we ditched the main path and ran up the mountain bike trail,
gained some elevation,
we found the rusted remains of a car wreck off the side of the trail
that must have been sixty years old.
afterwards we shared nachos and modelo especial,
that was nice.
my body was wrapped in the warm pink blanket
rocking on the wicker chair as you
paced back and forth on the front of the porch and I
couldn’t hear the devil speaking from between your lips because my eyes were softly shut,
my being a blind cloud floating
softly in the nighttime cigarette smoke,
the part of me you were trying to hurt was the insides floated out,
just a cloud watching the clear night sky
and the cupid's arrows and the knives hurling
back and forth back and forth blew right through me,
because I was somewhere else.
but babe you are so sharp!
so I came back together to run inside and grab my pocket knife,
I sat down on the steps by the side of the porch where you couldn’t see me but you could
and sliced a dramatic **** on my right thigh
13 cm length 5 mm width
the blood flowed fantastically, unexpectedly fast dark and shocking, trickling down my leg
just like when you come inside me and I stand up.
I did it for the devil, and so you’d pause the devilry and take care of me
which you know how I like and which you did,
taking the blade from my hand putting an arm around me
examining and cleaning the wound
the blood staining your jeans
pooling wasted on the concrete.
later in the night I chucked the knife into the grass far away
where it remained neglected till the morning
when I came to collect it.
you fall asleep so fast in my bed baby, even when
the night’s been so bad, even when the
moon’s out full and the clouds blown all away
the devil floating softly ubiquitous.
you start to sweat softly and small twitches play across you
from the nightmares playing ubiquitous in your conscious unconscious
I watch you sleep and watch the sweat collect in droplets on your skin
thinking you look like a wet angel hoping you’ll never wake up
I wonder, do abusers learn from their abusers how to hurt?
the way you love baby the way you love it feels
a lot like hurt

People act as though Evil is tangible truth
And it infuriates me
           As if they know the Devil’s face like
I do,
Intimately,
Know the meaning behind the fingers
twisting your doorknob
scaling up the side of your pajama pants

hiding behind a mask of silence and night.

People act as though hurt
        Is something that can be jailed
Despite their lack of knowledge
about the physics of
locks and keys.

The worst insult I can think of
                  being called bad art
      being burnt up to ash in the

fires.

If I was a provider of the content I like
Like I wanted to be I’d never have gotten that
Surgery that ****** up my mammary glands
      I’d gush a milky **** for all audiences
    Even the ones that knew me before I turned bad *****
And spoilt
Even my great aunt and grandma and mom
who have finally befriended me
on Facebook
The ***** in me covers up and cuts off these
Lady parts
But I heat up and cant hide
The spark in my eyes when I see a girl
Unafraid of her ******
Wearing lingerie on IG

Feminism to me is radical or bust
Is ******* your ****** ****** and
Taking lots of pictures as proof
Of your own ****** occurrence,
Reposting if I get taken down,
Moderator of my own **** self.

He cut trees down in his mind
Working when he wasn't working
Dovetail chisels careening down
Highways of cherry and side streets of birch
I could see sawhorses in his eyes rocking madly like
Crazed wooden clockworks,
Wood Chips flying everywhere,
Collecting in small mountains in his peripherals.

I hated it.
The way the each lobe of his brain
Was now a delicately carved
And well-oiled work of wood.
In bed each night I tensed
As he tossed and turned,
Finally getting up to sand off the corner of a desk
Or hack off our daughter’s arm
And sand it away to a soft lump,
Leaving the severed appendage
On the shelf like a trophy

I married an artist, but then he was a painter
And I loved how he smelt of acrylic
And how his brushes moved endlessly
Despite the piles of works no one wanted to buy.

Now I was living in the mad palace of an architect
And a sculptor, his works growing in size
Consuming his live,
And mine,
Which I never signed up for.
Canvasses were one thing but
Enormous trunks of hundred-year-old maples
Were another contract entirely,
Marriage vows I didn't agree to
Registrations left unsigned.

And now I too toss in the night, making my decision
Hesitating like he must have with his axe raised
Above the arm of the sculpture of our daughter
But he followed through which I admired
So though still I loved him in a way still I rose in the night and drove
Hundreds of miles, the highway dark and gleaming
Like the stretches of mahogany inside of him I knew were endless.
In the morning I called him but he didn't pick up
Must’ve been working
As always carving,
Carving.

I had a dream and
You were chasing me,
I was scared.
I locked the door and
Hid in the closet
You drove the car into the house.
I snuck downstairs while
You rampaged around
Breaking down doors and smashing glass
Looking for me.
I ran down the back stairs when
You were walking up the front
I unlocked the back door and ran
Into the woods behind the house.
I heard you screaming
Mindless with rage calling me
***** calling me ****
I hid behind trees in the dark
There was no one there to save me
And I was scared.
In the end you found me,
And I don't remember
What happened after that.
I woke up sweating and
Climbed in bed with Mommy
You were somewhere else
And I had already forgiven you.
In lots of ways you will always be angry,
Especially in my dreams
Where you chase and I run.
In lots of ways the past is
Always present,
And the time that has passed
Means nothing.
But you are not so angry anymore,
And when you were angry I loved you still
Even though I was scared.

The Night Sky

Taking a walk and it’s late, dark out,
sky full of clouds.
Family in beds, sleeping.
Watching rows upon rows of feral shadow clouds roll
across the sky in heavy sheets.
Air is charged, crackling from the energy
of my body as I walk by naked.
I have stolen the stars tonight.
Walking slowly, no thoughts,
my feet among the trees
trees blades of grass my immense form looking down
At mountains the size of mole hills
aerial, seeing as the raptor must.
Granted immense powers such as hyperfocus and
watching buck leap elegantly miles below.
Body is now composed of innumerable celestial bodies
Time is become me,
Form curving elegantly
fabric of spacetime billowing
in the crystalline winter wind.
As I walk I am everything and nothing.
The universe breathes throughout me
stellar nebulas exhale clouds of interstellar gas and dust
across my chest up my arms and neck red giants and
supergiants my legs erupting supernova, black holes
behind my knees across my face trillions of asteroids and
meteoroids sailing coming together in fantastic collisions
all this and looking up the night sky,
Devoid,
clouds moving quick under nothing absolute nothing.

You want masterpieces
but I need time.
My thoughts are formless luminescent snakes
a flickering halo
tiny fluid flakes
I’ve no control of.
It’s not in me to create a
masterpiece
right now
I’m 16.
Did Shakespeare show
potential at 16? Did he win
   a golden
    key?
Then why me?

Teach me the secrets  
of time and the universe.
Whisper them sweetly as you ******.

I’ve nothing to say.

For years I will think of nothing
     and then one day maybe something and
that will feel like a cold shower

Who’s the Brontë sister everyone forgets?

      Does everything matter or nothing? Is it a crime to put my pen on paper without a meaningful idea does anything mean nothing or everything?
    Am I simply killing trees pontificating
         needlessly?
              Do my inky ponderings amount to wankings?
What does it take in this modern age of information
to do something great
with a piece of pen and paper?
      I am wasting my day each day doing what you tell me from the minute I wake up at five fifteen to the moment I walk back through my door twelve hours later
my day is
   structured
around a list of concepts chosen for me by whom.
   Of what do I write of what I know if I know
not and nothing
I know
Wordplay my wankings amount to
   hours
I need to
work
        on writing and
wanking.
      My vocabulary is **** because I’ve no time
      for classics and all I do is watch Netflix.

Some people say to me often sometimes
“I wish I was black.”
and sometimes maybe what I want to say is
“*******.”
but what almost always I say is “Me too.”
The mother who birthed me can be labeled only white
my father spent his childhood playing on islands
and together they made something
       truly
neither this     nor that
and it
always sometimes
drives me mad.

Your face is a map that leads home to me.
Mother may I
         lay down
to sleep?

Pumpkin carvings in a row
I’ve nothing to say
for there’s nothing I know.