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the first thing you notice about me is
the way I saunter when I walk anywhere,
even to grab a ginger ale from the cooler
“it’s my favorite.”
but then linger near the
exit the rest of the night with the crumpled straw
in my hand
and the temper on my tongue
contained,
but I’m waiting for a siren
to let this thing out.
my name is artemis.

sometimes buildings just catch on fire.
you say I always crouch with a
bow in hand.
“I’m just nervous.”
and that when I am lying I look away really
fast so you can’t see the smile spread
across my face and you know
I fucked your friends
and you know I’ll fuck some more
and you see me on the screen
my name is Artemis.
parting lips, combing bangs,
practicing inflection as I said
I would.

you said you’ll always remember
the way I laughed LOUD
and so sudden like you were the funniest man in
the whole world.
and I’ll always remember
the first time I was invited anywhere.
my name is Catarina Kocurek
may I come in?

you said yes.
no, it’s not that you said yes.
you said “ok”
as I walked across the welcome mat
throwing matches as you swept.

“how guys save me in their phone #4”

June 7, 2019 0

rainstorm.

unscheduled and I had been
comfortable in shifting drought.
avoiding the wasps
hidden in the grass
with my clumsy, calloused toes
seasoned from walking too far
and too hard in unpadded sandals
when the first sign of spring hits,
and my sky blue sundress seems a
sudden hindrance:

flimsy, strap always falling down and
blows up in breezes
so I have to keep watching the way I
carry myself around men.
I crouch and the hem crawls to
expose my left thigh and the
garter you gave me:
not the daisies I wanted,
a ring of bruises
in the shape of your open mouth
still fresh with conquest;
lasting impact of
your parting breath that
said nothing and now
just hangs there and hurts
when I shower.
wait

I’m counting cicada shells
under the picnic table;
a gesture of presence.
someone told me to stop everything
and I needed a year to pass.
I scrubbed away the last of your fingernail
but I have to ride those
bite marks out.
blinked once and a ripple in the sky
burst; liberated and aimless,
she shows just one day’s worth
of self-containment uncondensed,
without tension, falling naked
she’s black and soft and
seamless surfeit with mild
violence, crackling and
completely cageless.

my feet are covered in mud
before I even notice the shadow
wash over my bangs.
wait.
drenched in flood my head
is dark red because you liked
“subtlety”
and I liked demonstrative movement;
a hint of auburn wasn’t enough to show
blood with just a little bush
so I adorn myself with ritual:
hair dye and cleanses,
little thorns,
little kills to draw your
attention. my knees hurt and
all those cicadas are dead
so I stand to lift my face to the thunder;
a small gesture of inflorescence.
Wait.

open my arms purposefully
like petals of a rose exhaling
in relief for the drink
her master brings.
parched from the work my dry words had done
undoing
as they roamed free all over
your front yard.
God makes pacts with penitents
and you barely have a face that isn’t
my reflection so I’m itching to be clean and
fresh and start
again.
stretch my neck with pride to
to catch her drops on my tongue,
bold with repentance
and ready to wash away
the phantom jaws that bait me.
but suddenly charged,
the gray sky remembered
she held lightning.
and suddenly illuminated,
I remembered

I am
the dark thing
inside of me.

“prayer”

June 6, 2019 0

repeat after me
the first thing you noticed about me
was that you’d seen me before and
my s l o w southern accent,
my impervious sway and
bit of a drawl but mostly
the way I smirked:
sometimes red-hot,
sometimes ice-cold.

my name is Lilith

you called me cool
and unapproachable and

my name is Lilith

felt
the outline of my torso move
in a light rescinding way
like the edge of a storm changing
course but

my name is Lilith

you called me Lilith first.

June 2, 2019 0

the theme this year is handmade
and hidden.

eat your chocolate-covered raspberries
and please,
try not to cry:
not in public,
and not in that dress.
not on this day.
wipe your sticky handprint
on a towel and throw it in the
hamper.
blot your glistening lipstick
on a tissue and make sure it
makes it to the wastebasket.
wipe the counters with lemon-scented
dish soap.
light a candle.
set the table.

embrace him when he enters.
he made those carob-coated kisses
from scratch.
you deserve this and
he deserves that.
you earned that swelling thing.
he earned that red ring around his finger and
his base
and that homemade batch of quick mix cupcakes;
the cardboard leaks into the batter
but you mostly taste the crushing waste of
conversation, of
years together, of your
creativity misplaced.

today is priceless and
boy, you sure worked hard at hiding those
resentments.
you should be rewarded.
wet your whistle with some low class
cognac.
show some teeth,
bat an eyelash.
give those big burgundy lips a big, juicy
smack.
make him yearn for those polished tips
climbing down his back;
sculpted to scoop frosting,
you let him taste the vanilla from your
index.
make him work the dishwasher for it.

but first make sure he swallows each
homemade mouthful;
gulps each morsel,
glazes his throat and everything that touches it
sticks.
he’s satisfied his girl can do this;
his girl can prove it.
wait til you hear his lips smack back.
boy, you sure look good in that apron
hovering over him, a domestic
giant and he looks so good
choking at your ankles
tasting all your sprinkled
thumbtacks.

“valentine’s day”

May 18, 2019 0

you’re precarious, and I write a final
warning in the sky:
get out of this town.

but you want to show something off:
gather your pack,
skin some hides,
cross into this side of the hills.
yea, I’d risk swapping infections with you:
scarf down the whole town in an effort to escape
yourself, myself,
we both fuck and run
for fun,
but it seems I’ve been absconded
from my all male zoo, and
you salt my face with spit
when you tell me
you’re mine
and you’re snacking on my cheeks,
really laughing this time.
I’m yours for the slaughter,
wild elk for the taking.
besides, I’m the only one left
who doesn’t scream
when you chase me.

you’re a wolf.
I’m a swaddled baby
trapped in a cave,
I’ll prove it,
come taste me.
abandon your cloak,
the cover of trees
camouflaged in the leaves,
fur like bark
so I mark you on accident
with my sordid tongue pen.
I leave my initials everywhere I’ve
ever been.

come find me and
feed.
treat me like you need me
to survive this coming season.
step on my neck.
pull the skin from my teeth.
suck the moisture from my breath,
whisper:
home
as I bleat,
as I lay at your feet
and empty my guts on your
claws.

“from your secret admirer #19”

May 18, 2019 0

(What if no one’s the killer & no ones the martyr?)

he always talked to me
like I was a word problem:
he furrowed his brow and
looked 100 years older than me
but didn’t leave any more
of an impression than that.
he was an egoist with a small penis
and he licked my face sometimes
when he finished.
that’s when I left

I thought about screwing the entire community
to get them off my fucking back
but the way you touch me
feels less tenuous,
spacious like breath,
like lungs rising from their skin cocoon,
a lot like late June
before the heat hangs us
with her relentless swarm
so I keep my gaze towards you.

we used to talk about my feelings a lot
but I could tell it bothered him
when I brought up the fear of pedophilia:
but you can’t tell some of them are 17:
not the way they move when they run,
shirts off, they could be
20
21.
I’m a creep too.
like a sale on day old bread:
fifty cents is not a lot
and I just want it all.

he always said “interesting”
after everything I said.
I was a loony tune caught in the moon
pretending to love his censorious stature,
but really when we fucked
I just thought of those young men
arms wrapped around me,
tongues on my neck,
18 and over.

the more I remember
the more the whole thing seemed like a poorly written rough draft
and I just kept waiting for the twist,
the prize behind Door Number Three
that turned out to be a supernatural force that drove me
to contrived madness
and I just ended up feeling bad about everything I ever said
to them.

silence is astounding
and I filled it with talking spaces,
unfinished business.
he called my sadness “savage”
when I ate my own heart during the famine
but it was better than doing a rain dance
with our shriveled. cowering tongues out
and no gray in sight.

in my defense, judge,
I didn’t know the bitch was coming back
to dig up her brother.
those little siamese cats
what a bloody, noisy mess.
had I known that;
how loud it would be,
the squeal, the cry at the first
touch

I would have started by ripping
out the larynx.

“the hush”

May 18, 2019 0

you’re something else.

something that can’t hang around
but also can’t spell
retreat without a
book being forced
in your face.

I’m a thesaurus, and I’m
suddenly panting
like an exiled Arabian
falling in love with every mirage
that promises water,
mouth as cup,
swift recompense for the previous harms
done by your
fathers.

we’re meeting in the middle
of a wide abyss that I picked,
and the first thing you want to
know is:
how did you get here,
and where do you really live?
and I want to know if you
brought any food and
why you ever let someone you don’t
know in.
you are unphased by the red veins
in the clouds, and the way they clap
black as my mood shifts,
the exes in my eyes,
the way the night moves out of my
way every time I step outside
to greet the twilight,
the portending moon,
and I am hoping we can
finally talk about the way it
felt when we left it up to
God.

just so you know,
I begin,
the greatest trick the devil ever played
was herself, and she’s the only one
listening to your
impetuous cries
tonight.

“the emergence”

May 18, 2019 0

I liked your pressed shirts
best
kept on you.
end of day:

wrinkled, faint bleach smell,
sleeves rolled up past your elbows,
I count four moles on your forearm
musk standing straight and consumptive
eating away at the fresh cotton scent
you sprayed in the air and
walked through just before I
laid on my side,
urged you to come in
from behind.
I was always craving the earlier temper
that had you so wet with sweat and
despotic reproach.

You would re-enact shit:
yell at the floor and I would become it
to prove my loyalty
to soft barrage.
I assured you of my masochism,
let you whip me guilt-free.
spent hours in the mirror
counting each mark;
the ways you showed me
how you owned me and I
followed your hot bellow
all the way to North Philadelphia.
I’m stuck in North Philadelphia.

I’m stuck in a daydream.
I’m stuck in a memory of a canopy of a
full fertile moon
that I painted my toenails under
the night he said,
“I want to see you more often.”
And my feet shimmered:
stars of the portentous summer.

You say love freely now without any meaning,
but the word holds a bit of a sharp weight;
like a knife when it’s oil-stoned, serrated
and facing you and you aren’t sure
how this is gonna play yet but you’re
trusting and palms out;
I count three cuts across your fists
like expectations you had on yourself
or someone else when you should have just
taken out the trash,
counted blessings,
bit each other’s tongues and hushed;
like a sudden accident
and you are humbled and
concussed,
unusually quiet and
stopped.

I looked in my bag today and saw
a bottle of blue polish
peeking out.
The train screeched to a halt
and I saw people tumble through the
exit signs.
I saw men that wanted to
shred my spaghetti straps with their
pocket knives and abscond with the fabric
to prove their might to
absent wives.
I smiled to show them my canines:
remind them women are animals,
women are predators;
foxes, defensive and
all of the time.
doors are opening
I found a book of poems that someone
printed for me and
a nail file.
(be creative, child.)

Are these signs or are these shadows
that are chasing me?
doors are closing
Asked for a hint.
(this unfolds reversing)
Now you become the braced masochist
and I become
the looming hit.

Began the note in my phone:
with love,
I spit.

“retribution”

May 17, 2019 0

you were born to understand
and teach lessons.
you were given a choice.
you chose this road
first, then the
present.

become an alcoholic to
find a higher power.
meditate occasionally to
see how well it suits you.
in between,
fill the emptiness with Oreos,
coffee,
a smoking habit you detest
but gives your fingers something to
do when you’re speaking anxiously
in public,
when the caffeine is rearranging your
tongue into metaphors and you
need a moment of pause,
clarifying to the audience
with a descriptor you
forgot.

run a 5K every three weeks
to give yourself a mission,
get back in shape,
hone your vision of
yourself.
bathe everyday.
tell the cat you love her
and pet her for an extra few minutes
before you walk for hours
to lose those new found vowels
completely.
pluck out your roots and
dead ends
hiding in a stealth spot.
begin a practice of voyeurism.
sit comfortably and
file your nails into sharp points.
when deadly,
lean into them.
write everything down.

start ordering your steak rare:
inhale the lost veal,
the lost zeal of an entire feedlot;
the scent of plasma and cud.
devour a a squealing colony
without remorse.
give cannibalism a chance.
you’re talking to yourself in public again.
the looks from the other patrons are fine;
they don’t bother you.
you remember them with skinned knees on
bathroom tile; your stomach in
velvet knots,
your obsessive purge.
you remember them peering at you
in courtrooms,
you remember them in handcuffs,
in shackles,
side eyes from jealous brides
as you make a scene at the open
bar.
the way you’ve stolen, the way you’ve
groveled afterwards. the way they held
onto those wrongs and their
condescending pats on the back,
withdrawn.
how you’ve managed to
survive it all with gratitude,
without much impact.
you’ve risen to their ranks.

get your wisdom teeth removed
and then
cut them into daggers.
check out Home Depot,
ask for “industrial size”
ignore all the
are you ok ?
you’re muttering again.
read the directions,
this stuff is toxic,
don’t get it on your eyelids.
press the bone back into your sockets,
flick the canines,
gotta be solid.
smile:

you’re still celibate.
you’re still hungry;
avaricious,
less slovenly from
all the exercise,
less addled than before
and armored like the night.
go back to the diner,
lick your plate,
click your tongue.
you showed them how starvation’s done,
you showed them how to roam.
you put your money where your
mouth is: your gold
is in the bones
you glued into your gums.
now you show them home.

your mouth is lined with
homemade knives, and you’re
wafting noxious with each
breath you begin to teach
them how to
move on instinct.
you begin to salivate
with virile.
you begin to chew more
loudly.
Miss? you ok, Miss?
now you’re gonna
show them how
to run.

“the siren”

May 17, 2019 0

“I scheme a lot,
I know,
I plot and plan:
that’s how a queen in prison
spends her time.
But there is more to me than that.”
–A Lion In Winter

I want it back as good
as you get it.

I’m a queen wrapping her
linens in deity and
dreaming.
You are the stark silhouette
of a man on fire
stalking the world’s line
in an effort to destroy everything
that is naturally gold
or naturally divine.

I’m practicing brevity.
You are a friendly snake in my moss:
wraithlike and weaving,
delivering me whole orchards,
watching me devour the cores.
You’re black like me.
You waft wide away when you ignite:
spectral smoke that shifts into bored fingers
choking the equator’s throat
to have a good time.

I emasculate.
You invite.
Remind you,
I have no true armor or fists
to fight this,
I am no knight.
I’m a spell;
a woman of deific heritage who felt like a pot
boiling over and needed to
cool off for awhile,
remembered to kneel and wash my face,
drink the bubbling creek of my
cool, blue heart:
a cathedral door standing frozen,
and slightly ajar.

I’m carnivorous but sick of the mess
so I become a melting ice cap
that will soon rise to run
and ruin everything she rushes.
You are impossible to hold on to
but I chase to soothe
like ice water on the last day of June
when school is long out and the high noon beams
are shining on every slide on the block
and the toes are branded pink,
and I want you to swallow me in one sip,
gag spit me out in the dirt
and lick me back up slowly
from this burning Earth
while I watch.

I’m entitled to this.
The day the world runs red with horizon
and I emerge:
my hubris residing in my tongue
demanding you guess my name,
gelid and expecting it.
Hear my chest creak in
anticipation, the stained glass shakes;
this great glacial organ that should give life,
but found in ire she is blindingly white,
binding, arctic and unmoved so
she just envelops everything she can
to preserve and study
and surmise she was right.

I’m hugging you tightly.
Your mouth is one giant O:
sapphire and stiff and trying to scream
and your two lips will never meet mine,
will never meet again.
In this place you will stay stationary
without a breath to blow
or a vein to bleed
or a vocal cord to tell me to stop or leave
and your confusion warms
these blizzard fits.
You want to tell me some final thing.
What left do you have
that I couldn’t conjecture myself?
I’ve heard it.
I’ve lived through this.

The words eternally yours
are most often cried throughout
hell, and I have spent many nights
covering my ears with pillows
and other ideas about
twins and pockets of
“well, it always starts in winter”.

“horizon”

May 17, 2019 0