the flames were her companions;

diamonds in the rough.

I don’t understand people who latch themselves onto other people so readily and enthusiastically in such a way it echos a fleeting obsession. These people want to love everyone. However, they often wind up disenchanted with the current object of their affections, immediately searching for another, becoming just as engrossed with this next person as they were with the one before. It makes me think of how I used to say that so very little is sacred, and truly special. Everybody is replaceable to everyone else. Is this what almost destroyed me? That I am so discriminating as to who I not only love and admire, but direct my energy or affection towards, men & women alike, friends or lovers. I am fiercely loyal to whom I choose however, to a fucking fault. I have trouble letting go. I cannot replace anyone. I do not even try. The concept of this is incomprehensible to me. If I give someone a compliment I mean it through to the very marrow of my bones. I’m not a paradigm of something you think you might’ve wished into existence. I’ll accept love when a person has seen the absolute worst of me. Along, with the absolute best, of course, the beauty is what will bewitch. But, you have to, absolutely have to know my flaws and my darkness in order to love me.

Eros talks to me, or so he tries. Every morning he looks up at me, so I ask “what’s up?” & he responds with a tiny ‘mee-ap’ and nod of his little feline head. He follows me everywhere and sleeps at the foot of my bed. I’m such a one-cat cat lady, I think I scared a couple of fellows on a dating site for making three references to him in my profile. Sorry, but the kitty comes with the girl. Dating sites are lame anyway. The idea of such premeditated dating spins my guts into a nauseating frenzy. I plan to meet the next love of my life in a bookstore of the non-commercial kind. A cozy little, decrepit one where all the books are ravaged by dust and releasing their pages. We’ll fall in love while trying to reassemble the same book. A former coworker and I were once hit on at Barnes & Noble by the same guy on two separate, individual occasions. He told us that we looked like a girl he’d gone to school with who had a knack for drawing horses. I recalled the story she told me during a slow night at the podium, sucking on hard candies & picking the lint off our all-black clothing. “This strange man came up to me and asked me if I like horses. Do I have a certain look about me?” Commercial bookstores are a mecca for the scum of pickup ‘artistry’. I bet in Eros’ testicle bearing, alley cat days he was a lot more suave than that.

…with a whiskered ball of fur at my feet

Trying to get back into the grind.
50 minute sweat, still unshowered at 3am in gym clothes, tousled-haired, delirious, beer-drunk, and my fingertips smell faintly of onion from dinner many hours ago; brown rice tossed with the stuff + carrots, garlic, & red peppers, local scallops sauteed in olive oil, with a spinach salad to seal the palate. I’m exhausted, yet restless, and have no words lately except for those which describe my dreams and nightmares. I’m ripped from my sleep every hour on the hour: I’m a fugitive. Somehow, I’ve done something very bad. I don’t know what. This is a recurring dream. I never catch myself committing the act, no. I’m just a wanted woman. This time I dyed my hair red and wore colored contacts. I was convinced I’d go undetected in disguise. Suddenly I’m on a ‘blind date’ with 6 to 8 other girls all waiting for the same man. He is repulsive so we use the opportunity to befriend one another. I shop for chocolate in the shape of hearts. I go pastry and candy shopping often in my dreams and this always brings me great pleasure to the point where I wake up ravenous for sugar. Only creamy and crispy sweets (not those donuts) or very dark chocolate. Ice cream on occasion. I don’t like cakes; the exception to the rule being cupcakes, but that is all. In the end, I’m back in catholic school and wandering through a church with endlessly high ceilings. Perhaps I feel repentant for all the pornography I’ve been watching while having sex with my lover in a basement. This, all before I realize that someone may be breaking into my childhood home and I must return to save my cat that didn’t even exist then. My father is still alive like he never died, yet not there at the moment.

St. John’s Wort is mind-fucking me. I was told it’d make my dreams more vivid, which have often been prior, however now they are so intense I cannot stop escaping them, thus I do not get sufficient rest. My mind trained my body long ago to wake itself from nightmares. These aren’t exactly such, yet vivid enough to disturb my unconscious peace of mind. I’m not sure what to do as St. John’s has been conducive to my productivity. For now I turn to my trusty little dream journal more often when I’m languid & blurry-eyed, trying to come to conclusions at 7am.

I found myself making a list of all the men I’ve ever slept with tonight, which is rather scant for my age. I ripped it up, set the pieces on fire, and tossed them in a jar after which alarmed my ‘part time lover’. I find that men often lie about these sort of things, or they simply can’t recall. Whether a drunken encounter or love, I remember each and every one.

Fuck the prince.

Rage is fuel. Just like Etta James said. It is the emotion she lived by and the one that helped her achieve greatness. It can be utilized for progress. I will not let myself make a nest in the arms of psychic vultures; the ones who think me a ‘concept’ at first, something they can help fix. It’s never really about me, always them. I still get tricked by the male ego disguised as the saviour. They want to be the ones I tell my dark secrets to, the ones I open up my heart & spread my legs for. I make beds of thorns covered in feathers for all my small deaths. But, I am never comfortable for long. When the pins prick I’m awake again. Stay fucking awake this time and don’t fall asleep again. I need it to survive. The blood boiling rage. I won’t let anyone take it away from me again.

the weather

I met a boy whose lips moved like thunder.
His hair whipped into a storm
& he brought me down to my knees like lightning.
When he came, I tasted rain.
I wanted to evaporate and become the dew on his skin.
I wanted the next girl to know where I’d been.

bad eggs & white sheep are food for big, bad wolves.

I dreamt about her every night
for a couple of weeks,
out of the blue.

“my sociopathic mother making poached eggs
& me correcting her with the right eggs to use”

They weren’t the kind of nightmares
I had as a child,
of her detached parts
such as her leg laying at the foot of my bed,
or her head propped up on the
dining room table;
lips still moving.

They’ve been less frightening
and I live with her in each one of them,
teaching her domestic things like how to shop
for bargains or choose the right eggs.
Daughter mothering Mother

13 years since I’ve seen her last
18 since she’s been a mother to me

She’s found God through her sobriety.
He is just another literal being
to be given credit or blame.
However, her demon takes many forms
and is now in the shape
of one of my sisters.

My sister is the newly exiled.

Never
trust
a woman
who holds
contempt
for
ANY
of her
offspring.

I’m idealized now.
I’m asked to trade my black sheep’s wool in for white.
I’m a bad egg hatched from a bad nest.
I am misbegotten.
I’ve been waiting all this time
for her to come pick me up from the
same spot on the ground where she kicked me
from that nest so many years ago
when I tried to fly.
But, I think not.
I flew away.

She will not cradle me until my black coat molts
to reveal the naked baby again.
Her white sheep’s clothing might uncover a storybook wolf!
I will not fall for her disguises.
I will not enter her world.

And yet, I lifted a small window in mine,
so she can meet me here.
There are many obstacles on the way,
road blocks,
thorns,
& raging storms to pass.
She will not get to me easily.

Already she is failing…

Love.

I once thought the same thing that could destroy me might also save me; nourish my lungs and strengthen my limbs, bones milk-fed and ready to take flight. My wings obey. Take me to your leader is the song the bird sings for love makes it blind. Passions that rose and flooded every pore in my body lay stagnant now in the recesses of a place that is more practical. It’s been a long time since I confronted the fire so I don’t feel the burn the way that I used to. The best part was always preparation. Lascivious looks cause raw lips & neck wounds, our swollen tongues and smacking thighs. I’d beat myself with love.