Joan Didion
sits in the corner
chain smoking

our anxiety vibrates on 
the same plane

"a babysitter once 
told me that my daughter
had death in her aura"

i tell her
i know your story 

she stares me down
asks me
"so what's new in the whiskey business?"

i know him too
and point to
the angel of death
who lights her umpteenth cigarette

she stands up 
does a slow tap dance
like the little man
in twin peaks

i look down
and i am laura palmer
in black light
my words
come out backwards

i choke
on secrets
cough up
black ants

Didion's nose is
bleeding 
she tilts her head back

and says
"embrace the dread"
but the ants 
are in my ears now
and instead i hear
embrace the dead

she fades away
until she is 
 a cloud of smoke
in the dark

then says

'there isn't much
of a difference'

there once was a gypsy witch 
who lived in the deep dark wood
she was a solitary witch but she 
occasionally enjoyed the company
of those who wandered near her fire

it was on one of those nights
her daughter was conceived
a man with a name she couldn't
pronounce
lets call him douchebagstilkson
anyway nine months later
daughter of fire was born
and the gypsy witch carried
her everywhere singing her 
songs and telling her stories

douchebagstilkson wandered
every day and all day looking
for brighter shinier things
some days he didn't even notice
he had a daughter of fire

years later when the gypsy witch
had given her heart to the traveling poet
and the daughter of fire was much older
douchebagstilkson started coming 
around wearing white knight armor
and insisted it had always been this
way which confused daughter of fire
and gypsy witch

he didn't tell the gypsy witch
that he planned to gift their daughter
of fire to the ice queen

the gypsy queen sang spells in to the fire
like it was any other day
and when the traveling poet
read her sonnets by the fire at night
she ignored the visions
coming from the crystal ball 
in her caravan

soon the traveling poet was living 
in her caravan with her
and the douchebagstilkson would 
return daughter of fire
with no explanation as to why 
she acted strangely

daughter of fire only ate soup now
and wore heavy winter woolens
on hot summer nights
she smiled less
and became angry with her witch
mother when she wanted her to drink
nettle tea

gypsy witch stayed up all night
worrying 
dead friends started
giving her warnings
telling her that the ice queen is no good
that she would bring danger to daughter of fire

the wandering poet
no longer wandered and he too
worried
daughter of fire used to laugh
and now his jokes fell flat
around the fire

they asked douchebagstilkson
next time he came to get her
what was going on 
and he played dumb
and shined behind his fake white
armor
they even asked the ice queen
on the rare occasion she saw them as people
and she crystallized and iced over at any question
so nothing was ever resolved

gypsy witch became sad all the time
and started talking to the dead 
they always been around but now
visited in droves

she drank mead until vomiting
in to the fire
while the non-wandering poet
held her hair 
and they conversed over the state
of daughter of fires increasingly cold heart

daughter of fire now wanted to live with ice queen
and douchebagstilksen even though gypsy witch hadn't heard
it from her mouth but had to read it on a cruel message from 
the ice queen's royal gmail

the gypsy witch felt hopeless
daughter of fire
was now daughter of ice

the gypsy witch
didn't bother to leave
the caravan anymore
or stoke the fire
she had to melt daughter of fires heart
to bring her home
and defeat the ice queen
but how
she couldn't even get out of bed
and if it weren't for the un-wandering poet's
feeding her berries 
she would have wasted away

 all the ghosts
hanging about 
my sad thought bubbles
trying them on to see
if my pain fits them
it does

i lose weight
in grief
all food tastes
like grey paste

i lose sleep
in grief
closing my eyes
means seeing
more grieving ghosts

sometimes they are helpful
other times not
the one next to me now
keeps cheerfully reminding
me that i could die from a
broken heart at any time
she says the japanese have 
a name for it but she forgets
she read it in a magazine
​when she was alive

my heart hurts now
i think its acid reflux
but my helpful ghost chimes
in that i am probably dying

one of them starts to clap
the other ghosts shake their head
at him
how awkward

i hold my broken heart
while the ghosts
wander around my 
bedroom pretending
they aren't waiting for me to die

sad girls
sad women
like me
offering their lives
up because some
abusive asshole
won't cut the
never ending
fuckery out

slit wrists in a bathtub
a bellyful of pills
my demons are having 
none of it

that shit is for martyrs 
they say with venom
as they do weird
interpretive dance
in the shadows

pain is just 
another art show

one demon 
pantomimes
a sad clown

then we watch
the martyr me
bleed out in a
bathtub

of course
she slit her 
wrist the wrong
way

Sylvia  had it right
the oven is so peaceful
and what a powerful
metaphor

the demons 
throw glitter
then
make a crown 
out of my suicidal
martyr bones

i am wearing it now

it hurts
and i love it

my heart is splattered
on a wall 

look at it

i forgot to wrap
a piece of tiny furniture
for my store on etsy
it arrived broken
like me
and then i overshared
about missing my daughter

now i am thinking
i can't do anything
other then feel
intensely and write
about it

all the miniature dolls
stare at me with dead eyes
just like the ghosts
who stare in to nothing
the nothing that is me

pain is
grounding me
and it isn't enough

the song of the dead 
plays on repeat
ghosts pulling 
at me

whispering
secrets 
 grief keeps
coming 
in waves so big
i can't see 
the point
anymore

when day is gone
night spreads its black wings
i lose myself here

my sadness
and anger
can create other worlds
portals spreading like veins

a road map
to anywhere but here
shadow man tips his hat to me
at each doorway

the horror of longing
fills the space in between
i am in and out of a trance
black pupils
pulsating universal wisdoms
 
someones dead grandma
is knitting spiders in the corner

i remember the root of my pain
my daughter isn't here
i open another vein

this portal
takes me back in time
here she is still a baby
wearing a drool bib
smiling at my dark star eyes

she recognizes my future self
my past self sits in another room
busying herself with mundane tasks
that keep her sorrow from cutting to deep

i hold my baby 
dance with her in my black robes
on beige carpet
she giggles
stares in to my eyes

i don't blink 
so she can see the secrets
of the universe
i know she will forget
we all do

i leave her with spirits to watch over her
colored orbs that glow in the night
i leave her with my past self

move on 
another vein
another place

the ghosts are my chariot
i urge them on
take me farther
show me everything
just keep moving

the man with a thousand faces
has won
taken the last light i had

the shadows are all around now
the ghosts are whispering
last memories

he always made me feel invisible
and now she does
​
my little girl
is gone

i knew it was coming
did everything to push
back fate

my blood
my tears
are just vapor
i am a ghost 
clutching at old memories

darkness is coming 
and i don't care

the world is painted in loss

memories
grown out of bones

each one
a message
to end this cosmic scavenger hunt
find every piece of myself
i lost along the way

my self is a broken mirror
that shines in the dark
to form a jagged star

wounds bloom into flowers

i pick them again and again
just to see them die

the serpent takes his mouth
off his tail to kiss me

tongue to tongue
while the world ends

my mother is hungry
and i am too small 
to speak full sentences
she can't find a penny
in her pocket
she is close to tears

later
underneath
the florescent lights
she stares out the window
while feeding me bits
of pastrami

the walls are mint green
but her sadness is the yellow
of a dying sunset

we haven't found a home 
she just holds me in her arms
at bus stops until she gets tired

we sleep on grey bus seats
ride in to the night

when she finds
our home
the man holds my neck
up against the wall
i try to call for her

but see in her eyes
that this is how it must be
i have to make this man love me
and i do

she falls farther away
he gets so close
i can't breathe

when he holds a pillow
over my face
i look out the bus window
he can't see

all those places we could have stayed
and she chose here
i lay still until
he thinks he has killed me
laughs anyway

i am a good little girl
because i want to die

my mother is in the next room
staring at a computer
she can't hear me now
he made it like that

i know she is looking out the bus window
i wish i could see her 
​

the dead sit in rusty folding chairs
a seat has been saved for me

i have been standing too long
waiting for too long

is this like eating the fairies food?
if i could just sit awhile
stare in to the abyss

can i return home?
what is home now
that i am not my daughter's
home

the chair's rusty jagged
pieces  of metal
 cut into the back of my leg
i can't feel the pain
just the blood trickling down

the dead smile at me
and point to the black curtains
ahead

looks like the show 
is ready to begin