that's how it goes
when you dance with the dead

tonight should have been
a night of celebration
and it wasn't

i sat in the darkness
with my signed contract
missing my daughter

wishing i had anyone 
i could trust

the dead put bracelets
on my wrists
or chains
i can't tell anymore

they wrote my book
and i heard them sing
when i signed these
last proofs

i remember reading
this book when i was a kid
titled phone calls from the dead

if only i knew my future then

these chains
only we can hear
the dead and i 
travel through time
we ride on regrets

we sit in basements
on moth eaten couches
knowing that the world
has already failed us

a record player
keeps skipping 
in the dark

I can't hear it anymore
this hell is  real

last night i dreamt
i was vomiting centipedes
and ghosts

when i wake
all i wanted was to back to sleep

my ghosts pin my eyes shut
tape my mouth
pry my ears open
just so i can hear my muffled screams

this is the way it is
this is the way it 
will always be

the tarot card fool
is dancing in front of me
his bells sound flat
his eyes are black

i can't breath
when the dead hug me
i swallow their mothball scent

we laugh at the fluorescent track lights
in the morgue
some people call this light jesus
but we know better

the dead are crushing pens
ink is bleeding everywhere
i finger paint their words
my heart is all palpitations
as they paint their sorrow
on my body

these bruises aren't meant to heal
they whisper in my ear

i try to send them to the stars
to the light we cannot see
and they laugh


​

i dream of shitty motel rooms
my daughter is missing
so i help the other wandering
children

in the shadows
a young boy clings to my skirt

another ghost
attaches to me
drains me

we are all vampires

my shadow aura grows
i will be like them
just another apparition
that haunts

orpheus sings his heartbreak song
i am Demeter
i am Persephone
i am Hades
while i write

on this cold winter night
i watch in the  black window
sadness
becomes its own entity

my arms open
when it punctures my heart
he whispers in my ear
that i was born for this

we fade in the dark

i hold a snake by its head
 before it swallows its own tail
​i give it a kiss

we melt into one
i can't tell the difference between
this beginning
this end

we howl like dogs
while the moon hides behind
the clouds

i am medusa in a moonless night
try to cut off my head before
you turn you to stone

watch my garden of statues
so still
how brave you are
see my eyes glow red
with revenge
with sadness

i weep
when you are 
a statue
but you are stone cold
​and don't notice

as a punishment
my stepfather used 
to make me pull the bamboo shoots
out of our side yard

a sad patch of dirt
near the shed door

i was a sickly child
with diseases unknown
to the doctors at the time

i wore my melancholy 
my sickness was an 
the ever present
 ghost i was willing 
to become to save my 
mother

i want you to know
i succeeded at nothing
i saved no one
not even myself

i want you to know
bamboo is  stubborn
it grows in the cold
rocky soils of small town Maine

i used to be a sad child that
had hope
for a future
now i am just another mother
lost in the anger 
of another cruel man

he has my daughter now
and all i can see 
is me with my crippled 
12 yr old wrists
kneeling in the dirt and rocks
struggling to pull bamboo shoots
i never did a good enough job
or so my stepfather told me

i was too busy fantasizing about the shed door
being a portal to another world
where i could be happy

i pull the bamboo shoots
 but they keep growing

my stepfather sits in his recliner
drugged up on pain pills
and yells at me to sit on his lap
light his cigarette

i see the dead
rolling in their graves
from regret
abuse 
and sadness

i see my future
in his cigarette smoke
the blue light
of the never ending tv
is another ending

my mother is drifting away
 in another room

my daughter
will be born in trauma
this story never ends
 
angry men 
sad women
children that pay the price

she grows like the bamboo
and he is pulling her out by the roots
i am watching the shed door
waiting for it to open
the dead are screaming 
help

it's always the mother's fault 
 the father doesn't count
when it comes to the blame 
of the pain
​but he should

when i found out my father died
​i smiled
because i knew what he did to my
mother
what he did 
to me

i want you to know
he was a criminal
that didn't suffer enough
for the pain he caused

i will feel the same way about 
my stepfather

i will feel the same way 
about the father of my child

when they come to me
with ghostly regrets
i will pretend they don't exist
just like they did to me

my father nearly murdered
a couple
beat the shit out of my mother
raped teenagers

and when he died 
he came to me for forgiveness
i made him live every memory
of pain he caused 
and i had to relive it through
his eyes
the suffering was worth it


i didn't move him on to a higher plane
i gave him the darkness he gave others
his soul will never rest
there is no excuse

the court system fails 
women and children
from prolonged abuse
so much abuse as a child
made it so i see the dead

everyone was afraid of my shitty dad
and now as he drifts in the never ending
darkness of the pain he has caused so many
he is afraid of me

i became friends with the darkness
just so i could navigate 
my nightmares
my shadows worship me now

we are coming
for the liars
the abusers
the ones who take children's innocence
and look the other way

i see your future
i collect the lost souls
of assholes like you

i never went to prom
had some shitty abusive boyfriend
so young 
so lost
that his excuse for love
was enough
is still no excuse 
i am ashamed of
what i have endured

i found my voice too late
my demons are taking me to homecoming
too late
this gown woven of shadows
and pain is heavy
my crown hurts
memories like an ax to the head
my blood is invisible

this poem is for all the women
who tried to make nice
and fucked themselves over

this poem is for my seventeen yr old
mother who thought love was
being wanted and had me because 
she wanted to be loved

this poem is for my daughter
who doesn't know me
or her family history
who is making the same 
mistake i did
trying to be perfect
pretending all is well
when all is very wrong
protecting a father
who doesn't deserve 
the title

this poem is for the dead
women who have warned me
because they don't want to see
another child losing a mother
or a mother losing a child
or another abusive man getting
away with it

this poem is for the mother ghosts
you know who you are
you know the sadness you keep
the children you have lost
the children you tried to save
only to sit at an empty table
remembering how
you gave part of yourself
and it never came back
and no one understood
and other woman that did
pretended they didn't because
these masks we wear are so very
important

those birthday parties like a contest because you wanted
to your child to feel loved because you didn't
those goodie bags that were supposed to mean something
because you came from a small town and didn't know these things
your child doesn't remember any of those birthday parties

i remember
my dad dealing drugs 
on my weekend visits
the only thing he ever gave me
was a whiskey flavored ice cream cone
and a giant unicorn he threatened
a carny for 
he told me not to trust anyone
and my mom did too

you think you have found yourself
you do art to feel good
but you don't feel good
this is just another outlet
another pretty birthday party
you call art
that won't be remembered

your heart is broken
you have accepted sadness
grief 
loss 
is the only language
you will ever be able to understand

your empathy doesn't matter
 you did attachment parenting
and it doesn't matter
you watched your best friend die
and it doesn't matter

nothing matters
so you watch the dead
as they remember 
these same feelings
your job is sifting
through the discarded memories
of the dead and helping them
move on

but you can't move on
you always go back
to that day
your mother crying
because the court ordered
that you as a toddler visit 
your murdering father in prison

you wanted to protect her
you felt his lies when he spoke
you remembered how he beat
your mother

when you look away from your
mother's tears
you see your future
the scars you will  inflict
upon yourself

your daughter will look
like your mother 
look like you
she won't understand
the danger she is in
you won't know 
what to do 
and eventually you will stop
thinking about joy
you will stop hoping
that things will be different

your life will just
be a war story
without any glory

the dead will haunt you
you won't sleep
and when you do
you won't be able to decide
if the nightmares are worse
then your waking life








​

even as i close the door 
on this part of my life
Carl Jung
is holding the door knob
he points out the color
of the door 
it's red
the color of my blood

even old ghosts
like to mansplain shit
he takes my wrists in his own
and traces the veins

i am a map going everywhere
and nowhere
i am the tree of life

psychiatrists have always loved me
the ghost of Carl Jung
smokes his pipe

he is thinking
how we both like leather couches
he is thinking about my scars

he wishes he had some of his own
but now its too late for him
Joseph Campbell
is riding a goat behind him
he has a dagger in his hand

we are all here to discuss
the death of the mother 
archetype

the blood red door is weeping
i smoke Jung's pipe
Campbell and I 
draw maps of the universe

on the naked white floor
of the hospital we are in
I wear a deer's antlers

we create the world 
as we see it 
with an abandoned box of legos

my daughter drifts off
into the sky
we all let go of the balloons
we hold on to

i cry
Carl pats my back
in a grandfatherly way
Joseph gifts me the goat
that he is riding

the door is still bleeding 
when we all decide
life is fucked up

last night i wept
in my daughter's
bedroom
while trying to sleep

it is a guest room now
or it was supposed to be
i am gradually 
making it into a shrine

she has been kidnapped
or she has been brainwashed
or she just hates me because
she is 15
all i know is
i did attachment parenting
which was awful
and apparently
it didn't work

i keep thinking about 
when i was in my twenties
and this psychic 
told me i wasn't supposed
to marry her father

i was supposed to be a single
mother
but i was stubborn
just like she is now
and i did the opposite

now here i am 
being comforted by ghosts
in the dark
as he slaughters my heart
using her as the weapon

in my past life
he murdered me

now he has learned how to kill
in the modern age
as a psychologist
and a pathological liar
he has turned her
against me

so easy when she is a teenager
did he even study in graduate school?
no
i did all his reading for him

now that she carries my pain
her own and
 the pain of my mother
​
this collective pain is an ink blot
blooming inside of her
her rage will be turned the wrong way
just like mine was 
towards herself
because dear daddy can do no wrong
when he is pulling the strings
to her marionette heart

this
will go on
for more generations

girls turn into women
who swallow grief
until
it turns into this black hole
of longing

don't worry
that longing
is just the dead whispering
all their regrets to you

they don't wish they had 
been more happy 
because happiness is a con
they wish they had been more compassionate
they wish they hadn't turned away
from all the pain
because what they remember

​are the trials and tribulations

​

my daughter's bedroom
is a guest room now

there will be no guests
just me
my sadness
and this trash bag
of memories

in this room that
was once hers
the ceiling is leaking

the ghosts tell me 
i am a poltergeist 
my tears manifested
this room weeps
because i can't 

i hold on to my nightmares
thinking i can change 
them in to dreams

the dead out number the living
this is a real nightmare
 i see them everywhere 
all the time

they are writing 
this poem

grief is the door
to the other side

or it was 

there is no door anymore
 now that i am
a ghost
living in the past

this is a ghost story
​
pain changes you
grief wears you away

until you have forgotten
who you are 
time isn't promised
to everyone

as a ghost 
i know this

i am trapped in a room
all the walls are made
of clocks

the ticking is too loud
and when it stops
i know it was my heart
i can't hear my voice

my screams are 
just white noise

i stand in the corner
watching life go on
i am dead

i live off others
memories
and hope 
so i can feel
alive again

i flicker
 the lamp
by your bed

i tell you how 
to make the most
out of life
but you don't listen

because you are already
a ghost 

haunting yourself

when you hang out
with the dead
you see the living 
more clearly

i am peeling
a hard boiled egg

a snake sheds it skin

my daughter 
was quiet 
when she was born

i was quiet 
when she was 
born

death was close
then
and they thought
i didn't know

her father
was in the next room
when they told
him we might 
not make it

the angel of death told me
they were wrong
he didn't have his scythe
he told me everything
i needed to know


he brought my sister
a stillborn baby
showed
me her death

her name was
sabrina
she gave me
the gift of 
my mother's pain

i promised her
i would name my
child after her
if she would just
save her

she left
during the epidural
told me the name
i chose for my daughter
was the right name

Annabelle
was stuck
and then she wasn't

she was born
on Halloween
they put
a pumpkin hat
on her head

i held her
when i couldn't
remember she 
was mine

he sat in 
the corner
a stranger
 they praised
for not 
watching football
while i almost
died

i looked
down at this
this new human
being 

and i promised
to protect her 
from this fucked
up world
​

my daughter sits
on the edge of 
my bed
with her back to me

i reach out my arms
because i am so 
relieved to see her

but she doesn't turn around
just drifts 
farther and farther
in to the distance
like a lost balloon

then i wake up
to another day
without her
go back to sleep
until the sun goes down
the sun is an insult
to my grief

the only way 
i get to see her now
are in dreams
and nightmares
i accept these 
inconsistent gifts

and when the sadness
sets in
i float in the dark waters
of my subconscious

tell myself
i am not drowning
i am not drowning

which obviously means
i am in denial
that i am drowning

A crow with a broken
wing sits upon my shoulder

Two clawfoot  bath tubs 
are overflowing
such an obvious
metaphor for tears

Hekate leads the way
torch in hand

I am Demeter
grief consumes me

Persephone is gone
humanity is in peril

The ascent
has not come
this search
in the dark
seems endless

Shadows flicker
upon the wall
jack o lantern grins

my crow
says we are running
out of time

by September 
she will have 
eaten the seeds

my only child

daughter
don't gather 
the flowers
they give you

it's a trick

he takes 
you where
i can't find you

then the world
changes
​forever