my delusion
but then God came to my defense,
I watched some things begin
to sprout like little poison flowers
growing out of the cracks
like refuge?
or the analysis like
what is it going to take to hypnotize
a small crowd and at what cost to my
well being and I was practical so
how much money will I make?
and statistically speaking,
we have to look at patterns,
not just equations but
trends so then here comes
the past.
I turn the headphones up.
you gave me a bouquet of
weeds as I was drinking
my third cup of coffee.
you had picked them from
our backyard when I wasn’t
looking.
you were smiling with teeth;
big, and I thought I loved
you.
I had gone upstairs to
change into a sundress
and tore something near my spine,
suddenly, like a rip inside.
I mustered up enough breath
to walk down the stairs,
back to you,
where you had been standing with the weeds,
where you had been telling jokes,
where you had been laughing and I said:
it feels like I pinched a nerve
and am having trouble breathing.
what should I do?
you looked up the staircase
on your way out
the front door and tossed a
I don’t believe you
as you were rushing.
someone else drove me to
the doctor and that doctor
confirmed it,
prescribed me Flexeril
for the pain and wrote me
a note explaining to my internship
why I wouldn’t be in that day.
I laid in bed, waiting for the
drugs to subside.
you came home
and attempted to justify
why you always felt
deceived by me.
I lay numb,
relieved of feeling anything as you recited
everything I’d ever done
that bothered you.
you weren’t sorry,
it’s Thursday and I feel
nothing for you
now.
I drop a pair of panties
on the sidewalk
on the way out and
someone calls me from
the corner.
I turn my headphones up
I feel nothing for you now.
“Thursday”
here is what I wrote down:
I had spent an hour walking one direction
without purpose or intent
only feeling the sun beat down on me,
me without water or
something to suck on
or a blanket to hold
and I was so thirsty.
without noticing, I was suddenly
surrounded by people at some outdoor
art show and I averted all the eyes
and tugged at my sundress;
the bottom always slipped up and
i could tell that they wanted to eat
my upper thighs,
see my tan lines.
you are cold and dry
my tongue was dry but I was hot that day
so men were everywhere,
my lips were open to keep
my jaw from shutting
and I don’t know how I got to the
park that day but let me tell you
that when my jaw started to shut,
I said nothing to anyone in that crowd.
I took my hand,
cavalier about it,
gave a quick eye over my shoulder
and opened my mouth with force
and continued not a break in saunter,
me terrified and looking for water
scared to shut my jaw.
you asked what living in perpetual fear
feels like and it is this.
“how guys save me in their phone #9”
She took her time. Each stroke became longer and more sparkly. It wasn’t necessary but dramatic as was the theme and when he come up behind her to hug her, she smiled in the mirror. She patted her lips one more time letting the blue shimmer by candlelight, washed her hands and returned to the party. The back stairs were set with alternating black and white candles, twelve each and the entire backyard was covered with string lights so everything twinkled.
“Don’t you think this is dangerous?” she asked, waving her hands over her Mary Janes pointing to each votive on her way to the bonfire.
A lavender laced joint was being passed around.
“We are doing it again.”
“What?”
“Thirteen stories.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“So,” Petesia clapped his hands together and went over the rules for the newcomers as she took her seat. “One person starts–they set the theme. Last year it was ‘Video Game or Nightmares’ and we were supposed to guess which is which after each story. This year…”
Osiria cut him off, “This year we have no theme because we haven’t started.”
Timidly, Ava cut in, “Isn’t the theme Shakespeare in Space?”
Orb laughed loudly next to her and Jelinda shot a glare his way.
“Well, it’s a Midsummer’s Night Space Dream but the theme of the stories and game can be anything,” Petesia said.
“So this is how it works,”Osiria immediately turned her attention back to the circle. “Someone starts the story. The person who starts set the tone; the theme of the story and the rule of the game. We go around until we get to thirteen. Since there’s now only ten of us, three people will go twice. The last person has to end the story that the first person started.”
“What’s the catch?” “Mr.” asked taking the joint from Ophelia.
“It’s got lavender in it,” Cat said.
“No, with the game.”
“Well, legend has it that whoever it ends on is cursed.”
“Mr.” passed the joint to Pan.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Annnd…” Petesia interjected.
“Annnd, we make you tell us the weirdest thing about you .”
“Ohhh, cool!”
“Well we did that before.”
“Or you have to confess all your secrets.”
Pan passed the joint back to Cat who winked at Petesia quickly.
“Or maybe act out the story for us.”
“That’s not all, “ Petesia pointed at Artemis letting his fangs shine.
The crowd waited.
“The story comes for you,” he winked, not at Artemis or Ava but at Cat. “And it comes to life.”
Osiria grabbed the joint from Pan before he could take a drag.
“Who wants to start?” she said. “I start almost every year so I’m trying to pass this time.”
“Oh you play every year?” a woman in a fairy costume asked.
She had named herself “Eliza.” Petesia and Osiria nodded at her.
“We try to keep them kind of short though,”Osiria looked at Artemis.
“There’s only ten of us, “ Marco said, circling to the group.
“Three people will go twice, “ Cat turned to gently remind him.
“I’ll go first!” Artemis cheerfully volunteered.
“Really?” Osiria shot her a look.
“Yeah, I love games!”
“So…” she rubbed her hands together and looked at Petesia across the fire. “The first story is called…The Woman Who Walked for Miles.”
“The 13th Story”
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