i have a bad taste in my mouth
that begins in the morning
when i awake from another nightmare

the nightmare is  real
chaos and violence
not wanting to leave the house
government lies
death and more death

and all the people
so many people
pretending
that making the same mistake
again and again
will have different outcomes

it is raining 
the rain is a conversation
i have at night
with no one

a desperation
that only exists
in the familiar sounds of nature

i keep drifting to the past
i am a child in dirty sneakers
sitting on a grassy hillside
i hold stones in my hand
make wishes as the 
wind blows

only some of them will
come true
none of them will feel
as good as this moment

when i am alone
in the cold thinking
of all the different futures
that can be

things are so bad now
in the world
that i reminisce
about my shitty childhood

when there was no virus
and toilet paper
was  a plenty

​ summer was freedom
walking the small town streets
while my parents were
working

fear was hidden
violence and hate
were just a bad reaction
like hives or a volcano

every family watched tv together
because they had to 
and it was enough
to pretend we connected

black flies bit you on the beach
and it was just another relief
to the frigid winters

endless spaghetti
canned vegetables
and the cold slush that 
filled your cheap boots

sunsets on swing sets
the smell of hamburger
frying in a pan

cold winter days

my mother smokes a cigarette
in a department store
while i hide in some circular
rack of clothes

everything that was supposed
to be awful is beautiful now

​in the closets
of my childhood home
i found playboys and penthouses 
and my neighborhood
friends had the same experience
we talked about it 
in dead end streets
with stolen candy bars
in our pockets

life is just an ashtray overflowing
while mtv plays in the background

it is white snake
and some half naked
girl on some red sports car

and you are just a preteen
wearing fluorescent yellow

there is a dead man in my living room

a spirit
a ghost
whatever

his eyes are
 hollow eternity
his crooked smile
shatters the night

 the dead tell me
the future
when my mind
seeks emptiness

when i was
still in a crib
they watched over me
 got me to sleep
switched channels 
on the alarm clock radio
to my favorite songs
just to soothe me

but now they keep me
awake at night
their bones
cut into me
i toss and turn

while their 
hollow eyes
glow in the dark


with open-wound hearts
they come to me
to feel their pain

their stories
are time travel

now i am tired
tired of the living
 tired of the dead
tired of the shadow demons
that stand behind me
in every reflection
past pain
future pain

​when the dead 
hold your hand
​it is never the present

i can't swim
because i am afraid of
drowning in deep water

in a past life
i lost my husband to the sea
i had to raise my daughter
who in this life is my mother

i ran a boarding house
i cooked
 i cleaned
my mother/daughter
was traumatized
after from the death
of her father

she watched him drown
in the waves
when all i could think about
was now that the captain
had drowned
that the remaining seamen
would rape me and my daughter

lifetimes later

i get sea sick
my mother
is still my daughter
and my daughter
comes from another place

a star in the distance
i glimpsed
in the in between

while she longs to shine bright
 i peruse the darkness
looking for answers

she wants to connect
she is the star
in a constellation

she can not shine 
without my darkness
but she doesn't understand
how i lost my light

i swallow the nothing
so she can see 
she is something

it hurts my soul to remember
when i was like her
when i believed in a meaning
when i believed that people 
were good

we orbit one another
in this vast space

i  am drawn to the past

that other life
when smiles were pennies found
heads up on the sidewalk

when lemonade stands
were on every corner
in the summer

there was a lockdown
at my daughter's school this week
not a drill
a real one
i didn't check my email
because i was making candles

when she came home
she was excited
and told me how the school
had to shut down
because all the kids were stealing
things from the school
because of some tik tok video

they could only use the staff bathroom
because all the kids were stealing giant
toilet paper rolls

i would find out later
it was because a parent called 911
because they heard some students
had weapons

the middle school where my daughter
was and the neighboring high school
were both in lockdown

in the news it said six boys
​were questioned
three at the high school
three at the middle school
they had plans
but there was 
no other information

last year i had a nightmare where
there was a shooting at her school
and i couldn't find her 

 i forgot about the nightmare
until yesterday

i didn't know her teachers had 
told her something different than the 
email sent to parents
so i read her the email
and she was shocked

that night when she couldn't sleep
i pretended it was just because she had 
drank a glass of iced tea
too much caffeine
but we both knew better

we watched this movie 
she picked out
called eighth grade
and she didn't want me to leave
the room to load the dishwasher

i looked away when
the kids on the screen
were doing the lockdown 
a man holding a gun
pointed at the students
and said you're dead
you're dead
a reenactment to keep
them safe 

they don't do that at her school
we both noticed this

while i found invisible crumbs
off the table to clean
and wondered why 
her teachers had told 
her it was a hoax

the six boys that were questioned
will probably be back at school
next week

in my nightmare
she hid in the gym
under the bleachers
it was in december
she sang christmas songs
in her mind to drown out
the gunshots

in my nightmare
the dead told me where to find her
i was standing in the gym
dead bodies all around me

i remember telling her 
when she was in kindergarten
to hide
it had been her first lockdown
and it shook her up
she was tiny then
and is still the smallest in her class
i told her to find where no one
else can fit and to stay there
quiet until the police call out

in my nightmare
she did what i had told her
but now she doesn't listen
to me

my nightmare is happening now
this world we live in 
is made up of half-truths

no one wants to feel pain
to know the truth

the truth for me
is that this week
my daughter's school was in lockdown
because 6 boys might shoot up two schools
and it was downplayed as a tik tok prank

the police are feigning ignorance
the news is a half truth
protecting us from the information
​we need to know
because they don't know what 
to do and can't admit that
they are just protecting themselves

our children
are being sacrificed 
their futures are up in the air
with the incomplete thoughts
of the incompetent

school shootings
and covid have a lot 
in common
we don't know how to deal 
with it so we make our kids deal 
with it 
send them to the thick of it
while we pretend
someone higher up knows
what they are doing

they don't
​
so this shit will keep happening
until we stop it 
or until the world ends

fear is tangible
it permeates the skin
it pricks the soul

my heart has been bleeding
since i was a baby
i have memories
that shouldn't make sense
to remember

my father 
screaming 
while i am stranded
in some orange plastic
play thing

not even old enough
to walk y​et
when a beer bottle
is thrown at my mother

i am invisible in the corner

over the years 
i watch my mother cry
while i hold things in
then i watch her go numb
her eyes floating in the distance
when spoken to

my weekend visits 
with my dad
were random and didn't last long
he smelled like cheap whiskey
and he lied
i knew it then as a child

and still today
i know when someone is lying
i thought i could beat my past
this history of abuse

the father of my child 
lies with the same ease
but he wears khakis
and doesn't have needle marks
on his arms

so he will probably get away with it
and like me
my daughter won't realize the truth
until she is in her twenties
and she will blame me like i 
blamed my mother

in the meantime
the spirits of dead women
and children
haunt my home
they keep me up at night
telling me their stories

because they don't want
things to end like it did for them

it is a lie
that there is this light
for the victim's of abuse
when they die

i see the dead
and they are still suffering
trying to save those like them
they are here with me
while i suffer

watching my daughter
in a stranger's home
while her father
casts his lying shadow
over the lives of all those
he has encountered

i dropped my phone in the lake today
while I was taking a picture of a sunset

it didn't bother me too much at the time
because I have never lost a phone
i use them until they die
over done deaths like
shoe leather steak

when I got home and realized
my passwords were in some
algae ecoli abyss
i just wanted to throw 
the towel in

no one calls me anyway
and I don't have a job
to pay  for  my phone

i make soap at midnight
hoping it will bring in enough 
money to pay my condo fees

i give fortunes for free
because they cling to me
but I am starting to realize
no one ever wants to know
their future but me

i lost my meditation play list
in the dirty lake
where people still swim in
so now I am listening to Seal
and it feels like wearing
drugstore clothes because
my house burned down in a fire

lime green t-shirt
with too big boxer shorts
sporting a trout

the dead swirl around me
being sarcastic about my 
phone loss
they didn't even have antibiotics
they had to carry ice blocks
to keep their food cold
they dry fucked on hay
while smelling horse shit

my passwords
float in the filthy lake like
alphabet soup
and I mourn
how I used to not have to
hold things
that held things

i used to just feel
the smooth stones
in my pockets
found feathers
were the only 
messages i needed

life is shit now
shallow and tin
food is made
without love

we take to survive
and there is no joy
in that

so i kiss sadness now
because it is the only light
it tastes of decaying flowers
but still it is a sunset
with a drowned phone

everyone keeps apologizing
for having a soul
​there isn't much to go on

when being human
is just feeling shame
​there is no humanity

the man with a thousand faces
is keeping information from me
he is holding the health of my child
ransom
just so he can con his new wife
into thinking he is the king

he dangles my beautiful daughter
like a worm
in crowds just to cause me pain 
to cover his never ending lies
i see the future from his mistakes

there is nothing about him
that isn't a lie
he is a male succubus
he borrows others personalities
harbors money that is not his own
and he uses his own child
puts her at risk
dims her emotions
until they fit his agenda

today is the day that it ends
his lies are ants
​crawling all over him
when he sleeps
his lies are bills that keep coming
that he can't pay
his lies will seep through
every part of his life
saturating his every thought
until he tells the truth

my enemy
is alive and well 
​and living in a house
in new jersey
just kidding he lives
in some bum fuck 
town in vermont
not far from a cemetery 

my daughter
is under his roof now
while the dead 
grow in his basement
like weeds
she lays asleep in bed
thinking he can keep her
safe

this fool who isn't
even funny enough to wear bells
doesn't know the dead
are crawling his walls
watching his every move

his joy is 
arsenic and aspirin
and my pain
is alive with the dead
all their hopes buried
in graveyard dirt

i don't mind digging
in the middle of the night
my sadness calls to them
and they come

bringing gifts
from the abyss

i whisper to them
that they matter
and their stories
fall like pennies
at my feet

i cry for them
because they are me
and I am them

spirits i call to you
to watch over my child
one day she will hear your
stories like i do

keep my daughter from danger
keep her from lies
keep her from the end that
is so close to here

and i promise
to hear your stories
until I am gone

dead friends
descend upon me
whisper to me
the secrets of the universe
and i will hold you in the night
​
i will be you dark mother
i will be your home

the world is ending
and all I can think about
is climate change
and viruses eating people up

corpses in hospital hallways
masks on faces
kids in school pretending
they can't feel their parents' fear

our plastered smiles
are just another
horror movie
we know the ending
it isn't about the attic or the basement
it is about
​leaving your house
going to work
​going to school

an alien is screaming at the tv
don't send them to school you idiots
don't eat at a restaurant with that 
touristy new jersey guy

he sees the end
we see the end
but we keep watching the movie

what the fuck is wrong with us?