Lisbeth stands watching
The artist as he prepares
To sketch. Her elder sisters
Stand in shadows whispering.
Her younger sister plays
With her doll on the floor.
Their father said to do as
The artist instructed and
Don’t misbehave or be rude.
The artist stares hard his
Dark eyes searching their
Every move and expression
And body gesture. The elder
Girls mutter in shadows
Their hands over their mouths
Their blue eyes like shallow
Pools. Ready? The artist
Asks putting charcoal to
Paper his fingers blackening.
Lisbeth says just as we are?
The artist nods. His grim
Features express do not disturb.
The youngest sister plays
Ignoring the artist her eyes set
On the game at hand. The girls
In shadow turn their profiles
Set to mystery their hands on
Their abdomens like guardians
Of virtue. Lisbeth wonders as
She watches the artist’s stiff
Moustache and beard the slow
Movement of his mouth as he
Mouths words and stares hard.
The last artist employed some
Year before younger and less
Brutal in expression and manner
Had drawn them each in private
Rooms and set them down on couch
Or bed and kept their images inside
His head. He was dismissed and the
Drawings destroyed and nothing said.
Lisbeth had thought it just a game
Something done as lover might in
Private corners or lonely spots on
Quiet nights. The artist sketches.
His blackened fingers move and
Made their mark. Their images
Captured. The scene set. One sister
In the shadows yawns the other
Stares in still contempt. Lisbeth
Poses as young girls do. Nothing
To show of interest and nothing
Hid no secret self no other you.
That’s it the artist says we’ll begin
The painting another day maybe
Next week if all is well. The girls
In shadow look away and resume
Their secret games. Lisbeth studies
The artist’s blackened fingers as
He rolls the charcoal sketch and
Puts away. He gazes at her standing
By herself a glimpse of smile and
Glimmer in her eyes like small fires.
He closes the tired lids of eyes
And smoulders down his old desires.

Let me in
Shut the door and let the sheets cover us both
and let's breathe oxygen into each others mouths
until we both pass out and die together
intertwine our fingers and criss cross our arms
melt my chest into yours
hairs bonding
tears dripping
belly buttons closing on each others abdomens
fusing and refusing
to let go

Cicadas gather on the grapevine,
a mass of wings and vibrating abdomens.
Males call out to females
but it is the grey squirrels who answer,
chattering loudly as they feast on insect flesh.

I sip cold wine and tap my fingers
on thin glass, watching and waiting.
My phone buzzes next to me;
you, calling, again.
I ignore it and turn my gaze back to the feast.

Moths—they are nearly all comprised of the same tender characteristics: empty colors that've somehow been ****** away like the nectar they digest, fuzzy abdomens that crumble within the softest pinch, and powder encrusted wingspans that fray with countless beatings from the wind. I have come to recognize that there are people like Her who dwindle within themselves among all of us, unheard; enthralled by color that doesn't exist to the naked eye, but rather to an imaginative mind and a battered soul. She is The Moth Girl and she, too is the epitome of simpler things. With Her fair skin and enchanting, grey eyes that **** you in with a single glance; lips so chapped and brittle that they're nearly as drained of pigment as the rest of her. I've decided that She is the reason oblivion hasn't doomed us all and obliterated our world to dust. I've imagined Her as oblivion itself, annihilating other galaxies and collecting the discolored soot from each explosion to sift it over the wings of every moth that has ever been criticized. With this, I have concluded that every moth must be a victim.
⠀
But, if given the chance, would they transfigure?
⠀
I've undergone the thrill of witnessing these moths revolutionize into harlequin humming birds that thrive at Her will. Wings that were once littered with dust are now far too rapid and swift for manifestation. The Moth Girl — She remains a flower of a woman, though now She is sprouting with petals that burst with color; filled with nectar sweeter than She. They are all rich with vibrancy.
⠀
With it, they have concluded that it's not much different being evocative.
⠀
After everything, I have decided that they were blooming with color all along, and it was the rest of us that simply couldn't see it.

Slick,
slick yellow lining
it protrudes from chins
and abdomens
and arms.
one can pass down genes
but just as easily
chicken fried steak
crisco
lard.
siempre son gordos
that is not genetic.

With iron and honey I glaze both cheeks
while two bees bumble up each cascade


pressing curvy pumping abdomens
with points plying as they scrape

each presses into a cheekbone producing
blossoms of irritated wine and grape


pixilated with  pyrexia I collapse in a
webbed hammock perplexed


and wait and wait


my mouth blazing I gaze up and despise


the puffy diluted masses in  fields of blue
my cheeks dilated threatening to thunder

and then a pause as sweat brings honey
tumbling uncontrolled  


out from within

If you are falling in love with collar bones,
Defined abdomens,
Back dimples,
Visible rib cages,
Thigh gaps,
Straight, white teeth,
Long, endless hair,
Spakling eyes,
Dainty fingers,
You are doing it wrong.

If you are falling in love with the way his collarbone slight juts out,
How his abdomen flexes when he's stretching in the morning,
How his back dimples are indications where you can rest your hands,
How her visible rib cage only means you have something to strum your fingers across before bed,
How her thigh gap is just apart of her exterior,
How her straight, white teeth look when she's smiling,
How her long, endless hair is perfect to run your fingers through,
How his sparkling eyes are always fixated on you,
How her dainty fingers always find yours,
You are doing it right.

My life has been molded
by the world of 15 minute increment agendas
and 150 character updates by the second.

My body has been pacified
by the world of liquid sugar satiation
and instant edible gratification.

My mind has been conditioned
by the world that favors extroverted personalities
and introverted abdomens and collarbones.

I live, move and breathe
in the world that is scared of freethinkers
and will not succeed in boxing me in.

In my world, I define my own worth.

Hypocrisy tastes like a burning flag, metallic and too sweet, like prepackaged lemonade and the sweat on your upper lip. Ghost girls with skin the color of special facilities linger in map-less forests, fleeing from camps where they dip chin-dimpled children in ice bucket lies. It’s only a game, gentlemen. Don’t think too loud or they’ll paint ribbons around your neck faster than you can whisper “this is wrong,” faster than “this is inhumane,” and even faster than “where is God?” Faster than the pale, fleshy worms that creep into the orbs of innocence embedded in girls’ abdomens and turns them crimson, and what escapes is only soggy snow and whimpers of protest. But no, you can’t blame those vermes. It’s human nature. This is all human nature, and we still find ourselves better than the trees, faster than sound, higher than the clouds.

There are bees in my brain again.
All that's in my eardrums is the
picking,
gnawing,
chewing;
the incessant buzzing of their wings beating against my prefrontal cortex.
I can hear them working away, relentlessly, day&night;,
trying to make a home for themselves.
A hive in my head.
They have taken up residence.
They are quite comfortable.

I imagine their tiny bee legs mixing a golden, syrupysweet substance.
Thoraxes and abdomens dancing a little bee dance on my brainstem,
happily humming,
poised to pour the poison.
The sauce saturates my cerebrum.
Thickerthanhoney...molasses.
It weighs me down--adheres me to the ground.
Now I am suspended in a tub of the suffocating stuff.

I remember how heavy you were;
you left footprints in the grass
and on my chest.

I remember your eyes;
glazed crimson
dripping sweat on my *******,
clenched beneath white knuckles
and stained cotton sheets.

I remember the birthmark on your left hip;
its ugly face smirking
past greasy thrusts.

Your breath a heavy whiskey drowning my lungs;
whispered in my ear
hot sticky grunts.

An ink splotched lion tattooed on your thigh
grinded into me,
twisted itself into my heart
ate away at my preserved innocence.
I’d saved myself for long.

And then there was nothing left after that.
“Have fun in college.”

A closed door.  

I carry you in every moment.
My hands pressed firm against his abdomens
as he tries to make love to me,
I wait for that lion to reach out and
scratch my face velvet.

I wait for the pain and the shudder of his pleasure
As it ripples through his shoulders and he presses into me.

I wait for it to be over
So I can bury your face back down into blankets.

I wait for him to smile and kiss my temple before he drifts to sleep
And then I shower to scrub you off of me and out of me.

But I’m never clean enough
I walk around with your dirt caked around my core
I’m branded by you,
I’m drifting to sleep and my fall awakes me to your snarling neck.

I remember hearing that now you’re a youth pastor,
a true saint.
you’re working in South America with empty children
and hopeless mothers
you’re building homes for the homeless
and saving lives
you’re teaching the lost
all about God’s reining love for us

but guess what baby—
I’ll never forget the night you ****** me.

A sensation
Of cold air
Shivering
Chattering teeth.

I'm back sitting by the chain link fence,
Waiting for them to pick teams for dodgeball,
Or basketball,
Or what was it?
"Fred" ball?

I remember looking for you.
Wondering where you'd gone.

It was overcast,
I could smell the rain coming in.
First time I realized,
It was late in fall that I remembered,
Snow had a smell.

And dragons and dogs and animals filled our days at school,
We played games, different name, same game of tag over and over
When at home I'd go back to the screaming,
To the cold,
To the hunger.
A girl and her dog,
Wondering what her friends were up to.

Black outs and ****** paper clips
Turned to livid men and bruised abdomens and hips.

And every other month,
During September and January,
I wondered what would have happened if I had
Given you that valentine I threw away.

I want to tell you so many things,
But how do I tell you,
How do I tell you
I care more than
I knew.

I was shivering when I got home,
Teeth clattering,
Bad day,
Tears in my eyes.

I put on my nightgown,
Your sweatshirt,
And wrapped myself in a blanket,
Wanting to hear back from you.

Is it odd
That I don't know how to say
You've made my day.
I hope you know
I was okay without you,
But part of me is a little (a lot)
More whole by your side.

And sometimes I think of your laugh,
Then and now,
And I remember
The butterflies then,
And the warmth now.

And it's just ******* crazy,
Because I was a little bird,
With a broken wing.
Who was convinced I couldn't fly.

You were the bluebird of peace,
I had been searching for
For so long.

And I could listen
To your voice
Your heartbeat
Your words
All day.

I don't know what this means,
But it's easier by your side,
Than any place I've ever lived,
Any halfway house I've ever been.

I've always wanted to belong,
And finally I can see
The problem wasn't me.
It was a me without a you.

Tonight I want to dream
Of spiraling sunset red and soft oranges
Draped over a background of
The most beautiful seafoam blues and greens
I've ever come to know.

I turned bated breath on my blind eyes and tick
tock
tick
tock
august strode away. august bloated on july and june and
god knows what because august is a bit of an alcoholic,
if you’ll please be discreet about that—we don’t want word to get around

the curtains drawn and folded, I balled my fists and white
knuckled touched chests and abdomens and shoulders but never doors;
somersaults between my ears and over
and over
and over
hardwood against your cranium
you feel it eventually
or I do

and then august screams a marissa-by-the-pool scream but not aloud
and she doesn’t talk to you she doesn’t
talk to you
she’s got nothing to say and you
you
you’ve got nothing to say and

everything is better now it’s so much better
but she doesn’t shake hands for more than a two-count now and
you don’t feel your heartbeat in your ears, usually

We are all reverberating shrapnel of an explosive kaleidoscope of organized chaos
We’re scurrying ants piggybacking bread crumbs that press too-heavily on our abdomens
We’d scratch our way up to the constellations on the ceiling if we could just be weightless; if we could just find the right handgrips and footholds
But shoelaces get tangled, palms get sweaty, knuckles get scratched, bodies get heavy
So instead we settle for ducking into tunnels, seeking out the empty train-cars and avoiding eye contact with strangers
Seated alone in tattered pleather seats, we wish we could dissolve the stained grimy window-glass that stands between us and everything that could matter
We’ll force smile-lines into our cheeks when we reach our destinations while quietly scrabbling at the semiprecious dream of a place that we can’t articulate: the unattainable, inexplicable else else elsewhere

On my morning Stroll again the air is heavy
impenetrable thickets of humidity and mist
The gravel underneath me cracks ready to cave in
Concave burial for my feet I need to rest
On the lawn where i must wait
There is always one little blue ant
Nibbling at the decomposing skin of an apple
Devouring the essence
It carries away with it something
for this warm morning
a star DID shine
With this now i know why i write
the things i do about you in pencil.
I walked again this morning this time the air has stopped
A mass of red abdomens lurk over the gravel
and underneath there is an earth quake
The red ants snatched the apple leaving the one blue
and i wonder if i could crush such a force
without you

words   what   more  than  silence,    criminal
    shaded    meanings   plump like   the  mien  of   a night-strewn    beast.

words   what    more   than   sounding for   it
  the   night   hemming   into,   less  than   a fugitive   by definition

   words   do   I   deny   the   static  of   soul    when   quiet then
          places      the    cholera   in    our  abdomens ?

to   say   when   the   nature  of   the tangent   is   a   voyage
     of   the   story   you’re  telling,    masked   behind  a non-sequitur


  that     does   not   intersect   elsewhere   issued   by
     a   lack.     where    else   are   we   only   slightly   connected

                       when    we    move     to   break   a   point,   or  to   distract

a   face     once   again   foreign, your   name   emerging   as   whimper.
       coming    out   denied.

   words   what   more   than    revenge,    your   sound   less   than an alternative
            bandwidth    confusing      its     meaning

coming     out    undisguised.

Were on  568 a. C., a gentleman who was passing by Magdala tower met and fell from his horse, he approached one of the famous Canaanite, children of Migdal and Afad. One said his name Sherom and other Moshe. The gentleman asked them to tell you about the story of a tower and supernatural properties. Sherom and Moshe smiled, beginning to narrate the popular version ...:

Sherom speaks ..."Once upon a time a tower that had many steps that anyone who enter feel one dizzying air, and would never come up to his last cell; it seemed the very wall of china endless wanting to arrive. She was jealous all night passers Magdala, ancient city of Palestine; Well, she was so high that resembled a tree to be an ant, and why the song that emanates from his high-rise building always orientated sweets steps that fear capsize and fall into the hands of an evil villain.

They flee ye fearful, as the ant when I looked at the tower, thought he walked toward her and so hurried his steps. Miriam was not the case, every night had to work through the dark alleys like hammers on the stones of a mysterious sculptor; strong sounded by the Siroco. Her walking with her soft feet, synchronized with the hammer sirocco, so it would be easy prey, --- At the moment, Hurián distracted a wild ... birds, --- and then continues Moshe ... :
Moshe ...: The mayor watched from near the tower, trying to figure out ... What did or hiding the backwater of her eyebrows ...? . And so, everyone would wonder that observe something similar....

still a sad day his father dies and is subject to funeral expenses, which luckily managed Míriam; every night emancipating the thirst of caravanners coming on route from Syria to the tavern Kvish Gadol. Here, they were giving their friends the final toast to his leg, then close the business and incorporated into the gutter furnaces buried lands. That same afternoon, before the massive help of their neighbors, basked crack open the stalled Afad time with smiles cover its arid cot and abandoned.

Nor they spent more than three days, when Míriam Rishon Lezion part in convoy, carrying by destination the sea. Sada stayed home Elijah; the spouse of his sister Hiram. The Mediterranean Sea front blew his hair; brown them stuck to your skin as auguring stay long.

Your face and his skin seemed toasted desert landscapes, which were mixed with the air and water. Back his rueful survive in Magdala; now by the time spring glistening in majestic glory stay near the coast. Jamal sleep at home, and then give their rich fruits contacts to work and pay the caravaneer Jamal, for their generous service.
Sherom stutters to continue, relax and continuous..:
Sherom ..: A cloudy afternoon when she walked down the beach, she found the dress of a man, she then watched a bather distinguished between horizontal nebulae waters. He descended from the sparkling water blocking the sun with his back, leaving some summer rays eyes walk the circular craters Míriam. She bent her back to her face left free, so you could see some sadness Jofat large tonnage carried her back...

Jofat ...How many times I'll see, if only today I just...?
Míriam grabs a branch of soil and writes ... Magdala...
Jofat ..: Hence you come!
Miriam..: This is what you see ...!
Jofat..: From the high tower, architecture brilliants eyes and sovereign Semitic structure ...

He took some water and washed his hands of Miriam, she tight her throat and muttered short sentences from a song of the earth; the sun suspended in the air kept the closest shade to protect the Migdal in your heart with its long silhouette, and sleeping in her skirt pocket. And so steep on his feet shackled with Jofat sea could be seen on certain days of the month, some of them not greet, but the events of each light would smoothness to the ways of Rishon le Zion.

Miriam worked hard so that one day could return. Luck was for Jamal, since their trade with Syria, Egypt and Persia as plenty of fortune, even Miriam, as a reward for their effectiveness powdered received from his hands, a radiant psaltery; which would occupy the glazing bars rubbing singing, as if he were to do with laggard itinerant sheep and dromedaries, waiting for an order. His singing is heard near the tower at night, pretending to be huge flows.

Moshe continuous ...:
Moshe ..: In Palmahim the surrender time genuflecting Miriam, going to the heights of the tower. It was so high that other two were built in the absence of the most beautiful image of Miriam!
In Palmahim with two children playing Miriam, nodding tired smiles to delight them with your company. Later, Jamal calls and tells them they boarded the wagon to go to Magdala, as the weather worsened giving sparkling  drops from the dark heaven. She takes children on his back and carries, while a voice call...
Jofat ..."Miriam ... human silhouette Miriam you lashed out in my consciousness stems filled with shattered by the voices of your tower, instead of spittle, threw on me ... sand ..."
Miriam ..: How not understand ... Already I go, Jamal comes next week, she goes with him to Magdala, Goodbye ...?!

Sherom follow  ...:
Sherom ...: On the outskirts of the village, standing water get across quartz effects mirrors, together with scattered clouds that were separated from the elderly seeking true face having the concave dome, munificent joy of receiving the source of the roof on abdomens lichens Migdal Cemetery.

Phandle to the cemetery to see his father, sitting on long solar gloomy. From a snowy mountain peak bravely he attaches to his return, his spirit, part of the sleeping immaterial life; her daughter resting under his feet, returning to his waking body, from her home. This sees abandoned, comes directly addressing the courtyard, there is a tendency and sleeps the days he was not.
Miriam ...(In the dream) ... "Father yet I have you gone, sometimes you hear me come at night, slept more I thought you were not and you just saw it with my neighbors put your white shroud for your rest...
In the tour, kisses the earth and see the tower, climb the steep rocks without spilling any of his ancestors, in the cold stones seemed to portray their faces doubt. Heavy rocks taken from Migdal, from their own ancestors, as if each stone should appear the illusion of taking the petrified intra bodies. Reaches the top, and a gale brought Galilee praise in his voice came ... then interrupted a manly voice ... "From here started the silent sound that opened my ears to want your divine fire, as they came from Galilee, went to fetch a big challenge to Palmahim ... astral and spoke Jofat dominated by the silhouette of Míriam "

Then woman of Magdala returned where his family, with his tower that never stopped jealous of her, because it was so high ... that everywhere is watching him...
And thus the mayor twin towers built to accompany her and Jamal gave him work to generate music and accompany him in his last days with the burning heat on his forehead. Provided, Miriam take charge of protecting children with high structure, similar in nobility Miriam attentions.

So many butterflies;
on my arms, my thighs,
my hips.
I want to let them
free, let them fade from
each layer of skin,
but the razor wants them
dead.
It wants to nip off their
wings like little pieces of
construction paper,
slice off their antennaes,
rip open their
abdomens.
Blood is what it
lusts for,
its trophy, its
pride.
It is no longer a
tool, but a
self-destructive weapon.
It kills the living and
the hope,
takes away every
color from their
wings until there's
only red.

nary the further root(nor nearer neither)shoots
reaching similar jeering your carnal fold whoops
a crown of pink, whose gentler thorns enshrined
the meekest cruel sweetness of with mouth combined
posits a slender abrupt howl from the heaving
noose of abdomens 2 backed seething
(a beast twained)
or so sayeth William

I'm sorry for the sweat
that drips down my neck,
past the hairs of my chest,
races across my abdomens
like it's running from the
Native Americans with
arrows and bows in hand,
following the hair trail
to my skin cave,
down the passage way
speeding to the tip
to drop to my toes
then roll on the floor
to melt in the dirt.

I pressed my body into yours hoping our ribcages would fracture into one another and butterflies would pour out with scintillating wings in shades of orange and yellow and blue and we would marvel at the beauty of their colors in the fading light but from the depths of our bleeding cavities would flutter the stammering, shamefaced creatures with plum-black wings and cracks navigating their way through the chalky paste of dust and blood clinging to their delicate bodies --
and these were the butterflies to marvel at --
these were the insects we found comfort in as our abdomens bled out

It's that time of the month
That makes your emotions run amuck
They seem to be like a stick shift in a truck
Never staying in one gear
Your mood is like spoiled food
As you explain how much your in pain
Lying in anguish
As each ache corse through your veins
Blame eve
For the invisible sledge hammer being lodged into your back
Crippling cramps riddle your body
Violent pain
Like your abdomens are being flirted with
Tiny incisions foreplay
Caressed by shards of glass  
Temptations of sleep a figment of the past
Blame eve
For the hormones that sprout like weeds
Appetite expand and recedes
Like the moonlight tides
The pain come in strides
Punches in its time card
Each month
And you can blame eve

In you I left a little kiss
A speck on lip of lip.
Like a leaf may
On a leaf spring-coated
Before it slides off and off
And into the brown below.
Like a star may,
On the window of a house
Cold in houses cold.

I lingered by the shores of you
Dried, a bone,
Memorising the hues of
A sweet, sweet marrow—
In sun it glittered, in moon sang—
In you, in you, you.

This restless room—
And ants devour around
With their fast steps and abdomens angry
And a scene of us
Through deep, hardened dirt, I dig out:
You held a garland, of foliage weaved,
I smiled a kingdom
All alive and gold.

And the young leaf will forget
Of the rusty feather
That stumbled past it,
One young dawn—
And the house
In houses lone,
Will sublime
In the day’s pretty love, but

In the blue, a bottled letter—
Too small a gift
For an illiterate sea, but
Hold it it does still,
In its secretive embrace.

So, when you born
To an arid tree—
And in blood of stars I wade
As down descends
The sky we built,
Do not cut open the insects
In your frenzied search for me—
All the kingdoms
Could I smile
In you I left with their riches and green.

Dried, a bone, I
Remember the hues
Of a sweet, sweet fruit—
In blooms it blooms, in stars
On frosted windows
In you, in me, you.
So, when I sway
In this lovely quiet,

You sway too
In the dawn.
And born you
Then born you
And reborn on a spring—
In you lives a little kiss
And wilt you,
It wilts.

Hello my friend
How have you been
Don’t answer yet
But don't fret

See me and you debate
About everything to the date
I guess opposites do attract
And sometimes we lose contact

But you are always there
When the weather is fair
So we can go to the park
Until it turns dark

Then we go to your place
Like its our secret base
Those where the good days
Thinking of ways

To mess with madison
Laughing so much to hurt our abdomens
I miss the feeling
Of our hearts sealing

So how are you
And the crew
Do to miss it
The night where we talk and sit

switchblade little cicada abdomens beat like any old heart a la mode
& all the more graceful
were they not there the air would falter and wander/wonder in lazy eddies shedding the loveliness of sound they provide, in the heat of the day
mini sydney opera houses, screaming, consolidate on a sultry afternoon in June.

My nose is sniffing
Back air breezed nights to sleep while
My arm goes numb;
Numb as death!
Shake it off! Wake it up!
Making obeisance to my restless findings before
Leaving them at the pier.

No silence In my soul only
A yodeling, fierce as a bruise,
Sounding similar as drowning
Infants crying for help.
I'm so like an orphan...
Does he love me and
Is he certain?

Do my *****-soaking in ash-bitten dawns arise
From a need for pleasure..?
Or maybe-
Out of an endless hunger?
I remember feeling human,
But now I am magnified!
Saddened by life and
Its incoherent dribble in my skull.

Forgotten sigil's of peace
Or love or war,
Or that thing mistaken as peace or
Love or war: Desire!
Swelling till its
Broken glass In abdomens;
Liken it to freckled sunshine
Through blinds on drunken binge mornings
And I'm not so quiet...
( Not still yet...)

I'm racing around tracks in my
Wavering mind...
Like quicksilver.
I'm laid bare as bones on pedestals,
Memories juxtaposed; my lips trembling and
Saying words without comprehending...
Mechanical;
Not one conversation bringing comfort of mind to me.

Punching erosion's  into barren walls
Just to awaken a feeling
Of vitality-
That does not seem to exist anywhere;
That Isn't in anyplace I go!
I weep dewdrops of gardenia and  
Spew lost-caused visions before my time;
Misplaced as shadows in spring

I breathe....I whisper.....
Having secrets.
Volcanoes inflamed, dashing asunder
In his eyes!
(Which I can take-In like photographs-
Like Picasso paintings, almost. )
Gazing into my pain
Like a petal gathering rain;
Red-blue sirens In the drench'ed Earth.

I tried, I failed. But I
Still live and I still prevail!
Shot down In beguiling
Visions, (on tea leaves)
Lye's my mission; Unknown.
Felt like a wind on the curb where
We sit like a
Voice only I conceive of-
And its going to be all alright, I reckon after all.

Lost in the dark
tangled in silken threads,
naked and cast in pallid moonlight ~
her ageing skin she scratches and sheds.

Entombed deep, and safely within,
teetering on the cusp of reality
and the breadth of sin ~

tirelessly feeding,
her demoniac litter
from the sour milk of her breast ~
a thousand eight legged freaks
languishing in a giant skull lined nest,

relishing from her comfort,
her love and undying nourishment ~
tainted, but untainted,
encapsulated by the grip of shadows
free from any arcane judgement.

And in the thick of night,

inside your closet

and under your bed ~

they're there,
smiling with pincered teeth;

a thousand hairy abdomens
swollen with nightmares,
and intoxicated with grief.

by Sharon Olds**

The next day, I am almost afraid.
Love? It was more like dragonflies
in the sun, 100 degrees at noon,
the ends of their abdomens stuck together, I
close my eyes when I remember. I hardly
knew myself, like something twisting and
twisting out of a chrysalis,
enormous, without language, all
head, all shut eyes, and the humming
like madness, the way they writhe away,
and do not leave, back, back,
away, back. Did I know you? No kiss,
no tenderness–more like killing, death-grip
holding to life, genitals
like violent hands clasped tight
barely moving, more like being closed
in a great jaw and eaten, and the screaming
I groan to remember it, and when we started
to die, then I refuse to remember,
the way a drunkard forgets. After,
you held my hands extremely hard as my
body moved in shudders like the ferry when its
axle is loosed past engagement, you kept me
sealed exactly against you, our hairlines
wet as the arc of a gateway after
a cloudburst, you secured me in your arms till I slept–
that was love, and we woke in the morning
clasped, fragrant, buoyant, that was
the morning after love.

Tonight, the sweat of the earth hangs heavily in the thick August darkness. Standing in the yard beneath the fat buttercream moon, I muse on the emptiness of dusk, on the lifeless hollow of another quiet night.

At my feet, deep within a thick forest of rye grass, a hidden world writhes. The swollen moon has awoken the tumescent locust, who lunges, twitching through densely packed pthalo blades as he presses toward the siren song of a distant lover. Leaping forward, he startles corn borers and cabbage moths into flight which scatter upward like petals caught by the ancient wind. Abruptly, one petal is plucked from the sky, dragged back to the dark earth by the silent toad, soft pale wings disappearing within a vast and warty grimace.

Tangled in the rhizomes and soil below, earthworms labor, purifying the fetid remains of the surface world, while grubs feast upon the great network of roots, preparing for inevitable transfiguration. Pouring from subterranean colonies, waves of ants toil under leafy branches and plump rotting fruit, then return to their telepathic mother, abdomens distended with nectar and saccharin honeydew. Nighthawks and barn owls sit perched above, their gleaming eyes recording the squirming earth as they plan their swift assaults.

Amidst the chaos, amidst the living breathing wild I stand, a blind giant musing on the emptiness of night.

I have been taught to remember everything to be scared of every man.

Riding the bus I was harassed six times today.
Six times.
The way men look at you before they make a comment you just look down like you’re bowing to them it feels like some sort of respect when really I am just terrified

Every time a man says
“well hey sweetie **** sweetie smile sweetie **** those legs sweetie”

I have visions of reaching through their putrid abdomens and ripping their guts from their bodies

their blood dripping from my hands I know I would sob but

I would like them to fall to their knees in pain so that I could scream that this is for the women this is for all the women and I would leave them to bleed and bleed and bleed

like all the women have for generations

but

instead of that I look down and they laugh because I am vulnerable and small

...

inside I am angry and big and the hair on my body and the knowledge in my brain are the biggest acts of rebellion I can give them

The light of hue of stiffened corpses
Pervades the air while fallen horses
Lie there dead with maggots crawling
Inside theirs putrefied  abdomens
While the residues of slaughter
Precipitate with birds a-rotten
Falling from the crimson sky,
Being portents of the nigh
Impending blizzard of
Disaster
Which is too Strong to try to cast it
Out  from these dooméd lands
While in the mean time weaken hands
Of our Great King to cease determine
Not; but nor fair mornings
Our Greatest King shall see
So to the Moon his final plea
He offers, docile, week and feeble
While in his neck the poisoned needle
Is put by his most loyal friend,
But this all shall come to an end;
So, lo, dear friend, to thee I bring
The head of our Fallen King!

Fireflies dancing in the night
What a wonderful delight
Their beauty, believe you me, it’s a glorious sight

They draw our attention
Gathering them into the palm of my hand is my intention
They are amazing insects, I need to mention

They flit and fly in all directions
Their acrobatic movements are beyond my perceptions
Upon my mind, they weave undulating, visual impressions

Such delicate creatures God has given to you and me
They are here on Earth for all to see
Their abdomens all lite up, it creates a lasting memory

A glass jar and a net
In unison my boys did clamor, “Can we have them for a pet?”
My wife's kind word, I'll never forget

It'll be a choice that you'll soon regret
The sadness that ensued, both boys were quite upset
These innocent creatures you must protect

My wife's kind words that night were so wise
The wisdom of her words they did fully recognize
From the tiny glass jar, each individual firefly did rise

Darting happily back up into the sky, very much alive
Their abdomens blinking on and off, a vision to forever visualize
Of cherished memories, these moments with our boys and those beautiful fireflies.

Written by: Jason Cheney
November 25, 2020