MY LITTLE NUMERO UNO

She attacks the page
with all the fervour & ferocity

of learning to write:
! nUmBeRs!

Her pen
digs its way

through to
(the other page)        

as if it were trying to
escape its task

make a break
for it.

Finally, she draws
a 2

a gentle swan
gliding by on a single wave.

Then, an 8
(which she informs me)        

is an O
“...wearing a belt that’s too tight.”

“Right? ”
“Right! ”

6 & 9
she cuddles together.

“Shhh...they’re sleeping! ”

Then: a 3
“...which is an 8 with half the 8
...missing.”

Then: a 1
which is a man
“.. with a little nose.”

Then: a 7
Which is a man
“...with a big nose.”

10
is
“The man with the little nose
going out with an eight without its belt.”

5
is
“Like a S
frozen stiff.”

4
is
“My hand doesn’t like writing 4’s
so...it doesn’t.!

'Well, that's
enough of that! '

She glares at me
as if to say

'Don't dare
contradict me! '

'I'm going out
to play!

She proudly
announces

(a woman with her work
well done) .

And out...
...out she goes!

in spite of the failed attempts
in spite of time
never being on our side,
you are my sweetest hallelujah.

I know that girl told u
   her       name was Jezebel
but it's really Tiamat & she's a monster;
   I recognize her face from  
[Neo-Assyrian cylinder seal
                                           impressions from the eighth century BC        
                      identified by several sources
                      as a possible depiction of the slaying
                      of Tiamat from the Enûma Eliš
                      of               Ancient   Mesopotamian religion:
Chaos Monster & Sun God    [Primordial beings (        )]
                 Abzu & Tiamat.                     Lahmu & Lahamu
                                Anshar & Kishar                      Mummu
               The          Seven gods who decree the       
               Other major deities;
               Minor deities,  Demigods & heroes,    
               Spirits &    monsters             of the
                                     [Tales
                                        of                      ­Ancient Near Eastern religions
[Sumerian &            Babylonian
                   In the religion of ancient Babylon,  Tiamat
                  (Akkadian:AM.TUM, Greek: Θαλάττη Thaláttē)
                   is a primordial goddess of the salt sea,
             mating with Abzû, the god of fresh water,
             to produce the   younger gods.
                    She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation.
  She is referred to as a woman       described as the glistening one.
                                              It is suggested that there are two parts
          to the Tiamat mythos,                            in the first
          Tiamat is a creator goddess,
through a sacred marriage between salt and fresh water,
                peacefully creating the cosmos
                through successive generations;
                In the second Chaoskampf Tiamat
is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos;
           Some sources identify her with images
           of a sea serpent or dragon
        [The motif of Chaoskampf (German: [ˈkaːɔsˌkampf], "struggle against
                                          chaos")
               is ubiquitous in global                        myth & legend,
               depicting a battle of a culture hero deity
               with a chaos monster, often in the shape
                                       of a serpent or dragon or beautiful woman;
                                       the same term has
   also been extended to parallel concepts
   in the Middle East and North Africa, such
   as the abstract conflict of ideas in the Egyptian
duality of Maat and Isfet or the battle of Horus and Set

The origins of the Chaoskampf myth
most likely lie in the Proto-Indo-European religion
                                          whose descendants
almost all feature some variation of the story
of the storm god fighting the
      sea serpent; representing
                                           clash between the forces of order and chaos;
Early work by German academics
such as Gunkel and Bousset's                             comparative mythology
popularized translating the mythological
sea serpent as a "dragon."
Indo-European examples of this mythic trope
include Thor vs. Jörmungandr (Norse),
Tarḫunz vs. Illuyanka (Hittite),
Indra vs. Vritra (Vedic),
                                     Θraētaona vs. Aži Dahāka (Avestan);
Zeus vs. Typhon (Greek) among others; Non-Indo-European
examples of this trope are
Yahweh vs. Leviathan (Hebrew),
Susano'o vs. Yamata no Orochi (Japanese) &
Mwindo vs. Kirimu (African).

In the Enûma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation,
she gives birth to the first generation of deities;
her husband, Apsu, correctly assuming
they are planning to **** him and usurp his throne,
makes war upon them and is killed. Enraged, she,
too, wars upon her husband's murderers,
         taking on the form
of a massive sea dragon; |
                     she is slain by Enki's son,
the storm-god Marduk, but not before
      she has brought forth the monsters
        of the Mesopotamian pantheon, including the first dragons,
whose bodies she fills              w/          "poison instead of blood" -
Marduk then forms the heavens and the earth from her quartered body.

I am seventeen years old
And I’m sitting at the bottom of my tub.
I’ve cracked my wrists open like the windows in my room-
I’m trying to let some light in
I need to breathe fresh air into my body.
this is the only way I know how
I have closed the curtains,
boarded up the doors.
you had a key
And you trekked in mud and pine needles from the giant spruce tree outside.
I pick them out of my hair
And line them up on the side of the stained porcelain tub.
I am thinking of putting out a foreclosure sign in my front yard-
Abandoning these halls and leaving everything but this stained tub behind.
Seventeen is hard and rough,
It had calloused hands and it took things from me I wasn’t ready to give.

- I am twenty now
- And I’ve redone my home and tore out the stained tub

Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,
Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.