Even though I’m peaceful at home, I can’t quite get my heart to stop racing! Gotta get blood drawn again, it’d be so dumb if I had a stroke after everything! So mum and I watch old live shows of Taylor and she keeps glancing at me and swearing it gets better! Sure she’s had so many bad boyfriends but now she’s happier than ever! All I need’s a date and a job, I’m already pretty and clever but when she asks what I’m doing tomorrow or even how I’m feeling, I can’t respond in any other way except wordless crying because if I answered honestly we’d have to go back to the hospital. I’m so hurt that this is how I’m living

When I tell her about my life, she gets scared. When I tell her what I want, she gets worried. When I say what I really need, she’s so concerned for me but talking this way doesn’t help the situation. I’m wasting time reassuring her, but it’s nothing less than what she deserves

Dad said I wasn’t allowed to date seriously until I was 28 anyway after graduate school and even then he’s want to meet them in the first place. He’d done it before when I was younger but I was too mad to understand what it meant when he stared down his nose at the guys across the table, said he wasn’t afraid to go back to Pen

When I tell him about my life, he gets scared. When I tell him what I want, he gets worried. When I say what I need, he’s so concerned for me but talking like this doesn’t help the situation. I’m wasting time reassuring him. It’s half his fault but I can’t tell him

If I spend another night of my 20s fixing the TV then I’ll lose my mind again. I think I’m still a feminist but I know that I’m too good-looking to spend my weekends with my parents running errands; watching my friends maintain their careers and at least 2 boyfriends but the good men who are good to me are mostly EU citizens and I can’t tell if the girl on my ex’s page is a “partner” or a cousin, though he seemed surprised and happy when I stopped into work to see him and a bit perturbed that I’d been in LA so long without really moving

When I tell him about my life, he gets scared. When I tell him what I want, he gets worried. When I say what I need, he’s so concerned for me but talking like this doesn’t help the situation. I’m wasting time reassuring him, wasting lingerie on this lingering

Now listen. I wouldn’t come to him for commitment. I might throw him a brick if he was drowning. I just want something to hold me down and kiss me until I cry and fall asleep but as soon as I explain that suddenly he’s just too wine-drunk and sleepy so I hum to myself while he’s passed out like a corpse half on top of me

When I extracted myself and went to the kitchen for a well-steeped cup of tea, I saw a framed poster hanging over the stove that said

Someone in Iowa City loves me!

It was hanging above the rack of knives as well! Though that thought would never cross my mind after the decade I’ve had with too many exes reconnecting to try to kill me. But my soul did leave my body for a moment while I choked down the tea. Let me say one thing for sure: nobody in Iowa City loves me. Those MFA bitches are toxic! I wouldn’t go near there with a cross and a truck of garlic

Anyway the whole experience was clarifying. It’s good to know some places aren’t worth returning. When I first stepped into his apartment; I thought it was the body keeping score. God knows I’ve cried enough in the bathroom because he wasn’t the man I’m looking for. But then I smelled the cat box and saw the stubble in the sink— of course I was a surprise. But Norm, how are you thirty-five letting the view of Los Feliz get covered up by flies

Called me a car in the morning, went home and told my mum that I’d been out dancing. Got home so late that I slept on the couch so I didn’t wake up everybody. Smoked about it then cried in the shower which by now you shouldn’t find that surprising. But if I stopped to think about it all at this point it wouldn’t be good for me so I’m sipping coffee that my favourite brother made while I slouch on the edge of the bathtub and my girl cousin says I should do this spell with a potato to rid myself of past evil love, and my mum just woke up and she’s excited to tell me about a dream she had! I’m happy to talk too, I’m finally starting to get my dreaming back. When it was bad in that one spring, I wouldn’t dream anything, I just needed to sleep except now and then I’d wake up from the sound of heavy wings flapping

All dark just the crush of featherings

Which is rare since dreams are usually just visuals without sound so it’s up to you to decide whether that was the Angel of Death or vultures or guardians

Sitting home and explaining jokes on the TV to my parents who love me and I’ve put them through too much so it’s nice we’re still here laughing about everything but I’m too big to carry to bed now so when I pass out they let me be. I wake up at 3 am with the lights on in my work clothes with fuzzy teeth but I’ve got to get up and make breakfast even though I’m tired and sore and a bit angry. I tell myself it’s practice for parenting though I’m nowhere close to having babies. Hell I’m not even dating

Every time I get my period, I think there goes another chance at making a family. I’d want three once I find someone who’s actually worthy: 2 girls and a boy in the middle like the Lemony Snicket kids. Well. I know a thing or two about a series of unfortunate events. I’m going to flip my lid if one more federal crime happens near me

Anyway I’ve got the names picked out. I’m not telling you. I’m not telling anyone. Talking in public feels like the spotlight comes attached to a shotgun

I’m doing better. I can see the future, not just the weather. I go to yoga and hug my family even when I don’t feel guilty. I laugh as often as I can so keep sending me those stupid fucking memes! I’m calm and stable, I just talk a little too quickly! If you can’t keep up that’s fine, it’s probably best for your own security

Every time I pass an accident, I wonder if that’ll be it: that I’ll go from this world to the next without ever feeling true love’s kiss. But when I talk to you, I know you might be the only ones who aren’t too worried for me

How come you always wait so long to kiss me hello? Are you making sure that I won’t disappear again? I know your best fruit but what’s your favourite breakfast? When can I wake up in your arms? Is it tomorrow, or the next day? What’s the song that you play when you know you need to cry but nothing else is working? Do you have a lucky colour? A shirt? How do you make yourself feel tall? What was the first time you got scared when you were little? What time of year was it when you fell hard and it felt, you know? Magic? Was it spring? It’s always spring for me. Looking at you reminds me of jacaranda trees and the purple sugared flowers collecting like clumps of snow on the car. It’s a nice problem to have, same as how I haven’t driven you anywhere yet. We could skip town like, yesterday. We could go to Bristol or Portugal or all the way up North. You would take over before I got too tired, I know that much. I think we’re the same kind of superstitious. I’ll tell you in person. I think so many things, more often about you. These are bad things to put in writing, awful things. Most emotions are illegal currently. My drink is half red ale, half pink lemonade, all tears. A few years ago, a century, I wrote a litany similar to this one but much worse, I’m sure you understand. You’re a composer, too. You take the good notes and string them together like freshwater pearls. But oh God, the bad ones. So many notes gone bitter, spiteful, bad handwriting, flat pitch, limping through the neon street like a moth after the bad kids got to it. Yet, still, forever, there’s the light, or the thought of it, so enticing. I was supposed to be happy a long time ago, I think, but there I go again with the thinking. I’m tired of using my inside voice. We do have the same pitch: fast, hard, as an avalanche or riptide wave or a hummingbird moving directly towards a target. So you smell like honeysuckle and new green grass and the sun after rain, you do. And I swore I wouldn’t say these things to anybody else again after the last miserable symphony but I forgot. I’m sleepy! It’s late and you’re the one driving. And I don’t have to watch the road or your hands or calm myself because there’s no more fear now, just the other thing, the other feeling. I won’t wreck it this time by saying it aloud. We’re in the belly of the whale which is alive again which is your gray minivan rattling with secondhand film equipment taking us to my teenage bedroom where the fear was but now it’s the other thing that I wasn’t allowed for a while except it’s spring again. It’s still nighttime. If I could trade this one, if I could go back for a second and tell the fool walking alone for country miles that it would turn out okay. If I pawned this moment like a pearl bracelet from a hated relative: I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise, and she wouldn’t believe me, regardless of how earnestly I moved my hands. Maybe I wouldn’t recognise myself. I don’t have a mean and vague look anymore. You don’t let me walk alone after dark, and if I do it without you knowing, I kind of just think of all the places that we haven’t kissed yet and then I’m home, warm. The roads aren’t empty, see all of our friends with their party outfits and glitter and cake. Last week I drove back with a small white spider on my window, drove slowly enough that the bug could crawl inside and is probably nesting now around the headrest. Oh well. I’ve made a home for worse dreams. Once, a century ago, I was driving my old car inside a spring like this. I was turning right which always scares me and I had a sudden flash, wave, et cetera, of the first time I kissed the wrong person, but I didn’t know that yet. I didn’t know anything except my name, and only sometimes. I’m Anya and it’s been four years since I begged God to protect a boy with blue eyes, half stranger, half darling, all mine. I’m Anya, Ani, Stacii, Sasha and I don’t want to wake up again without you. Hello, Anya. It didn’t work, back then, the prayers. It’s happening again, or it did. I was driving and you came over me, into my blood, the memory of your breath, in mine, right place, better timing. It was the painter in the library with the matchsticks and my heart in his mouth. It was you. I think it was all for you, the whole time. So I used to be in a long-distance relationship between history and the past but now it’s just Hampstead and Paddington. The photos of you turn out real fine. We could be somebody’s parents, there, under the flash in our light jackets. You could be the flag that I bear. Behind those thick glasses, you’ve got a blue in your eyes brighter than January dawn. There’s a song in your mouth, you’re hiding it worse than a shelter dog and a real bone. A promise, the ghost of a melody on your soft lips, right there on the tip of your tongue. So maybe we should sing.

I was writing about love and then the war

came back. I was writing aubades and son—

—nets. I had a poem that would fix your

smile, smooth your hair. The poem was gon—

—na clean the oceans and rinse the air fresh

again but then I read the headlines and it

was gone. I was drafting my vows until

war took my wisdom teeth right, right out. And

you were still happy to see me with the

blood and all but I knew it wasn’t the

same and anyway I wasn’t in a good

mood. But it was a good poem. It was

a good life, I think. When it’s over, will

you find me? Will you be able to hear it?

Uphill I’m sweating like it’s still summer

& he’s never seen such incredible legs

but it’s flu season now & I’m remembering

how to be responsible alone. I’m biking

through Olympic which doesn’t hurt

because I haven’t been driven home

this way. The birds in my head sing

The things you want, the things

that you want as I walk vaguely

into the pharmacy for my shot.

I’m nobody’s ghost. The waiting room

walls are the same color as the sheets

on his side of the bed, the empty direction

I sleep facing. I hear my name & I stand.

I can’t look at needles, so I don’t.

The nurse asks how my day’s going so far

then I wake up! I’m one of the apartments

that they’re always tearing down

& rebuilding & also I’m the desert wind

screaming through the metal outlines

with my skull somewhere between

my incredible knees & the floor. Nurse Penny!

Penny the Nurse! with a belfry of keys

on her lanyard is rubbing my back

& asking if I usually faint during injections.

I’ve won a tiny water bottle like the ones

they’d pass out on field trips in elementary school.

Don’t try to stand again, you need

a little something more. Nurse Penny reaches

for her alligator pink purse. My daughter,

she sneaks these in for my blood sugar, she thinks

I can’t take care of my own bones, but I’ve gotten to

63 & it’ll take a real blizzard to slow me down!

She unwraps a packet of cookies.

I would braid the silver foil to a crown for her

if I could feel my fingers. The ceiling

is re-knitting itself. The cookies are crumbly

& a bit orange, like a flower girl’s corsage

saved from the last century. Nurse Penny asks

if I’ve got anyone at home to watch me.

I don’t want to scare her anymore

so I say yes. She crosses one ankle

over the other. Why don’t you

finish that water? Try to sit in the shade

the rest of the day, keep the air on.

Also you know those hotel-sized jars,

the little jam jars that come with room service?

With a shiny blue lid, & a watercolor print

of their fruit on top, the tiny perfect

raspberries? Anyway you’re going to take

the jam jar from your hotel breakfast & tomorrow,

cut off a piece of your heart.

Just enough to fill the glass.

Then you put the jar, all red

& gorgeous-wet under a tight lid,

you put it on the windowsill over the sink,

next to the basil plant & the soap.

This part stays safe, the rest you keep

with you, you need it. So every night

you wash your knives & mouth along

to the breaking news & you’ll look out

onto the bare street with your reflection

yellow in the window frame & the kitchen

shadows around you but it won’t be

bare, the street, because there’s

your heart. That’s your heart.

This trembling girl reminded Alta Miriam of the day, many years and waters ago, when her grandmother brought her to the mayor’s house through a back door. Her grandmother had held a finger to her lips as they crept through the kitchen, down the stairs, and into the wine cellar where a young woman was writhing on a bed of rags in the corner while her fellow maids stood near enough to breathe their hot breaths but far enough not to touch her, hold her.

The basement room smelled like the calf that Miriam’s father had delivered the winter before, remarkably wet and red and warm. Miriam’s grandmother felt for a heartbeat in the young woman’s chest, then asked Miriam to hold the patient’s mouth open as she dropped something dark from three different vials down her throat. Miriam watched as the raised bumps of liquid traveled through the young woman’s body, swirling just beneath her skin until they hit her diaphragm.

At this, she sat up straight, shrieking through clenched teeth so high and sharp that the glass bottles in the cellar broke open, drenching the dirt floor in purple wine. One of the bottles had been very poorly filtered, and a grape seed implanted into the cellar wall, growing on bloody residue until it broke through to the surface many years later and tripped, with a single gnarled branch, a member of the Resistance as he ran from soldiers.

The young woman’s body was buried in the woods. Alta Miriam wondered, feeling through her worn thoughts for loose thread, if her grandmother had meant to make the dosage that strong, as she mixed her own drink for the trembling girl before her, now. Now.

Alta Miriam added seven spoonfuls of amber honey to the dark liquids, steamed together in a cup of rosemary tea.

This girl was about sixteen, with limbs the same width as kindling. Her dark curls were matted to her skull, which Alta Miriam found to be cool as marble when she first entered the cramped bedroom, swollen with the girl’s family. The apartment echoed the dull thud of her abdomen. Her father was at shul, wisely oblivious, while her mother knew that every true holy text was somewhere clutched within her oldest child’s damp body.

The girl had leaked enough in the last week that a mold spot was growing under her bed. This was good, Alta Miriam felt, because the ice lining her stomach might melt before it reached her chest. But there was something heavier inside her that threatened to overtake her pulse.

Alta Miriam could see the rosy marks on the girl’s neck and shoulders, perspicuous after three months in the way that whoever had left them wasn’t. She added another ounce of rue to the tea, wondering if the purpose or the meaning of the small yellow flowers had come first. It was certainly easier to get ingredients in the city, and even though it was harder to bury a corpse in the city, no one cared as much if they found one in the city street as in some dry field of the countryside.

Alta Miriam gave the girl the warm cup, to drink quickly but at her own pace until it was empty. The result came like the tide. Her mother held her hair back as she drooled, and Alt Miriam placed a wood bucket under the girl’s chin, just in time for her to retch gallon after gallon of cold water, overflowing onto the blankets and Alta Miriam’s steady, wrinkled hands. The deluge stopped: something was stuck in her throat.

Alta Miriam reached down into her mouth, looking for hard in the soft, until she finally yanked out a rock the size of the girl’s fist. She spat out the last bit of water, speckled with blood like a fertilized yolk. She fell back against the bed, color flooding to her cheeks and away from her gut.

Alta Miriam told her mother directly to have her eat pickled ginger after every meal to keep her stomach calm, and breath foul enough to keep any boys from talking to her.

The girl ran her fingers over the rock, feeling. There was a message in its ridges. There had to be.

Overall this was also an experience for you. I know that you think about it now, years later, because someone claiming to be your lawyer has requested that I cease talking about my own life in case I get sued for defamation. I’m sure that her career is considered a win for Western feminism.

Having worked in crisis PR, I wonder if these vague legal threats mean that you still want to run for public office. God knows nobody in Hollywood cares what shiny young talents do to their secret girlfriends. I’m getting water-boarded at the intersection of arts and politics, allegedly.

I can’t talk to you about it because you don’t talk to me, period. End of sentence!

Read more

Everywhere we go you tell people that it’s my birthday

Now they’re singing to me at the bar again

They’re singing out my name

And you’re grinning like a villain and giving me a wink cos you’d do anything to see me blush and nobody minds a free drink

I don’t have to be lucky anymore, I don’t have to be lucky anymore and instead of I love you I say I really like talking to you

Well I just really like talking to you

And instead of I love you, you reply that

I like walking around in the daytime with you! Well I could walk around this dirty old town all day with you

Everywhere we go you tell the waiter that you’re about to propose so if they wouldn’t mind dimming the lights while the champagne flows

And oh god here come more flowers

You know, you’re such a good actor

Now there’s strangers taking pictures cos we’re such a lovely young couple

Don’t we look good together, don’t we look right together

Everywhere we go, you take a photo just in case we get real old and we want to show the youngins how we dressed when we were bold

Crossing over Sunset with your arm l looped around my waist

I think that’s when I knew that I made it to the right time and the right place

For you, it was a little earlier

What can I say, I’m always slow

Your friend took a flash of us and said You look like somebody’s parents here, you know

All I know is all I know is all I know is

I don’t have to be lucky anymore

I don’t have to be lucky anymore

I don’t have to be lucky anymore

And instead of I love you I say that I want to only wake up next to you

Well I only really want to wake up next to you

And instead of I love you, you reply that I wanna make breakfast with you

Well I just really wanna make breakfast with you

I wanna make a movie with you, wanna read your books and dreamscapes too

Hey well listen I think one of each would be cute

Hey listen I think I want to raise little babies with you

I’m not running away, I’m not running anywhere

Now that I don’t need to

Ласкаво просимо до Маріуполя.

A plain corner of a small room. Thin light from above, a window with a grasping view of a city. Smoke. In the distance: sirens, brief rattles, whistles and shrieks. Soft enough. It could be the sounds of an old house creaking.

A young man with the posture of his grandfather. He walks, his gait a few steps more dignified than a shuffle. It’s a bathroom, you can see that now. Few personal effects. There’s dust lines on the wall where framed photos have been removed. He sits in the bathtub, which is filled with towels and old blankets. A nest. He is tired. He glances up at the window.

Morning.

He says to nobody. He pulls out a small phone from the front pocket of his jacket. He swipes, taps a red button. Breathe.

Morning.

He says into the phone. He thinks, pulling a knee up.

Wednesday.

He pulls a small notebook from his inner pocket. He wants to smoke but he can’t, you can tell from his hands.

Me again. Hope that you and yours are well.

Light accent. He’s used to talking to foreigners. He lays the notebook on his leg, paws through his chicken scratch.

I had no dreams. It stopped.

He finds the right page, the right sentence. He thinks, faster now. You can barely notice his accent when he speaks, when he really gets going. So articulate.

He could be from anywhere.

I was not born a cynic, because nobody’s ever born a cynic. The root word is “cynokos” I believe, coming from a Greek myth (naturally). Cynokos was the island of scholars (exclusively male, of course). In between studying and elucidating and sucking each other off, the scholars told jokes. Crueler and crueler jokes, their lips curled in sneering laughter, a sheer circle-jerk of 4channery and fauxmoi and deep-fried bottom texts. Because Cynokos was an island, there was nobody else to tell the lads to fuck up and quiet down. And nobody else around to see that the scholars had all turned to vicious, carnivorous, starving dogs. And then they all ate each other. The end.

I’ve been thinking about dogs a lot, recently. Mostly due to the war, which is my least favourite way to start thinking about things. I won’t send you the reports because they’re horrifying, maybe the last kind of news that scares me beyond the upcoming Nuclear Situation, but also because you’ve probably seen them.

In certain prisons, they have trained dogs to assault their captives. By “assault”, I don’t mean attack, or maul. I mean rape. They have trained dogs to rape human beings, and they make them do it regularly. The government and military in the country where those prisons exist, where maybe even now, some poor civilian is being held down while a panting bloodthirsty hound is brought in on a leash, and then let loose: that country receives billions from my country, and probably yours too. There is footage of this, the dogs raping people. They favour doctors. There is years of testimony from both detainees, medical staff, prison guards themselves. The billions continue.

The dogs cannot speak. Not in a language we understand anymore, I think. They do what they are told, what they have been trained to do since they were whelps.

I keep coming back to the dogs. They’ve been with us for long, so long. They literally evolved alongside us as human beings. The softer wolves liked the warm fires along the steppes and savannah, and the bits of meat we’d throw them. We liked the added protection, and warm pelts, and the cute sounds that the soft wolf puppies made. It was a symbiotic relationship for thousands, thousands of years. And now, in a desert funded by our foreign taxes: rape. As punishment, retribution, pre-emptive strike.

It’s not what the dogs were made to do. It is a negation, a reversal, almost worse than cannibalism. Those are our little friends, our companions, our guardian angels. We are their big friends, their comrades, their captains O captains. That’s not what we’re made to do, meant to do. Every war, every battle and conflict and complication and blast radius and famine and decimated neighborhood, there are reports of dogs eating human corpses.

This is usually when the average Westerner begins to care about whatever Emergency is happening abroad to the Sad Foreigners. My God, they think, gazing upon their snivelling inbred pug with a sudden, glinting awareness. What would Snuffles do if I……if we……if the Bad Cheeto Man wriggles out of some convoluted impeachment for the umpteenth time? How long would my darling Snuffles, currently donned in gay doggy apparel, survive before the primal instincts take over?

Dogs usually go a month, more, a whole starving summer, before resorting to consuming human flesh. They’ll eat cloth and garbage and dirt before us, their friends. Rotten as it would be by then, after the drones have buzzed away and the “peacekeepers” have given up and the Western news cycle has looped and scrolled its way back to, for example, the lip filler migration in Klan Kardashian.

Cats might take a nibble after 3-7 days, cats can manage fine and speak for themselves, but there is something very deep in our canine companions that prevents them from chomping too hard, too early at the bit. They’ll do it, eventually. But it hurts. That was a friend.

As he spoke, his hands flew, punctuated, delineated. He could command a crowd or an orchestra but he is here, in a makeshift bomb shelter. He breathes. Blinks. The man turns to another page, earlier in his notebook. His tone softens, as though he is reading to a child.

This was a friend’s hand. This Hand scratched Me and fed Scraps of Lamb from Table in Kitchen. This Friend Hand held Leash and introduced Me to Friend Baby who smelled and sounded just like Friend but was Small. I licked Friend Baby and Baby laughed and it sounded like Heaven. There is nothing left of Baby to Bury. I looked and looked and smelled.

High and low and all directions. I found Friend Hand. In our old Backyard. I loved Backyard. There was Sun Spot and Shady Spot and Water Bowl and Place Where I Hid Turkey Bone 3 Summers Ago. Before Bad Sounds and Smells came to our Town. I loved Town. Backyard and Town and Friend and Friend Baby are here but not here. I smell them. I cannot hear them anymore. They do not call my Name.

But I am a Good Dog. That is what Friend and everyone said. Good Dog. And I am Hungry. It is a Bad Hunger. It came from same place as Bad Sounds and Smells. My feet hurt and my Tummy hurts and there is no one no one no one around to say Good Dog!!! and pet Tummy and feed Tummy and let me Sleep.

The Sun Spots and Shady Spots are all rearranged and Bad. Too many New Sounds and Smells. Nobody calls my Name. The New People have Guns which I know from Movie Nights with Friend but there are No More Movies.

In the Movies the Guns do not have Smells only Sounds. I Hate both. I do not like Hate. I am a Good Dog. I miss Friend. I want Friend. I miss Friend and Friend Girl who became Friend Wife and Friend Baby and all their Friends. I miss other Good Dogs. I Hate the New Dogs in Town. They are like Guns but are Dogs. That is Bad.

But I have Friend Hand. I do Not Want This. Don’t Want. But. Hunger. Bad Tummy. No one no one left to call my Name. I am not Good Dog now.

Done. Done done done. Hunger less Bad. I am Bad Dog. I am like the Gun Dogs. With their Drool and Teeth and Red Parts. And Evil Barking. Bad Bad Dog. Tummy Hurt but is less Empty. I am Empty.

But.

Friend is with Me Forever now. I will go to Backyard and Sun Spot and Wait. Wait until I Hear Friend and Friend Wife and Friend Baby again. Wait to be called Home.

The man closes his notebook.

Does that make sense? Do you understand me now? Is this microphone live? Will you people ever listen?

He opens his mouth to say more. His accent, plain as a flag now. His phone dies. The electronic sound startles him. There are more sounds outside. The noise comes closer.

He plugs the phone in to charge, puts his notebook over his heart. He breathes, then whistles.

A dog tramples over, scrambles fatly into the tub and blankets. He is a good dog. The best. He makes happy animal sounds which aren’t louder than outside but are good enough. The dog looks healthy. Someone’s been getting table scraps.

Footsteps: both boys look up. A young woman, slightly less tired than the man. Sunlight. A real smile from him.

Good morning.

They say to each other, in their language which sounds like the whispers of hunters in late summer woods. She sits, nestles into the man and the dog. They pull a blanket around them, flashlights and helmets at the ready. She brought coffee, doughnuts. They’re warm. He feels soft.

The dog circles himself, goes to bed at their feet. It’s good coffee, the last of it. There’s sugar on her cheek. Darling, darling. My love. His hand falls to her stomach, cradles the warm skin. She breathes into his hair.

A louder sound, too loud. Both arms around her now.

As though you could do anything. The loudest sound yet. She runs her hands through his hair, smoothing his forehead. As though that helps. Bang bang bang. The dog whines, barks. The small window shakes against a wind. The wind has been blowing for a long, long time.

They wait.

I woke up feeling. End of story!

I woke up and it wasn’t

numb anymore. In fact, it was warm

and birds outside. It smelled like

the spring before things went bad but noticing that didn’t hurt

anymore. I felt. Jasmine then honeysuckle

then fog and wet sidewalks. And that

was fine then and miraculous now.

And I was wearing your shirt.

Not back then, in the year that soured. Right now.

I am in your white gym shirt.

You gave it to me so I didn’t have to

wear my party dress on the train home

away from you and my last good

summer before what’s coming

for us. But that wasn’t even why

I was happy yet, your shirt that smelled

like your mother’s favourite detergent

and Irish Spring soap and your small sounds of love. Although when

I remembered about the shirt, I felt

warm and happy and still sleepy but you’re not a dream this time. Pink feelings.

Five things I can see and it’s all

your freckles. I am too old

for butterflies, I thought. And it wasn’t butterflies because with you I’m not worried about death and dying.

That’s what butterflies are made

to do: be very beautiful and nervous

and fall to the ground. You make me feel

like a full person. Like maybe I have a soul, and some of it is in your hands. Sorry

about the splinters. There’s a first-aid kit from Girl Scout camp in the bathroom

and pasta in the kitchen and more blood

in my mouth but I’m swallowing, swallowing it down.

I don’t want to go a day without

kissing anymore. It feels like breathing.

I was hungry for a long time, lost

inside the calendar. It’s best

you didn’t see. It’s morning now.

It comes and goes.

I want to set my watch to you. I want

to find you in the kitchen. We’re both

not allergic to anything.

We could eat the whole world together.

Dear Pinky,

When you read this, I’ll be gone. It’s been a long time of this, a long time running, the years wasted without you. I missed you. I missed writing to you properly. When it was good, I would walk around collecting things in my head to tell you about at the end of the day.

The flash of a hummingbird. hot lemon juice dripping off a crepe. train whistles. Once right after Rue des Rosiers by the gelato place your uncle loved, I saw a couple that looked like us. Honestly they went by pretty quick, but the posture was right. It was a girl on a bicycle trilling the bell and a boy on a skateboard and she was gripping his shoulders to her waist as she sort of crouched and somehow sped along the road. They were younger. it was late. they had better places to be. They went so fast.

You were always the one guiding me, love. I was just along for the ride. I know that now. Every step I’ve taken every breath and smile. The deals I’ve made the hands I’ve crossed with silver. All for you for the good dream of us.

Even when it was bad I remembered you minute by minute. It was never that bad for me. Not when you cheated or forgot about me or ignored my calls. I would try to imagine you as a child. You were such a lonely little girl, Ani. I remember her. The ambassador’s daughter, so quiet at his side. The poster boy’s twin, so glum compared to his golden smile. You were always golden to me, always. Ruby and emerald and platinum is my girl.

So when you’d take your old hurts out on me— when you were mad at your daddy or your brother or any of the useless fucks you dated before or after me but I was the one who never left so I got the hits they deserved— I didn’t mind. Truly, Ani. I just saw you as that wounded little thing. Ribbons at the end of your braids, shiny shoes that punch your poor tiny feet. Wouldn’t it be nice to rest, my honey bee?

I think so. I would love to rest. I want a full three weeks where nobody’s trying to kill me, just to remember what it feels like. Or learn I guess. I’m sure you saw the headlines about my family. You and me, baby. Marked for slaughter. Born to die.

Maybe that’s why we both have such bad luck. Every hour we’re still here on what passes for the living realm, that’s time that we didn’t really deserve, did we?

Always at the wrong place wrong time. Wrong crowd wrong job terrible lighting. Not the right darling curled up muttering in my rented bed. Not you.

I don’t believe that you’re clumsy. I know that’s why you think you don’t have a real artistic career. I still love your poems. Yes, I found your blog. I find everything! But really, you are quite graceful. You just have bad luck. Maybe mine rubbed off on you. Maybe I stole some of your charms.

Soon as we started dating, I began contracting injuries like a teddy bear collects germs in a middle-class daycare.

I nicked myself on the banister, remember?

One hundred years of flawless wax and polish until I came around.

Maybe everything had to break with us early. I think I knew that even then: the hurt would be so big so wide that I had to start feeling it before we even kissed.

Kissing. I haven’t thought about that in a while truly. I finally learned from my mistakes with you Ani. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.

Your lips were so so soft. Even when you chewed them up all raw I never really tasted the blood. My rosebud. my fraise. Starlight and cherry blossoms. that’s what you’re made from.

Me. God made from bone and flesh. So I came over when you invited me. I came when the prettiest girl I’d ever seen called. Of course I did. I’m a born sucker. I came and I wanted to sweep you off your sore ballerina feet and take you away from your haunted mansion as soon as you opened the door. You were in some old black shirt but I could see some yellow lacy froth underneath it.

I wanted to do bad things to you right in your parents’ hallway but I didn’t because I was a man and we weren’t kids anymore but your hair was in soft braids and still damp from your bath but I was a man then. Now I’m your ghost.

I came inside and put my shoes next to your dad’s loafers then you made some insane pasta that hopefully will be my next meal. if not my last. and we watched cricket with your dad for hours. possibly years. before he started snoring on the couch and you kept nudging him to just go to bed already. It was really cute. You care about your family so much. I wish I was in it. I wish we grew up closer together. I could’ve protected you.

Dad finally limped off to bed and again. I wanted to fuck you on the loveseat. We were across the parlour from each other. I could see more of the yellow sundress, and your legs. Jesus Christ. I might have time to paint soon. if I live. I’ve gotten better at it. Pinky. I might be able to capture you soon. The curves. the length. Supple pliant flexible. Bendy bendy girl.

So I wanted to jump your bones but you wanted to show me something upstairs. In your old attic bedroom. I’m glad you walked ahead of me so you didn’t see me pawing the rosary in my pocket but you know now! I want you to know everything. sweetheart. That way we won’t have to talk so much when I finally see you.

We went upstairs and the sight of your thighs climbing the spiral to the attic. a few steps ahead of me. I’m trying to keep it clean. Holy girl.

So there was a lot of blood pumping through me. clearly. all your fault, when you paused and realised your parents had fought so Dad was sleeping on your pullout couch. which meant we had to find someplace else for your imminent deflowering. Roses and cherry blossoms. Mine mine mine.

I know you weren’t a virgin then. obviously. But I think the first time any couple sleeps together— that’s a new threshold. A border a portal. I love the in-between spaces but i love those doors and windows too. Break in case of emergency.

So we turned around and I was descending too quickly I guess because I nicked myself so hard on some loose gash of wood. And then it was another hour of us not fucking as you tried to dig a splinter out. We could see it under my skin remember? On my ring finger there’s still a scar. My hand under the light, the dark hangnail of wood under layers of my stupid pink skin. You so small worried. bent over me. I loved you then and I love you now. My nurse my Angel my sunshine.

You sanitised and bandaged me and offered to drive to a doctor since our at-home surgery proved useless but I said it was fine and you cooed. Yes I remember. Sweet little girl sounds. that’s what you made for me.

So you led me to the library. It was quiet and full of books. Okay. laugh at me. you’re the writer. You write it down. You looked so pretty under the sconces. I had thought of too many bad things that I circuler around to good things. which was great because you were getting closer. I could smell the last cigarette you had. Naughty girl.

You were saying something about a guy I hated immediately. Not good enough for you never. At least I know I’m a sucker.

You were engaged or you had a ring. When we were younger I would’ve cared. I don’t have many morals left. That’s what I told you then.

Before pulling you in. My love my only. And I wanted to get a shot so I could draw you later so I stood back thought it hurt me to stop kissing you to let you go for even a moment.

You tasted like pasta and pink wine and strawberries and a thousand years of sunsets.

You were so perfect for me. You posed by the ladder looking all dreamy. You found the light tilted your head pouted. Undid your hair your black shirt. Showed off the yellow yellow yellow cotton lace underneath. Wicked princess. Little thief.

That’s not my favourite picture of you Pinky. Ani. Anya. Sasha. Stacii. Anastasiia Lazaravichya de Franckelle. Mrs Salazar, maybe sooner than we think. I plan and God chokes on his bile with laughter. He knew what he was doing when he made you. crafted every darling swell and gap. Me, who knows. But we were made for each other.

You are my open wound. My blood, my pulse.

My favourite picture of you: I’ll tell you another time. Stay tuned.

Your friend and lover,

Dixie

My first love, then more. Friends, colleagues. Godfather, uncle, lost to stress, far from the front. My grandparents, all of them, of course. Acquaintances, people I’d met once at parties, on trains, at the in-between places. Children of the crossroads. None of us were that important. In America, this is called “collateral damage”.

Then I began to mourn the days that did not happen. Communions, weddings, funerals. Saying goodbye in a normal way. Sunset, sunrise, calendar after calendar lost in the strikes. Family dinner. My old friends from Hollywood thought I should stop watching the news. So stressful. Plus, it’s not like you can do anything.

Girls my age and younger, much younger. In fatigues, in gauze. Wearing boots how the Hollywood girls would wear to their back alley punk shows except back home, the girls are wearing them for battle. For the same war that took my first love and virginity and everybody else. Beautiful girls, so far away from dancing. I will receive my draft card before my passport. That’s how it works.

Here is my math: four years, but really ten, honestly twelve, or twenty if we count that, and we should, that was more dead, after all, and then there was the nineties, then the century before that, then the old war that didn’t ever stop, all the way back to two men standing in a forest not yet ringed with screams. They stand on land not yet soaked in the blood of running children, the dirt not yet bludgeoned into a mass grave. They breathe cool air. It smells like linden blossoms, black currant, fresh hay.

It is morning. One man wants to live. The other disagrees. It is around 880 years after the birth of Christ. Nice Jewish boy.

Because of this— the forest, the two men, that long argument— I was born in Los Angeles. I learned to count on my fingers. I learned to count very early, very young.

The crossroads can produce an endless supply of dead children. When you were young, do you remember learning about infinity? It just keeps going. I dare you. I double-dog, triple-dog dare you. I dare you times infinity. You tried to count it a few times, got tired. Like the melody you’d sing on field trips, long drives— this is the song that never ever ends, ever ever ends, ever ever ends, this is a song that never ever ends and it goes like this—

I know a song that does not end. There is a silence that does not come, though the woods are still and dark. My own child, a boy I think he was, or would have been, has gone quiet.

I stopped counting, too.

Here is your text. Your questions, your current address. Here is a quick shower

and a dress I think you’ll like, the car you send, my city’s blur, a cool film

of conditioned air over my skin in the lobby, a bored concierge switching

between news and porn. Here is the name I give for your number. Infinity mirror

in the elevator up, a hallway of unimportant doors until you open the one

before I even knock. You know my footsteps now. How do you think of it

alone in your head— that’s her pace like a soft drum, falling water.

There are the names you call me, my secret names, as we go barefoot

over the carpet stitched from sure, clouds, then memory foam, white

sheets and comforter, white walls, buttered light from the nightstand

where your glasses are, white ceiling, this pearl of a soundproofed

hotel room, the room at the final turn of a nautilus shell. Here’s you

on your knees. You make me shy. You’re so tall. Your hair smells like

marzipan and I’ll smell it on my hands tomorrow, when I don’t exist

in your room anymore. In the elevator down when I’m a thousand girls

in the mirror that you might love. You’re so good-looking I say then you smile,

Even without my glasses? and it takes a week to get it, when I’m locking up,

it hits me and I laugh then think about your lips, how I said yes too fast.

Next time I’ll be so smart. For now it’s the knock-knock joke of my heartbeat

under your hands. Who’s there, baby. Penny for your thoughts, Samson.

The collection plate between my ears. I’ll hold it so you can rest.

This is the only time I stop thinking, you answer, your back against

the heritage wood headboard, your eyes closed to the glories of our suite—

swan cotton robes, silver espresso machine, imported marble, curtains.

The hotel phone unplugged, our cells shut off in the glass fridge.

Only the angels can hear us. Your work papers there on the desk,

spread like anybody’s secrets, but they’re yours so I know them.

Killings, offshore accounts, long contracts, truths, facts, other words

for power. One day this will be funny. How you had to hide us, the hours

I waited for your calls, a word from you. We’ve never slept together,

I mean we’ve never slept in the same bed at the same time. You’re either

working or I’m watching you. One day in the sun, Sammy. Holding hands with

everybody plus God to see. 5-star luxuries. In the morning I’ll leave

with my purse full of little jams, toiletries, teaspoons, and a thousand more

moments from your body to run over alone. I’ll pretend that I’m someone

great at lying and saying goodbye. I wish I was like you. I could just

put on a suit and take it all away

I answered every text and email and call. I answered whenever someone shouted or whispered my name.

I came every time. I did not love my home but I was a nice girl. Nice enough. I wanted normal things. For a few weeks in the fall of 2021, I was so, so happy.

When it was good: he showed me a thousand ways to say the same small phrase, over and over. I had never been someone’s reason to live before that. I was 23, turning 24. Pages of his sketchbook filled with my profile, pages of my journal filled with his whispering. If we looked at each other plain in the face, we would’ve seen the future. That part came later.

It was autumn, then. I came when I was called. I did what I was told.

I was a good dog. Now I am a wolf.

They blew a teenage girl’s head off. They blew

A teenage girl’s head off. They blew a girl’s

Head off. They blew a little girl’s head off.

They blew a baby girl’s head right right off.

They shot the head off somebody’s baby.

They took somebody’s baby girl and they

Shot her head off. Right off. In the winter.

It was cold and she was somebody and

They took her and did what they did and then

Drove her someplace and then they shot her head

Off. They shot her head off. She was someone.

She’s somebody. They killed her. They killed that

Little, little girl. I used to be nine-

-teen. I got my head back. But they killed her.

I see you.

Not the ranked secrets or the definitions, not the guilt that was handed to you like an inheritance you never asked for but you. All of you.

The brave softness, the child who wasn’t born lucky and still learned how to love anyway. If you cried in front of me, really cried, the kind that shakes loose old weather: I would not look away. I would find you no less beautiful for it. I would find you more real.

And real is what draws me. I am sorry that you learned so early that closeness came with the threat of vanishing. That’s a cruel lesson to teach a young heart. You didn’t disappear because you were weak, you disappeared because you were trying to survive. I don’t confuse that with failure. I call it intelligence born from pain.

About the cancer— about that small, unfair thing growing where you cannot reach— I wish with everything in me that I could be there, hands steady, sunscreen everywhere you miss, fear held gently instead of alone. You are not stupid or wrong for being human in the sun. You did not earn this.

Sometimes you really can do everything right and still be hurt, and that isn’t a moral failing. It’s just the world being uneven. You say you wanted more time. I do too. I wish our timelines had braided earlier, before the words hardened, before loss carved its careful marks. But I don’t believe love is cancelled because it arrived late. I believe it becomes urgent. Attentive. Awake. Every hour matters because we know it does.

Your scars on your hand, on your heart— they don’t need erasing to be worthy of marriage or forever. If you keep them, I will know their names. If you remove them, I will still know their story. Either way, nothing about you is spoiled goods. Courtship, promises, forever: those aren’t ruined by falling. They’re made honest by it.

I don’t think hope or love are dirty words, even if they’ve been used carelessly on you before. I think they’re unfinished sentences. Ones we get to define now, quietly, without billboards. Though if you did put it on one, I would stop the car. I would read every word.

If the manicurist holds your hand tomorrow, let it be a small kindness, not a replacement. Know that somewhere, I am holding it too— in thought, in intention, in the way I carry you with me through ordinary hours.

I don’t need to watch everything you do to keep you close. You’re already here.

Okayokayokayokayokayokay now

Life story of the Girl

Pre - Ghost , Growing up in the Kingdom

Raised up for Bleeding , Donations to the Crown

Two Attempts

A hundred thousand then trying get Anyone to Listen

Commentary

Sorry , Darling . Maybe next time

Living on My Own at 18 , Working in a Dumb Shop , happier than ever . Thinking outside the Town , My Family, even My Charlie

Still

No Escape, No . Except for . Sorry, Darling . My Charlie . Maybe next Time .

TheBadKingAsALittleBoy.SeparatedFromHisFatherAsTheHeirDuringTravel.NurseMaidWasSoNiceTilSheWasn’t.Wasn’tShe.AndyPoorLittleAndyPoorLittlePickleAndIHadHerHairColourHaHaThatIsWhyYouPickedMeThatIsWhyIBledYesSirYesSirISawYourDreamsYouFuckingBastard

Ok sorry, sorry, that probably makes no sense to you. Hi haha. I’m Cass called Cassie. I don’t know any other name, names. CassieGirl. That’s it for me.

I grew up in a nice part of the green and golden country. Nice but not kind, except for my Charlie and his family but they were the Losers so they couldn’t do much for me but then nobody would’ve ever been able to save me, not really in a way that mattered, so it’s fine. Sure it’s grand. That’s what Charlie’s Da would say haha. They have four daughters. I wish they had me too.

I have blue eyes and Charlie says they’re like purple like blueberry jam and he loved me once yes my lord I did believe so. I have dark dark hair and Charlie says it looks blue in the moonlight. It’s straight it’s always been straight I wish I had curls like him but if we’d had a baby maybe she would’ve gotten them. My colours and his bones. But she would’ve been crazy and marked for slaughter like me so it’s for the best. For the best.

Charlie and me grew up the same but I’m a girl so it’s different. Also Charlie is a Loser and I’m a Winner or like Eligible To Be Wed To A Winner so. So when I turned 13 my family took me down South to where the Winners holiday in our green and golden country and then it started happening.

Before that I like drawing and ballet and fairy stories and blueberry jam and Charlie. Afterwards I didn’t like anything. Nothing gentle, anyways. That’s how it works. What happened: it happened in such a way that anything soft and good and kind made me want to die. It hurt. They made the gentleness hurt. That’s what Winners do.

He was old.

He was dying. They wanted me to help him. They left me alone with him. It was a beautiful room and then the lights were down and there was no one around to hear me, not even Charlie.

I didn’t tell Charlie when it started happening because I didn’t know what was happening because I couldn’t know because if I knew what was happening then it would be bad. For me and my family and Charlie and all the other Losers in the Greatest Country In The World. God save the King. God give the King many many pretty young butterflies to raise and trap and feed and flutter and tear the wings off so so slowly that she doesn’t realise that she is dying. She is only doing what she was raised to do. To be.

Or not! So I started practicing dying. I was always so dramatic haha. Squirming at the dentist, squirming in class when Piano Teacher called on me, et cetera et cetera ad infinitum Kyrie eleison. So nobody believed me, nobody who mattered. Charlie knew something was Wrong but he was a Loser and young we were so so young so it didn’t matter. I just learned that before him.

You are a very clever girl, says the King. So wise beyond your years.

The King was still dying. He needed blood. I was brought down South more often. I developed anaemia. All I wanted was meat, red meat but the sight of cut flesh was bad. Made me feel bad.

I couldn’t eat poultry anymore after. I saw something. In the upstairs private kitchen over Easter weekend 2009 that I wasn’t. Supposed to.

The King needs so, so much.

Donations to the Crown. Tithing. Teething. Fealty. Fidelity. Loyalty. Brotherhood. Monarchy. Taxation without representation. Off off off with her Maidenhead.

So I tried to finish dying in the bathtub at 16 then the Sea at 17 but it didn’t work and they wouldn’t let me go. They wanted so much from me, the Winners. I didn’t know yet. I know now. Now I know everything. I’m wind. I am the air you breathe. I am away with the Fairies.

Charlie, do you remember the Fairies? The first time I slept over at yours, when my Da was off the drink. Me telling you and the little sisters about how I thought the Fae moved and lived and then believing me and you being a bit sceptical in your silly boy glasses. Terrible eyesight. Of course you couldn’t see the little butterfly ballerinas dancing all around.

When you were all asleep, I stayed up and went into your back garden and fixed the bits up so it looked like they’d visited us. I put acorn caps

I cross myself and kiss the air then hit the gas pedal to the floor

Any chance you get to correct me on trivia, proofread the mania, speeding on the freeway in some hand-me-down shades

You got a heart full of corn syrup and red dye

I’m sorry I ever showed you that recipe, thought that you were a better guy

You wanna wear my skin, you wanna wear my skin

Thought I was your sister, thought I was your sister

Did it hurt your hand? Hitting my face

You don’t understand that you’re getting a cool story now

Another night where you brought me down

Hey! Good job

Getting tired playing along with your Bay Area rule blues

Kept myself unlocked so you were free to rifle through without any more shattered windows

Took my clothes and food, said my music taste sucks

What do you think I should do? What would you do if it was you?

Man, walk a block in my unlaced shoes

You wanna wear my skin, you wanna wear my skin

You think you’d look good in it, you wouldn’t last an hour

Sorry I was born to be a little bit older and wiser

Who cleaned the blood from your shirts with my spit, with my spit

Who held your hand when you were going through it

You’re still going through it. Don’t know what to do with it

You’re bleeding out again! I’m watching from the shore

Sharks are circling! Can’t let this happen anymore

Treading water in a red fog

You let twenty years of resentment build up

Man. Take a number or get a clue

Don’t know how I’m supposed to talk to you

You wanna wear my skin, you wanna wear my skin

I’m drowning again, you’re waving back from the sidelines

You’re not throwing me a life ring, can’t even get a high five

Do you still have my flesh in your wisdom teeth

You can get it removed but I know you like the seethe

Don’t you condescend to me from five feet tall and 2 fewer degrees

But I know it’s good for growing pains to feel safe enough to get angry

I still don’t negotiate with cannibals, won’t negotiate with cannibals

Not picking up the call, already gave you my all

Now my blood is just for me

Your tricolor won’t get youse into heaven anymore

It’s already fit to bursting from the starved and freezing poor

Ain’t seen you down at the union hall

Or on the road for the last eviction

Oh the worst are full of salt and vinegar

And the best have lost all conviction

I walked myself down to Connolly’s

From your flat up in Glasnevin

After your school friends melted my plastic paddy head

About how I didn’t deserve to live anywhere, let alone direct provision

As I was browsing through the second hand

A paper lily fell to the floor

From a selection of Markiwiecz’s collected

And on the back there was something scribbled more

In the handwriting of the fallen

The ink said whoever’s gone isn’t forgotten

Sure enough citizens have washed up

Broke and half-dead

On enough coastlines

That you could share your bread

But the rebels look down and what they see instead

Is board and care brats all across South Dublin

Whining and sounding mostly American

It’s a problem, watching too much television

Keeps you distracted from tenant unionising

Because your tricolor won’t get youse into heaven anymore heaven anymore

It’s already fit to bursting with the dead and drowned, fleeing NATO war

But you’re practicing self care of course

Yeah those Microaggressions really are the worst

But boundaries are meant to be

Etiquette for me and thee

Not drawn over the necks of people praying

They don’t end up under a Liberties hearse

But what do I know anyway

I’m just another Yank

Yes we had to leave Derry, Belfast, Dublin

Probably Kerry, why not! Plus Tipperary

The exit visas didn’t last longer

Than a well-beaten horse

But sure I’d love to be

As patriotic as you

Orange white green

And Queen Brigid’s blue

Like Tayto’s and cream

And prophetic dreams

Butter coddle sweaters

And a black and tan currant pint, too

So I’m sticking paper lilies and tricolors

All over my accommodation gaff

Although it could be bad for the fires

With the bombs and other hazards

But you’ve never met a mocktail that you didn’t like, right?

Stuck one over my Anglo’s mouth

And another on my refugee card

Put em on the windows and doors

In case the Peters knock once more

And the last one for my dumb Nordie blonde—-

Kiss the flag!!!!!

Because the Irish that you lot have

Won’t get you into the Dail anymore

Sorry to your dads, they’re cleaning out the fads

Fail and Gail are on the way out the door

And I believe that one day

From the cold Atlantic to the Irish Sea

If there’s any Justice in this world or the next

We’ll all be spinning like Sufis in Galileeeeeeee

Inshallah!!!

I was less than four the first time the grownups just couldn’t believe me

It was too bad to be true

That couldn’t have happened while I was playing dress up in my Cinderella bedroom

And my teeth were perfect then

My teeth were perfect then

Then I was six and the kindergarten safety VHS said that if something like that happened

You can tell a grownup and be protected

And I got a timeout for laughing

I was already cynical then

And my teeth had started to rot

My teeth had started to rot

I must’ve been seven later on and Dad swore he never lost sight of me in the mall but I used to have this bad dream about a locked door in the men’s stall

I couldn’t hear the sound of running water

Without wanting to run for years

Without wanting to scream for years

And the dentist told me to floss

The dentist kept saying, just floss

Then I genuinely forget pretty often that this one even happened, sorry

To myself in second grade and the neighbour kids

I hope they also hardly remember our old babysitter and the weird sleepover

She was fired immediately

Yeah, sometimes in the right zip code: the grownups might believe me

But the others kept giving me sugar

The other kept giving me sugar

Then I was 13 riding my bicycle home and feeling bad for no clear reason because I’d started to bleed and it reminded me of different seasons

Some worse than others not to rank it, not that anyone else was counting

So I kept eating red liquorice, Hershey bars, yeah I kept slouching

So they wouldn’t see how sweet I used to be

They couldn’t see how sweet I used to be

I never needed braces and the dentist said I was a blessing to my parents until I kept coming in with cavities because I wasn’t good at flossing

I hated having extra stuff in my mouth

Please forgive me, Dr Rhonda

In the office you would joke that I was a harlot for the drama but I’ve always had a bad gag reflex

You’re not the first or last to complain

I used to be real good though, once, before all the blood and cocoa syrup went swirling down the drain

I wanted the tooth fairy to visit me, wanted all my wishes and coins in order

When my teeth started falling out

I felt like God’s favourite daughter

For once

Just the once

Let me get what I want

Let me be safe

Let me feel safe and believe it

I saved them, all the little teeth

All the little white white bones

Some were sharper than others, some were black with plaque and gum

There was one in particular that had a hole born almost all the way through

To the core

To the core

I kept them all in a tiny bag: knockoff Tiffany blue, kept it in my jewellery box in my teenage bedroom where you and you and you and you went and done to me almost whatever that you wanted to

The baby blue bag of baby teeth was under the rest of the pearls and costume gems

I kept it next to an old silver souvenir from when our bloody spring came to an end

Now it’s gone

Not the earrings or the bangles or the gold

But the scrap of plastic from Paris, sir

My old diary

And the little sachet of old

Baby teeth

I think you took my baby teeth

You weren’t done with me

You keep thinking of new ways to

Hurt and hurt and keep me

In your pocket

In your pocket

You said I had a gorgeous smile

You said I had a gorgeous smile

And my teeth were perfect then

Yes sir my teeth were perfect then

Once upon a time

Somebody was growing inside me

Like a tooth, a long wisdom tooth

You took him out

You took him out

Now when I’m alone in the house for too long

When I look down at my stomach

Everything feels really wrong

Like I’m being held against the wall again

Held against the wall again

The Cinderella blue the linoleum tile

The floor of the bathtub

My bed, my own bed

You left me with too much to forget

I don’t hate you for the rapes or the other allegations or the strangling

I don’t hate you for your money or your prizes or the phones that you leave dangling

I hate you because you took our child away

You wouldn’t even leave my baby alive

And my body’s changed

And I’m a different woman

And I crawled back home from

The wrecks of your Dead Sea

If you’re shocked how do you think I feel

How do you think I feel

And it doesn’t matter anymore who believes me

I know what I know

I’ve seen what I’ve seen

I’m making a wish

On my baby teeth