love story

sometime late January
you spent the night with a woman
watching the moon grow.
come take me in my own abattoir,
my thesaurus.
I unrolled my tongue
ready for our first kiss
and out spilled
someone else’s lung.
how did these things
ever get here?
I wonder aloud.

I had created a dalliant
stockyard in my bed
to occupy us:
red-hot,
full of other people.
you were outside in a corduroy jacket
counting her freckles
as I was slicing the outside of
someone’s arm
to crawl inside
for warmth.
wait for us to duel it out
in the morning
biting the inside of my cheek
to taste victory
and she was on top of you,
crowning.
well.

well,
I had been waiting to show you
self immolation and I know
some fun phrases like
vous aimez l’intensité.
you had been waiting with kerosene
and some promises to hold
my pretty ashes
hostage; replete
with scathe,
a few words.

“fidelity”

I first named myself
Sada Black.
this was years ago,
January 2017.
actually I first named myself
Sarah Recusant, sometime
spring of 2012.
I used to meet strange men
in strange places or in my studio
apartment, linoleum flooring
covered in dust and let them
photograph me naked,
legs closed and grit
when they asked for more.
I have never been nice.
I have always been a nihilist.
I’ve always been ethnically
and age ambiguous.
I’ve always had
a propensity for lies,
or as my family
cutely named them,
jokes.
secrets.

I do better solo.
shoplift solo.
grift solo.
wander solo.
walk.
when I began to walk the night
in heels, I began to emit
a low growl to evoke
the corner walls to talk.
when I began to tell the jokes,
I began to show them
my letter opener first.
when I began to crack a smile,
they felt the first pinch of skin
opening.
I give an inch, you
take a mile?
when they cried out,
I began to review the rules:

1. Do not make a single sound.

and I lifted my skirt to
show them the right leg
with the right one to cut.

“Sada Black”