one time I came to in my kitchen
holding a knife over my wrist and
a phone with an unsent text
to a girlfriend
asking for help,
telling her where I was at.
these things haunt you
when you do the dishes
sometimes.
“squall”
Dear xxx,
I hope you’re happy
soon.
“How to free yourself”
but to you there’s no difference between
decimation and the resolve so you’re
palms out begging for it
and here comes the reaper
wearing your blood.
you are God-drawn,
celibate,
obsessively
testing yourself and
wrapping lovers in
protection.
what white eyes you have
even in blackness,
even in malice you take
the time to care:
line their wrists in violet,
mugwort, alyssum.
crown them in tourmaline,
rose quartz and apophyllite.
it’s your gift we’re after
hear them clap.
become the madness for
them; deliver asylum and
I love you.
it is always me on the hearth
learning chants and you
tall, wickless and
unburned beside me
so I can’t see unless I
set myself on fire
and you remember the
bind you’re in.
what it’s all about.
I already said:
it’s the titles you should
be looking at.
“this unfolds reversing” or “in pyre”
at least I give you transparency.
even when I’m moping, I’m dancing
in songs of satin
rippling with sob and shimmering
deep bright with
the sky’s opacity.
I am combusting: a
flood of recourse and
you are
drowning, immersed
in capillaries bursting with crisis
and then immediate clarity.
my hands let go of the
flood I’m cradling.
you watch me move
like a snake across your
ceiling draped in shifting
constellations
you have no choice but to
memorize and I’m wearing
the crescent as a crown and
your ears like a gown
and someone else is full of warnings
gutting rabbits
in the garden.
each night I go to God and ask
for favor.
in the morning, I remember
one line.
I hand them back their most
prized possession:
a page, one line;
one at a time
wrapped in
flakes of
shrimp and you
told me you were
STARVING.
“aquarium”
consult the oracle again.
wear what you want,
let these animals control themselves
my tiny ball of citrine says so
I put on my cat suit
and go for a walk
to catch tan in the new
big sun. it was a long winter
of regression, needs unmet
and anchored in self by
a weighty repression,
lamps and the length of
my ire stretched, permanent,
coming undone on your pillow
where you wept in peace
until I charged back in
costumed in tank.
i’ve blown the tea lights out;
my presence is altar,
sit naked in the eyeline of the fan and
spools of smoke from bamboo incense
crown my head I am showered,
manicured, my skirt is barely an inch of fabric
containing my pubic bone or
buttox so they’re stuck
to me like sweat hot salt
sticks dripping down my skin.
I dab some tiger’s eye oil and jasmine
on my wrists,
brush their arms with
my nails, cut through centers,
stop absentmindedly to change song
and let
their thighs press my thighs,
their forearms hit mine.
it’s the invitation I am waiting
for. there are
ambulances wailing all over town
carrying victims of stroke
with blood rushing upward
forming an arrow,
the fletching pointing to their throat.
they feel the beat of wings
before they feel
my hands wrap their larynx
and the first thing they tell me:
you’re full of secrets.
“catcalls”
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 tongue,
bold with my 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”
The train was fifteen minutes
late and I was
one month
and counting.
“the accident”
you tell me your preferences
with a bit of a clenched fist
and I know you are fighting
some primal scream that turns you into
the thing that beats the submission
into me, licks me clean
and that is
fine;
I’ve been around.
I’ve dated men
plenty of times:
saved their leftovers,
moved their crossword puzzles, watch,
socks from the floor,
ignored their predacious attacks on my
girlfriends.
ignored their violation of
contract re: respect and space
and “I’m too drunk to sleep
with you.”
ignored their wandering eyes,
wandering hands,
wandering notions of pre
consent when I am now too drunk
to stand.
I’m proud to say I’ve adjusted
to many morose habits before.
in fact,
my newest craze is
self-cannibalism:
find the trauma and puncture it,
bleed onto my palms and
taste it; the way it felt
to be used like that and years later
the aftertaste swallow
another old neg or two,
a curse word, a punch directed at the wall,
a public critique of an outfit or body part
or everything at once.
a light strangle, a light
choke in the sheets;
a little sexual coercion to get me roped and
in heat.
(I’m ready for this)
that means you were tired but wanted it
sometimes the body is replete
with blockages and I just
feast on past rapes
until I’m plump,
obese with past places
that rocked me gently to sleep
I was tired but wanted it
like a noose,
but worn tastefully.
that means privately and quiet
ass swamped with little taps
at crowded parties,
“honey, smile!” and “where you going, whore?”
hips full with sudden caresses on
the subway, at the office, at the party,
after school, and other places too;
my fingers bursting with strangers’ hands
that grabbed mine in the bathroom
when I was sick and he
assumed a slumped girl over a toilet
wanted to touch him, wanted to
prove something could rise
from her grip.
lungs heavy with little moans at the
wrong time, little “nos” they just can’t
hear over their own gasps,
over the bed creak,
over me slowly falling asleep
underneath them.
(that means I wanted it)
my sacral remembers every single score
of every man that touched me while I was
peacefully sleeping in my inebriation,
that means deserved
and every man that grabbed me on the subway car
and every thirteen year old boy that rubbed me
as a five year old girl
and every man that watched me hang myself
first
before he would either remove his dick to get
the law involved
baby, here are my words, they are the law
or believe me at all.
I’ve dined on my own tongue;
loyal and quaking
flush with recollection and
shaking prologues for
so long,
even a yawn at the wrong time
causes her to shrink
in ignominious retreat.
honestly, it might be fun to have a little help
disappearing completely
no, no, you sit, I’ll stand, I’ve taken up too much space anyhow
and
if we both get started
there may be nothing left of me
by dawn to hold onto
or photograph or
fuck,
follow with your car,
tell me what you think about my style:
my gritted smile,
ass, boobs, hips, and face.
put me in my place:
print those pictures and
exploit me,
deny my needs,
deny my history.
whistle slap gaslight,
intimidate in alleyways when I’m trying to
get home and you’re trying to feel
giant, or when it gets going–
mind the rope there
ignore.
with all the kinks possible,
wouldn’t that still be something
kind of new for you,
boy?
“you up?”
grow up big
like
great, big
potted
bonsais:
warped,
admired for aesthetic,
pruned to look pained,
trimmed excessively
with some self-seeking worship;
most every limb
lacking expansion
or utility,
most every limb
kept smaller than it
should be.
“girls”
“I have opened it.”
–Alfred Tennyson’s last recorded words, October 6, 1892.
and letting her inner
child suddenly scream in
public, what became of
noise trapped:
an ode to tombs
in reverie reflected
back.
marrow cage pinned beneath his
sex and a
a grab for steady wages,
three thousand pages of
unique rejections,
and my wrists are bound
together by a little
self denigration.
a noticeable attachment to water,
currents or anything that’s
palpable,
a noticeable longing for windows.
my veneration for absence.
a noticeable longing for door knobs,
race tracks, wide open space
to act out the disordered thought.
my admiration for sadists
and what they take,
an unwavering self-beratement
tightening the joints of bone bars,
my masochistic streaks
and the interminable door
slamming shut.
less concerning to everyone
involved:
a child who paces the room in silence
hugging herself and her twisted straw,
murmuring at the walls
and a noticeable absence of
anything palpable; namely
them, fingers,
love.
“doors”
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