thick wind has come back
I’m under attack
take my heart back
black thunder
rips across the land
the sky’s dry
tri-tip
frying like I
fingertips split black
powder
sit back
venom drips down my throat
I spit back
a damned sky cracks
white lightning flash
backs
words clash so fast
blast from the past
a knife
and a shadow
a ghost
in the past tense
I can see through
me and you
quicksand
compact
a solid path
blood bath
peel me apart
I’m see through
deep deep breath
fuck you
The dragon doesn’t wake with the sun. It is warmed
through mock light, on an affected cove. It looks
like it could be made of mopani,
but he cannot tell colors
what they should be
and what they are not.
I left him a note, this morning, by his glass house.
In his rest, he inhaled the pushed warm air
that circulates my blood each night.
I promised him Aspen and Cabbage and
my return.
I am late. I am always pushing the clock
into my lungs, back to my cycle,
back to little hands and little
feet swirling around
a glass house,
tearing cabbage for a dragon that
constantly stares at me.
I am going to be. Here,
in a sticky womb,
a living room made for
madness; a sautéed fanciness.
The feast is being set,
just above the chandelier,
they call me by number,
my tattooed slumber calls.
White isn’t always padded
or strapped. Most likely
it only surrounds
the dark blue ring
around the sunburst I look at.
I think I am a painting.
Rembrandt is too gross, but
Picasso, he is enough mystery
to create me.
Half of me sprawls across the cold,
I wait for night-watch to
twist me back to form.
The other girl squats in the corner.
I smell feces and antifreeze.
Do I dream? Can I dissect the fumes of
the dead?
Her charred body crawls toward me,
she removes her teeth.
Everything glitters like a shadow.
Then, I am here. In the morning.
It isn’t the sun that tells me,
but the number, tattooed to
my skull.
Doctor, tell me, has Picasso gone home?
I chiseled out an ancient face
and hanged it in my head
though it was not quite alive as I
was waiting to be dead
we trudged together through a desert
smoked a fat cigar
nibbled on dirty tortoise shells
burned our feet on tar
it went like this for twenty years
or thirty, or probably more
long enough that desert sand
began dripping from my pores
and now my skin has turned to bone
and my pretty name is aging
my ancient face is chiseled out
my brain is disengaging
and though I’m not quite as alive
as I would like to be
I am grateful for my blistering walk
through the desert sea
You who are with me,
who ache with me, please,
lay still, hold your breathing –
we are sinking
we sink,
beneath wings of bad mothers,
through sad voices of home
our dead limbs fall off,
our bones sleep on their own.
You who are with me,
who are silent at night,
who separate stars, who burn with out light
hold on
hold on
to the hands of these words
we are sinking
we sink
through this very dry Earth.
God isn’t softening,
we are starved by disease,
by darkness, by deepness
of the valley’s between us.
You who are with me,
who ache life away, lay still,
hold your breathing,
hold on to your life,
we are sinking
we sink
away with the night!
Be still,
or churn,
like butterfly milk,
like curdled cream.
I dreamed that we cannot dream past September.
Maybe God will explode then,
and all the stars
and all the planets
and all the moons
and all the science
and all the religion
will mix together in a giant tornado
and the desert will no longer be
and then,
I will no longer be.
You stand tallest! Alongside mountains, looking down
at your insects below. Your long, strong arms
cross a heaving chest of a man; one who
drinks whiskey from God’s own hands.
Our trembling knees wobble past your
black Pinch Tassel’s. We would swing from
your silk, pin-striped tie if we knew
it would strangle you!
I have waited by the water.
I have slept on spore infected carpet
and have rotted away,
have been filed away,
in between four walls and
a blue jacket.
Do you want your coffee, sir?
Do you have a dead line, sir?
Can I give you a hand job, sir?
And the air stays cold,
Antarctica is near.
Who are you in your
baggy black jeans, watching
piss ants form long tedious lines
from ground to
leaves?
Who are you with your
tight pin stripes, walking the
easy walk through spit fire
rain mixed
streets?
Who are you, resting raw on old
sheets?
Who are you with your bold thumbs,
and your forward reflex,
and your creamy repose?
Who are you to those who know your
thoughtful silence, or your blunt anger,
or your cold shoulder?
Who are you to the ant, the ground, and the leaves?
And, then, who are you to me?
Here I am, spitting the fury dragons out
at you.
Here I am, grating your skin
down to truth, scratching away your faux colour.
Revelations!
I lift your sweat stained sheets, rummage beneath and
cut you off at your ankles. Then, I feel for your knees, and
when I find them
I nail them to the perfect imprint beneath your
clammy body. I move upward, farther upward to your
stomach. I wish you had a womb so that you
could understand the
torture of what I am about to do.
Life lurks inside you, thousands at a time,
all patiently waiting in line for just one chance!
I brought a blow torch for this.
I watch your skin bubble and slowly drip out of
character, down your sides and leak into your sheets.
You still sleep.
You barely flinch, snorting oxygen like a pig.
I move up from your melting pot, straight toward
your chest. Your ribs have been a great protector!
I have grown my sharp tongue out, praying that
it would not come to this.
I have no use for your heart.
I only want your eyes to open and see
me sitting here next to your truth.
Oh God! I am not hollow!!
All this time I have been lacking parts,
I have not. My bones and intestines
and muscles
and heart are curled in stainless steel.
These inside pieces are flexing against metal,
but I have been watching while
little and big hands tick around the clock.
It is morning, my crusty eyes meet the sun.
My hand brings water and poison to
meet my tongue,
then suddenly night grips me and we dim,
in warm embrace we rest.
I am with baggage and a stamp, on my way
to mirror a bride,
or a student,
or just “myself”,
without a key,
or a book,
or a groom.
It is morning and my crusty eyes meet the
birds swimming in last night’s weather.
My hand burns from last night’s torture
and brings poison to my tongue,
then suddenly, night wraps its
pretty, long legs around me and we rest.
Where have I been recently?
Where do I want to go?
To a mirror, without a groom?
To a classroom, without a book?
To my “self”, without a key?
It is morning and my crusty eyes greet me.
My hands sting with reality as I rub last night
out. I have unrestricted bones and muscle,
and poison,
and poison,
and poison.
maggiemaeijustsaythis 