In the woods, I saw him once
Through the trees, the branches crunched

My basket warm, with gifts to spare

He took it all, left standing there.

There was no ax,
No take backs,

There was no peace,
No songs to keep

Oh, his ears,
Oh, his teeth

Stalking me, to my granny

Till he went in too deep,
Lost his feet.

The only other way, gone
is down.

do you see it?

the ghost of a body still pretending to be whole,
stitched together with breath too shallow to hold,
stitched with nights that never end,
with mornings that never mean anything at all.

do you see the signs?

the moth drawn to the wick,
wings already smoldering,
the glass filling too full, too fast,
spilling over onto hands that do not flinch.

the rope hums its song in the rafters,
the blade dreams beneath the bed,
the sea sings with its mouth open,
waiting, waiting, always waiting.

and oh, if only you could see
how the body answers.

it leans over balconies,
toes curling against the lip of the abyss,
wondering how it might feel to be air,
to be a prayer half-spoken and swallowed whole.
it lingers at the water’s edge,
feeling the pull,
the old song of the tide,
the voice of god in the undertow.

this is how it happens, isn’t it?
not in fire, not in fury,
but in the slow and quiet way a candle drowns in its own wax,
in the way hands stop reaching,
in the way a name turns to dust on forgotten tongues.

why do you watch,
and why do you wait,
if not to stop it?

a simple answer, truly,

"because who can catch a shadow
when it has already learned how to slip
through the cracks?"

here, beneath the shadowed bough,
you reach —
a single, red glisten,
heavy with promises.
the weight of the world lies
in your palm,
unspoken,
sweet.

but the skin, oh —
it is too thin, too thin
to withstand
the breaking.

a bite, a ripple
through the quiet,
unhinging time,
unraveling the silence
as your teeth sink
deep.

your tongue tastes
the truth of the earth —
sour, sharp,
forbidden.
and from your mouth
pours
a flood of knowing,
flooded with the weight of seasons,
lost, swallowed whole
into you.

a garden crumbles.
the roots,
now tangled,
burden you —
bent, broken beneath
the fruit you’ve borne.

and so you stand,
in the ruins of choice,
eyes wide, waiting
for the consequence
to catch up.

the apple rests still,
forgotten,
waiting
for your next
bite.

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it----

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a **** lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?----

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart----
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there----

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

there is
inside me
at my deepest part
a little black ball
of rage

i don’t know how it got there
well, that’s only half true
i don’t know how it quite got there
at my core
at the heart of my being
but i know when it got there
hewn hard into my flesh
my mind, bones
tempered into me each night
my matriarch’s take
on hephaestus’s forge
and each morning
quenched in the light of day
each walk to school
under the sun’s yawning beams
miasma erupting from my pores
the liminal release before
the cycle began
anew

so, suffice it to say,
it’s in there deep.
DEEP deep.
and it reminds me every day.
hissing out from my heart
seething out of my skin
the steady sssssssss
of it always in the periphery
BGM for my life
like whatever that Animal Crossing theme is called
but sharper
a slicing sliver of steam

most days
she’s content to rest easy
in the wet dark alcoves inside me
a passive hum of her slumbering ember
rattling from my chest

on others
she demands her freedom
tells me i don’t deserve the reins
tells me i need her to lead us
i say “no”
she rouses
sizzling note rising to a low rumble
she says yes
i say No.
first
a jet of flame
burning bright blue white
like the first blazing pinions
from a piece of fresh firewood
seared sap seeping into
sssssssss
down to deep crimson
a spider lily dancing out of me
showing me
beautifully bouncing
and it’s tempting to get lost in that
get lost in the beauty of a renegade part
of your very own soul saying
****. That.
saying
****. You.
there’s something profound about it
(and someday, i hope a wiser person than i can tell you about it)
but getting lost in it is a snare
a distraction
more importantly
there’s the
ssssssssseething

if you listen hard now
the little black ball
she says
sssssssss
no one will ever understand you
sssssssss

another burst of light
that sinks sallow
from it
she shrieks
sssssssss
your only talent is pain
sssssssss

now a cascade
SSSSSSSSS
she roars now
a lioness tearing her way out of me
into me
she says
you know it would be better if it was just all gone  
my back erupting
a billowing cloak of indignant ignition
stoked by memories of midnight visitors
with knives or less
and christmas eves in dank dirt rooms
of ****** tears and well-tended wounds
and this is part of the temptation, to be honest
to just              

                                burn
with
it

to let go and feel
fall to it all
to succumb to the anger.
sorrow. vengeful vigor.
ambrosia would feel like this
ultimate release
my metaphorical form Usagi mid-transformation

                                 We
Burn

and i’m gone

there’s no me
just us
just her
we’re a phoenix of rage
she sneers through my teeth
a cheshire grin in smoke
she leers through my eyes
unblinking and vulpine
together, we cut down forests
burn and salt the earth
in devastation there is clarity, ya know?
we seethe
we embrace
in that flame
we connect
we seethe
shrieking a banshee’s call
unheard to all
but us
We
Seethe

and it feels amazing
truly
but as we all know
there is a cost to such things
and the cost of flames is steep
so. not plan A.

she needs out though
my little black ball
and i think she deserves to seethe
she deserves to rage
and so, some days,
i let her out
i let her out
here
right here
she reaches for you
wants you to know
the burden and blessing
the sorrow
the anger
the hiss of her voice
she wants to be known
she wants you to know her
you're almost there
it only burns for a moment
can you hear her?
can you hear her
sssssssss?

my heart is a lie;
a false adoration for
all, but riddled in
silent sharp truths