Photo by Jacob Mejicanos on UnsplashI am not a rule or a thumb
I am after the math changes
like when he comes and then leaves
on the black pavement, they don’t move –
they are yellow and dead
and glued by storm
without lightning, I cannot burn
without worship, I am empty
words do not matter
but I want them all
the words
the matter
the exalt
If I bleed out – don’t scream at me
for doing it wrong
talk about orchard red petals on wood tables
plate upon each other
soft eggs whispering to candle wax and I am
just buried in wallpaper
trapped in a past life
guessing on about oil in still life canvas
on a second thought my eyes shift
to roll back
and he slithers up toward my lips
because if he could he wouldn’t exist
yet here we begin
just two pieces of black ice
melting pastels into sunset
and if we could get it back together
from memory – where it is what it was –
we would pluck tiny pellets from
pomegranates in winter
for juicing
individually
without each other
He swims like a whale,
through life,
inflated,
blubbered up from pomposity.
He is all.
He creates territory
and torture.
I am followed.
To the outskirts, I dream –
puffed up on Winter
drugs, countered
by a pulse
that refuses to let go.
All the while, He is made,
poaching my land,
harvesting my seed….
and then they say it’s HIS plan,
so HE takes it all from ME?….
The season will change again,
as seasons often do,
and I will settle firm
inside the Earth,
where He will never follow.
Starved out of politeness, cockroach-kicked feet
walk across a blue night.
My lungs are stuck together, breathing in
radiation from the hot air
blown in my face.
The people, the people glow
white teeth at every camera. I see
the teapot boiling,
steam rising,
whistle blowing….
my ears ring out electric chords,
far from the classic, ghostly shadow
that sprawl across my nerves
when they start to shiver.
They eat very little,
or a lot, or they drink
or not,
or they lie and mispronounce their own
names on purpose and move around mountains
blending in with the tones of the town.
These people seem largely designed, I
walk on needles. I am little and not
proportionate. I dream about
ages, and eggs and other meals
that are not enough on their own.
Is anyone? Enough with just their teeth and
their camera and light?
“She’s only crazy,” says my mother.
And the hills are long monsters leaking
into my brain. I’m dizzy
and distorted. This image.
This image set up in sanity, or not.
I never had been born. It was old hands
that sketched my frame. Hands that knew how to suffer
wisely. It was a gift
to my bones, a curse that shifts
with weight and time.
Clocks wait on scales to tip time. I am rushed.
Blood cycles through my life.
Old lines outline my eyes. I am timed.
I slept with a man
and was traced. He recreated me; my child.
My simple face on a prettier canvas.
I didn’t wish for this.
I didn’t dream.
She just belongs to me.
I drag my bones along aching seas
each step pains deeper with memory,
with time.
Dark lines shade over mine.
They try to erase me
From my bones, I cry.
I cannot be
an easy sketch of a memory.
Each morning greets me differently;
she kisses my cheek for love, or
spits down my throat for some other reason.
I used to hate her obnoxious light.
When I was a child I threw sticks
at her and swore I would do myself
in before she could. I made rope from vines
that her sun rays grew. I gathered
poison that lived on her sickly Earth
and piled them next to my bare toes
as they dug deep through the planets
coarse skin.
I think I sat in this spot, with my back toward
her for years on top of years.
She burned and blistered through my anger,
but I couldn’t see.
Until, one morning, my daughter greeted me,
sat softly next to my feet and reached deep into
the pile of poison
that I’d been saving for me.
I did not touch yesterday, like I say I did.
My fingerprints are missing.
I lost them on a glass man,
wrapped my hands around
his whiskey sour, like I shouldn’t have.
He mingled with fire over
victory, like a beast gnawing
on my shoulder
I looked over his shadow like I owned him,
but daylight quickly ended, now
here I am. Fingertips dripping
off frozen glass,
as miserable as I planned it,
and here I still sit,
alone and empty-handed.
summer drips off walls and
coats black roads
we are melting into tomorrow
today was nailed and hammered by a carpenter with
a golden voice
It’s blurry, but I see it
people have lost livers and kidneys
and legs
and pets
and children
and I am sad for them, I am
from under a rock
from the depths of the Pacific
from unknown planets
where I am carried by a carpenter and His golden voice
A green barrette, a gun.
Good-bye, my lady.
If I cut my hands off, my lucky gun would fit.
I gave three seconds and died
happy, life is just a lesson.
You are thirty seconds to the grave,
I am just a prison.
You’re Irish season swallows poison,
we terrified your liver. Good-
bye, my lady,
I am drowning in a river.
Everybody is looking,
I have your money here.
You cheat! You’re a cheat, painting courage over
with fear.
My white girl, I love you,
with a dark and heavy gun.
I shot you up, a million shots
with copper loaded love.
Drink your dark poison,
swallow your tainted love.
Good-bye. my lovely lady,
your green barrette, your gun.
*WARNING* THIS COULD BE A TRIGGER FOR VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ABUSE/ASSAULT
In the morning he crawls across me
pasting me with his skin
his limp tongue travels around the clock
tick….tock
I watch the fan spin my blood to a thick boil
fists tied white
chest tight
open wide…..
spiders crawl in
feeding ammunition
his slow words lock the air
his hard wear
my pulled hair
I’m twisted around this prison
caged in a dark rhythm
until the deep alarm
the heartbeat
his slimy little army marches through deep flesh
he smiles
trying to disarm me
and I watch the fan spin around and around
and wait for the
spiders to crawl out.
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