no more nevermore oh no stop please stop i'm done

"No more!"

            I cry out.

        I must cry out

I must be the one

    to stop this thing...

[you don't even know we in]

I cannot. 

I cannot read another 

    sweet word you penned.
I cannot see another 

    sweet picture of your face.

I cannot hear 

    another hot minute of your voice.

        I am consumed by

                 my consumption

    of all things you,

I gorge myself and

the edges of my hand blur with

    the morsels you 

        allow drop into my cage.

the life I built up over years-

    thrown aside

    an old discarded toy

just how you would toss me away

        if I confided these feelings

so into the bog I goes

or else I'd eat myself alive.

loving you was easy too

Loving you was 

         to rip off my toe nails

   and soak my feet 

                 in your lemon juice

    then pretend it was 

                 lemonade and

          sugar cookies

     while I cried 

 and you yelled at me

                to stop my dumb tears.

happy birthday, you who blossom sentimental

To Gwyn on her birthday ...

Today as the Earth bursts forth

    in a grateful flood of pink petals

    and springs eternal praise that you live

        another year, another day, another breath-

I wish
    only one gift but it's not mine to give
            only yours to take
                Take life by the horns

with handlebar grip 

    wrestle it down

        shoehorn your way in

every space is your space.

No "toe the line"

step on their fucking toes.

shoes with blood from your heels

    grind 'em into ground.

 

You are right to trust your guts

(don't spill them) 

wrap your guts blanket tight

No guts.

No glory. 

Know your guts.

Know your glory.

Every bath

holy water 

    in your wake. 

baptize in the real knowledge:

 not just a kid
    not just another kid
        not just a weird kid
            not just a sentimental kid
                not just a 'here's looking at you, kid.'
not just valentine tinted water puddled, but
               Arthurian legend, Lady of the Lake, EMERGE

from the dark of your brain and

shake off the water, shake off the tears, 

the vibes are not off, you are a higher frequency. 

Behold!
            You are a whole universe unto yourself.
what you sense is their fear
    let the little boys shake and quake
and sink in their own insecurities

-let them drown.

 

every boy fumbles, at mercy of a Queen,

and dreams to lower her down.

every mortal tries to catch an angel, 

you must fly faster than they can run.

we are such little birds

What if we had mirrored desires

reflecting each other like hummingbirds

peering into the smooth 

              water surface

              of a bird bath.

Hovering silver.

             We are silver.

My face.

             Your face.

I blink.

             You blink.

We both miss it

     our closed lids

don't know we are in sync.

Touch?

      What if we touched-
  through the silver glass

can sliding doors caress

passing by each other in

       perfect symmetry

twins together, twin apart,

screeching aligned in time in space

you hoot at the moon 

       so I know you're alive

stick a wing in the water

      ruffle my feathers

a mating dance

      See My Ritual

Slipping,

      Slipping,

           Slipping off my perch.

Physics cannot save me now;

I am as wet as the day I hatched.

 

reality shifting with the full moon

Too old for it to be schizophrenia

             though entirely possible with my genes-

Yet my heartache for her could only

be taunting visions, hallucinations,

tormenting my tattered mind.

Again, alone in silent fight

[visions be damned]

my demon just her sweet

pinkie toe in my mouth.

This little piggy went crazy 

              wee wee wee 

              all the way to my home

              to her grave

              I must go.

my haunted tongue can barely speak.

fate of zoo animals in Berlin, 1945.

Even in my dreams some magazine says

   to pray for my enemies

why am i expected to be the bigger man

       when i was born a girl?

womenfolk

Girlhood was never sugar and spice

nor everything nice. It was gore and violence.

Ring around the rosey was about death.

Just girls night out 

     cut off a man's head, then meet in the night,

     drive them quietly mad - with our silence -

Pin them againist each other.

     The Trojan War. Cleopatra.

           Taj Mahal. 

For our next trick, 

watch us bleed every month

a baby boy is born, chaos magick.

See a little girl will catch a bug, 

      hold it close, kiss it,

      and watch it die in a jar.

Crying her friend is gone,

     having set it all into motion.

Write each man

a letter in my menses

painfully frought.

Just with the taste of iron

     flowing freely out of me,

I could forge a thousand swords

      and fight everyone of you. 

      But I dont.

Cause Womanhood has the horror

you'll never know, cowards puffed up.

While we wear a thorny crown, call it fashion.

earning my yearning

You don't know it

         But I love you.

I love you,

         But you don't know it.

Crush

    to crush

        to be crushed

               by my crush

    to be my crush
        crushed by me

            crushed by my crush

crushing on your crushed crush.

is it meaningless yet?

Who is crushing who?

Me under foot

    stuck to shoe 

            squashed

                stomped 

  lying here, flat backed.

Or is it you?

        

You who could never live up

    to the unbearable weight

        of my 

            daydreams,

                my

                    hopes,

       and my

            expectations

built up over an unbearable

        lifetime

           so heavy, 

            you are crushed?

[feel the unbearable weight of me]

are you crushed yet?

sorry so sorry

bear with me a moment

         sorry to be such a bear

 sorry to place all this on you

 you bearing the weight of my need

    only to be crushed

we're crushing each other.

    "what's that?"

oh! just the insatiable hole in me

    black hole, sucking you dry-

crushing me by

        gravitational force

                    do you like it?

[do you like it? do you like me?]

- to feel the rush of crush

    crush the soda can

        recycle and try again

sometimes metal on metal

       makes us stronger,

    i will get lighter

          you will get tougher

    and maybe we will live a love

                      uncrushed.

running from prison mail

Prison

       Mail

    in my mother's hand

seen

    from feet away

        printed return address

inmate number 

    hand written

        below.

big red stamp

    on the back

a blessing or curse

    I never know:

"This correspondence

passed inspection"

inside 

    the standard paper

        why is prison paper different?

not college ruled nor wide ruled

    nor blank copy paper, 

        some in-between

thicker than copy paper

    printed lines

        not quite straight

            not quite clean.

nothing to do in here

but write, workout, read, 

or watch TV.

    So, He's working out

        hours each days.

He is concerned I ate

    two candy bars last visit.

{The only vending machine bribe
    my mom could find to coax me thru
the metal detecting and body search}

in the margin

    He draws me at 500 pounds

word bubble pops out

"But my daddy still loves me."

Daddy,

    something I would never call him

        no matter my weight or age.

He is going to quit smoking,

    get his college degree, and

He is working out, 

    and when he gets out

I should be ready.

    I have two years to prepare.

He writes, I should ask my mom

    to pace out a mile in her car

so I can start to run it and train.

Because in two years when he's out,

    and I'm 12 and 

he's 'just an old geezer'-

We will have a foot race

    And I better win.

It doesn't fall softly

    no lighthearted chuckle at end

not the friendly competition

        in which two get stronger and closer

This is a threat.

I am a child, but I know

    why he is in there

my mother told me

        his defense in court

A seven year old girl

    [I once knew and liked]

        Chased him down

    Held him down

            It wasn't his fault

    till he entered
the plea agreement
entered the prison

there's a program for inmates

    like him 

        like witness protection

    in prison

even his criminal peers

    want him dead.

Must I outrun him

    for my protection

        or his own?

Me, a child with the weight,

    the 500 lbs of burden

        to never be a victim

And outrun us both

So I must always be Stronger

    Faster, 

        Thinner, 

            Fitter,

Before he catches up

    And his toxic 'daddy love' 

                is all I have left.

regalia o' americana

Debutantes are real

    a fact I learned 

        not too long ago

I'm 20 years too old

              to ponder such things

Yet here's a real Deb before me

    Southern belle, 

        modern Scarlett O'Hara,

            teach you a diet 

    before she leaves ya

['She's gotta blaze, charity things']

    She knows all the rules 

        I was never told

the hidden 

    stench of poverty

how far from dump 

            do I need to get

before the poor can't be 

        sniffed on me

she clocked me from a mile away.

She is

    hoop skirt in the attic

        but it still fit last year

            It fit. 

Her waist the same at 

sixty-[redacted] years old

        as it was when she was 19.

 Girlhood a red badge
            of courageous menses

flowing 

            down 

 

        the only handle left

                   to grasp

is from 

           her past

       frozen in time

   youth before wisdom

                male gaze parade

    values a girl, not a woman, LOVES

innocent and naïve faithful eyes 

blinded:

    this is what happens to women

        still trying to be girls for men.

Anna Nicole and me

Coconut cream pie

is just pudding and whipped cream

    in a pie crust

Brat sister wife

is just autopilot and survival instinct

    in this kind of life

Comforting care

is unlike any we seen before

    peers can never peer in.

        They'll never understand us.

All pie

        is just filling

    shoved in a crust.

Crust makes the pie. 

Pets don't live fulfilling lives

    and neither do we

        but damned, cursed
the trade:

Kept woman

    for the fulfilling struggle. 

Give up?

    No breath holds when the card swipes,

        No declines, 

No hungry nights,

       no hand-me-downs,

            no cavities,

tomorrow is handled

and the house safe.

All my childhood dreams

      come true.

Luxury of choice.

    Done a lot worse

for a lot less.

From paycheck to paycheck to

necklace to necklace

That's the luxury of choice
    that comes when 

you're just an accessory

            to someone's end of life

The studies are right

all us unwanted lil babies

    thrive with a daddy.

The trick is to

be big

        and small 

    at the same time

so his liver and onions

                    shines.

We are just filling

    in a pie crust

        served at the end

and on the side.

Patience,

Patience, 

Patience. 

Wait long enough
    and dessert makes a whole meal.

boys vs. men

i'm not a man-hater
    just a boy-hater
and there's a lot of boys
    'round these parts
thinking they men.

college town boy (and the tale of low self-esteem)

gross to still be affected

    by american spirits - hand rolled

favorite band

    you never heard

beers ordered

    you can't pronounce.

 

every trait

space

pushing you away.  

even if he has never been out of this town

     he got his superior space.

 

god, you couldn't even know. it's too hard to explain.

a band? too hard to explain a band? a beer? 

too hard to explain a beer? either he's lyin',

too stupid to form words

   or doesn't want to let you in into the space.

 

superior space

only for him and his....

dirty sheets
cigarette ash on jeans

he smells bad but

he likes girls with visible collarbones.

he'll fuck you,

even if you are not his type.

you'll fuck him,

even if he only makes you cry.

 bartender shoulder tap

"can't sleep here, buddy"

 

crying on the phone in the streets

best friend confused,

"who the fuck even is this guy?"

townie boy college town

alcoholic but so are we

works in a factory

looks like moby

eating tuna straight from the can

 dirty glasses

he's never happy. 

          scared he doesn't like you. 

 but do you even like him?

 or is it just the space between
how low you feel

    and how high, high, high, he acts?

"he's just not that into you."

don't quote pop culture.

it's too well know. too mainstream.

(maybe popular things are popular

because people like them)

it's corporate machine.

but you like popular things. you are not a cog.

you may like it, 

    but it's not TECHNICALLY good.

makes no sense, nonsensical

did all boys get trained in the neg arts?

even the highschool drop-out, strip club customer

don't buy dances, barely tips, 

unless it's haughty

sentences convoluted in drugs & booze.

just move to a new town, new college town,

new boy, 

with a party 'j' self-done tattoo on hand 

pbr and candy corn to start.

 rinse & repeat.

lying on the floor,
    he doesn't love you any more
           than the townie boy before. 

anti - depressant

how negative

modern society

even the good

a double negative

ANTI-DEPRESSANT

anti-

depressant

not positives

not pro-happy

not pro-content

not pro-living

not pro-soul

Anti. Depressant.

two wrongs

make me right

take a pill to negate

my negative

wasssuuuuuuuppppppppppp

rollin' with best friend

Pfizer

in my cells.

My ancestors lived...

bled, bred, no chemical

...But they touched more grass too.

Internet / Intranet

What of it when the children quit speaking and no speech pathologist can intervene? I would Maya Angelou too if my mother had an Easter island face staring into a black screen instead of my eyes. Children used to be part of life. Touching their hands to adult faces as they undulated words and movements of life. Full body experience it was. Brains kept nimble for young and old.

I met a child who had never seen an orange peeled. He held the slice like a grub, writhing away,  two fingers. He could reach for the phone - not for a call- and open the app, one finger. I bet he will never read. Only seeing a.i. pictures, generated lines which seem human enough to just be unknown. Who am I kidding? I write this on a small box and speak it to none. I bought a tomato where they genetically modified the flavor out. Only red left. And faint in the middle. They are picked green. Ripened by mechanical temperature trucks and chemical. At least it's "fresh." Imagine the ketchup.

What if the only people you saw were only the real people you actually saw. I saw my husband. I saw a guy walking his dog. I saw some coworkers. I saw a car accident. I drove on by. See the self-esteem restore. This is where humanity is at. Not a profile picture but faces in action, bodies in action. More than the 2D avatar Instagram keeps insisting I make. No edits. What if all the words you heard were just the ones spoken to you in person? What would you know then? Before Google, you would have a question. Ponder on it a bit and try to figure it out. If this failed, You walked to and talked to another person. If they did not know, you shared sweet vulnerability in both not knowing. No true answer. No accuracy. Just connecting our squid tentacles. This was before our antenna. We could laugh and connect on mutual imperfections.

I'm sick of talking about politicians I've never met and pretending like they know anything about me (or you or him or them). This isn't how things get done. Imagine how much Xanax is prescribed in a world where you only know of the trauma that affects you and your friends. Imagine how much Xanax is not prescribed in a world where you only know what you experience and share with others. I would never know of an earthquake. How many Americans would know of a lion?

People used to meet in Venn Diagrams: geography, temperament, and timing. So much more simple than an algorithm. Met on the apps. What a joke. This math said it will work, not we will make it work. Remember how husbands and wives used to talk? There's an app for that. You can two-factor authenticate a tickle or a kiss. We used to mend socks and marriages used to work.

My husband says I'm an old soul. I am and so is he. We make it work.  I want to curl up in my sensual world. Not 'Porn Hub' sensual where you can watch a girl captcha a man or another woman or a wand or a mechanical noose or a latex glove or an a.i. cartoon. Gamify sex. Double points and double penetration. I'm talking about 'Senses' sensual. The real taste, real sight, real feelings, real sounds of the world. That which I know. 

I love a letter. Something you hold. Like how children used to hold faces, I hold letters. Physical. The artifact true. Undulating with my soul.

God the future is so bleak without you. Please speak words and touch and smell and hear. Please talk to every cashier! Please nod hello and acknowledge every person you see. Smile. It's still feminist to smile. Be happy and let others know you're happy. Attract the real and happy. We are overlapping circles. I am here too.

Next time you reach for the box and you face slacks in the boredom of another low-senses event,  Write me a letter instead. Feel the pen. Smell the paper. Read the words. Say the words. Hear them. Taste the ink. I said: TASTE THE INK! The vibration of your body moving and experiencing. So much more effort than a "like." It's titillating. Addictive. To be in movement true. Not a thumb-poked button. Not 2020 when Facebook added the "Care" reaction, a yellow circle holding heart with...hands? gloves? No difference of a friend and a stranger.

Slide out my DMs and into my hands.

awake.

good apricot morning

orange juice mourning

peachy moaning

day.

pages of lives I shouldn't know (but please read mine when I go)

I possess three generations of journals:

my grandfather's, my mother's, my own.

Blueprints of the same house, different time,

laid on top of one another. Almost twins.

An updated bathroom here or new siding there,

but the beams and all the walls standing firm.

Did I ever have a chance without divine intervent?

Not termites or tornado or fire bespoke.

I just saw me a castle and suddenly it was so.

So I write and I write, for next generation in store.

i still reek of afterbirth

When I was born, I was born with

                    Hooves

Still wet from my mother, I walked in under an hour

                    Galloped in two

The womb cut still open, the whole room marvelled

                      They are all now dead

I had a friend - One single friend

                     Parents parted us.

I had another friend - another single friend

                    War parted us.

Girls are butterflies bound to fly away

                     Boys leeches bound to stay.

unfiltered brain stream (apple juice)

I used to fear that I was incapable of love but now I'm scared I love too much. Too intense. Too quick. To wild. Too loud. Too much. I'm still in love with a girl I never kissed who died over 14 years ago. Her death a middle schooler. I can look up my dad and my second boyfriend on the same offender registry. Guess Daddy's doing better cause he got a home. But the guy I lost my virginity to was last seen in the Pep Boys parking lot. I'm a witch. A literary witch. My words so powerful all other words fall flat on the floor. A pancake the dog ate. I had a cousin who set himself on fire while driving a car. I had a boyfriend who's stepdad rented a car and drove to the Grand Canyon and shot himself. I am loyal and caring. I stayed with him another year. Second fiddle to another girl. They fell in love in Russia and are now married and still together. It could have been mine, but it wasn't the right season. It wasn't the right time. I wasn't ripe.

I can smell my armpit. I'm disgusting. I bought dragons blood soap from the store. I'm psychic. I know that sounds crazy. I know I sound crazy. My cards fortold this year. I knew it would come to this. I'm sinking in the sand I was born in. I crawled out my egg shell yesterday. That's why I've been googling "real Appalachian magic spell soap" but I can't tell what's genuine. This Publix goatmilk soap smelled like Whole Foods. It will work. I needed it to commence my vision.  

P.s. can you believe Amazon and Whole Foods partnered? It's like Trump as President. Everything's a farce. I'm scared of the direction modern entertainment is going.

But the soap. So I want to wash away my human shell. I'd be a good worker bee. I could serve a queen. I could be an ant building mounds. Termite chewing houses. Bird in the stream. We need to run away. It's sounds crazy. I sound crazy. But it was fortold this would happen. We have to run away to the forest or meadows. By a lake. Near a beach with smooth rocks. But, again, I believe there is the right time, a right pace, a right space. We will need a code word. So we can signal when it's time to run. We can whisper "Winnebago" or you might shout "Pizza rolls" with a wink or I just order apple juice. Off we go. This is how it's intended. 

I accidentally deleted a long message. I can't recover it. It wasn't meant to be. But I have seen the future. I've seen my future. I should have been a teen mom, I should have stayed an addict, I should have been dead by now. But I'm not. I'm not. I put faith into a box and jar and My future changed. My God doesn't have zip codes, but he does have hoes in different area codes. I love that Usher is performing the Super Bowl show. I will watch it but not live. We don't watch things live anymore. It's on OUR time and OUR pace....it's not the right time or the right place. When I was a kid, I wanted Usher's song "Nice and Slow" to be my real life. What if it was seven o'clock on the dot and I was in my drop top crusin' the streets? Would you be a real sweet pretty thing waiting for me? Is that why I cried when I sang along during my drive home? It's that part "I've been waitin' for this for so long."

Imagine my old crush advising me on my new crush. One of them is fucking her ex-boyfriend and the other is a vision. Venus de Milo. Perfection. But she's insecure. So am I. Isn't that all girls? I used to hate how I looked. I sometimes still do. That's why we must runaway. I can see us now. We are laughing. We are picking blueberries from the backyard. You wipe a dirt covered finger across my face. We kiss. Taste dirt in our spit. I foresaw it all. I like pretty soft things. That's why I like you. You are velvet. You are lace. You are pastels fuzzy on the eyes. Plush. I wish to squish, squish, squish us through a hole into another world. 

Only female mosquitos drink blood. It's vital to reproduction. Take up arms, ladies! I sacrifice for our sisterkin and their kin. I am a womb. I am a frilled sack lying on the ground. A bulb. Bursting forth. Spring has sprung in sideways snow. That's an inside story with a dead girl. It's on my body forever. I havent been this inspired since her. You are sparking me alive. My soul is not dead. Society cannot kill it. I will folic. I will be with the deer. I will waddle with ducks. And you will be there.

Ok, we are back. I'm seeing us in the future.

You will know all the references. I will know why you are speakeasy and porcelain. You're a doll. A cherub. I am bowing before a goddess. Round eyes. Our home. Our hive. Not a royal "our" but a gollum "our." Our precious. I'm cringe. (Caution! Pull back. Don't be weird. Don't be a creep.) I sometimes I drink out of the milk carton. It tastes better with rebellion. I used to drink alcohol. I hated myself. I got so fearful this weekend. I thought maybe you encountered the man I woke up next to the morning I found out she was dead. The dead girl I never kissed. So I googled and googled and he's right where I left him. There's a chance you met him. There's a chance you might meet him. I'm disgusted by society. We have to run away. When the time is right. We could picnic in the wild flowers. I bring you cornflowers and black eyed susans. I bring pastry puffs. I make a quilt, we spread it on the ground. I bring honeycomb. Suck the sweetness out. 

I will make a different kind of cookie each week. We will be friends with our mole and vole neighbors. I lay on the compost heap and you lie on top and we will sink in the soil. I am a bulb planted in fall. You are a hummingbird. I already know what you'll love. It is what I love. We lie on a married couple's graves and see if their soul commune with ours. Go to the library and look up their obituaries. Shed them at the end of the day like I shed my bathrobe. I have a satin bath robe. I think you'd love how it feels. 

But first! I bathe. I wash myself with dragons blood soap I bought at the store. It will work. I will cast a spell. Cast a spell that when it is the right time, the right pace, the right space, we will runaway together. To the middle of the fairy flight paths and coyote trails. Have tea. Proper afternoon tea. I will grow you tea. I will make cookies. Soup from scratch. One of the pumpkins is ripe. Can you tomatos. Peel you an orange. Take a bite. Wrestle with rabbits. Nap in the sun. I will love too much. Too hard. Too loud. Too wild. 

It's really for the best we have a code word. Let's keep it secret. It's not time yet. Lobster. Sprinkles. Zazzle. Zoots. If you want. If you want it too. But I've seen the future and it was you.

Next full moon whisper the code word to her. The moon and I talk all the time. She'll let me know.

My words are too powerful. I'm a literary witch. I need my dragons blood bath and put on my satin robe and then someday a word will float to my ear off the full moon's lips.

And we will slip, folded in-between awake and dreaming together. Butter between the biscuit flakes.

build it and she will come.

My therapist doesn't understand

Sex isn't on Maslow's Hierarchy.

I want to Great Gatsby you

minus the selfish death ending.

Distant, I will build myself up

to the type of person you deserve.

I will studiously learn you till

your soul is like my daily routine.

Then when you're done with your stuff

and I'm all done with all  my stuff

I will swim toward the green light

shower you in beautiful clothes

Till then, I'm beefing with my therapist

she doesn't understand our timing.

She thinks I'll die if I don't touch you

but I will die if I don't touch you just right.

cockroach

I looked you up on the registry

(offender not wedding)

and you are still alive

in an apartment next to the dump

tagged and tracked

like you are endangered 

protected species

in sanctuary far from

kids, public pools, and schools.

Bully for you. Huzzah. Great.

You're still alive.

Outlived the mother

who took a child to prison to visit you, 

mother who scolded

"He's dying. You don't want regrets."

The mother who moved your wife in

to a childhood home,

the opposite of a care package

unwrapped freshman year.

("He knows not to to go into your room.")

You outlived the best friend

and you outlived the first husband

and there is a the gnawing fear

you gonna outlive me.

So what?! I grew into a bitter woman,

love that grapefruit burn

numbs hands and hearts.

I love it. I love my bitterness.

And I will stay bitter to the bitter end.

✨manifesting✨

There's a dirty sock on my altar

and I'm praying to for vision -

A Kewpie face parting Frodo curls.

My back aches from age or from rage.

Yet, from the mist, my phone,

the portal awakens, buzz,

you reaching out over miles

to caress me with digital words.

My medicine. Good medicine.

Maybe a cure.