grief
hidden beneath
worn smiles

lies gifted to me
long ago

my childhood cat
chokes on silver tinsel

the dead surround me
their message on repeat
no one will tell you what you need
to know until it is too late

it is too late

the angel of death
writes on my skin

a love letter of loss
clawed in cursive

his scythe is 
a fountain pen
ink as good as blood

the key to the red door
is beyond the self

Azrael 's dark cloud
whispers
bloom in a sky
without stars
 
i dream about
empty apartments
furniture broken for firewood

this ending is taking too long
let's begin again
i am planting the seeds
of destruction
tearing at roots too deep

follow me into the dark
the only place
to breathe

the only place
to close your eyes

sun is fly paper
moon is my reflection
in deep water

mirrors are portals
to other worlds

my sadness strings
maps to other dimensions

red yarn tied and tied again
this knot is my blood
this knot is my protection

memory is a wound
i pick at 

a rusty thumb tack
goes here

at seven i spit grapes seeds
on cement 
and the patterns told
me where to go next

there is nowhere to go
now
so i sit in the 
circle of the moon

i had a feeling
we were going to be
more than friends

i saw you when i was a child
i was alone
i had just scraped my knee
after crashing on my bike
i was picking concord grapes
off a bush
in a yard
where no one
looked out the window

i didn't know you would follow me
whisper to me in the dark
tell me the future 
for the rest of my life

i wished then i could close my ears
shoo you away like a fly 
but your scythe was in my hand
and i felt your cold breath on my neck

you want me to remember how
those grapes tasted
more sour than sweet
on that autumn day
when your hand
wrapped around my neck

i only leaned in because 
 i thought you were 
the wind
​

i walk my dog at night
so i don't have to give 
that fake smile
the head nod
that leads to 
a wave at some car
to someone 
i don't care to know

these social norms
that i detest

painted on smiles
that seethe venom
later
in  pretty boxes
known as home

in the dark
mailboxes appear
as shadow people
scraping souls
with jagged knives

trees appear sinister
as they surround my
path
my footsteps are
the only sound

the occasional light
is a painful reminder
of  another day 
gone by

no answers found

the ghosts follow behind me
holding on to my sorrow

i clutch the leash
my dog pulls 

they trip at my heels
their desperate
whispers

remind me of middle school
my hands burning
as i tried to climb
the rope in gym
i held on
when all i wanted 
was to fall

my dead friends
walk backwards
at night
time is still
and time reverses

as a child
i watched twin peaks
in the night
crosslegged
on the dog-hair-matted
carpet
with bated breath

i was laura palmer
only younger
and not dead

riding my bike
with bloody knees
on empty small town
streets
because it was more
freedom than home

blue couch
closed curtains
cigarette smoke
in the light of the tv

the half moon table
in the kitchen
held the only phone
the only connection
to the outside world
besides the two doors
that no one ever 
dared to knock on

my bedroom felt like 
an attic 
a slanted closet door
a lead-painted window
that stuck stubborn
in the summer
and winter

the bookshelf
and tv
were the only things
that were allowed
to tell secrets

at a hotel room
i look in a trash can
for clues

next to the staircase
in the street
i see a dead body
zipped up in an
orange sleeping bag

on a dirty table
in a makeshift clinic
i lay naked

i travel in a time machine
that looks like
a shitty one bedroom
apartment

my big grey dog 
is bleeding under a sheet
i have to adjust his oxygen tube
several times

i need to go back to 1987
because it was cheaper
to do laundry

i hold change in my hands
in the middle of an
empty yellow laundromat

time travel is bloody
there is blood everywhere
i am tired of surviving
i cry this again and again
in to the fur of my 
now dead dog

at night
i reach 1987
when i fly over the ocean
the lighthouses 
wink at me
i fail to notice the beauty
​in this

i didn't sleep again last night

i am in perimenopausal
​purgatory

 my rage keeps me up 
 as i remember all that
i have tried to forget

nights sweats
and regrets

my heartbeat
​blooms curses
at all those
who have wronged me

 i think of those times
where hope was a shrine
 and my placating was 
considered a feminine art form
by those who didn't bother 
to see me

my body protested
this invisibility
ovaries burdened with cysts
my uterus harbored fibroids
 as i cried in nondescript bathrooms
and homes where i wasn't at home

my womb 
never stopped
weeping at that miscarriage
that was silenced
because it was just 
another normal nothing

it rained that day
i hid in the clouds

while the  X was busy pretending
that working out at the gym
wasn't just some code
for that  other woman
that wasn't me

my identity 
just air
that slipped
out open windows

i have learned
that hate is an art form
that calls to all
all the wandering ghosts

their unfinished business
is mine
my resolution
is their ticket to elsewhere

my daughter
 at risk of slipping out
a window like i did
going 
unnoticed into the ether

 the planets shift
i watch stars fall at my feet
at 3:00am the dead will
surround me

conjure my future
that chance they didn't have
 hands still fists
directed at the men they knew
that had a part in ending them

dead women
and children
eyes
swallowed in darkness
this what hope is to me
now

 this remaining 
long after your story 
has ended
thinking you can change time

this nightly vigil
just another
 communion with death

follow
those yellow lines
in the road
until you forget

that every crossroad
is just another 
vast desert

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

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