The demon clutches in the belly like a claw that screws as well as grabs. It hurts better that way in the deepest way. The darkest way. Wa

Because I thought I saw Jesus within the pulsating wall A prophetic drawl Pathetic bawling Incessantly crawling back beneath the...

I stood at the edge of the reflecting pool With water cascading, lush and cool I jumped into that pool of sun And sank simply down with...

You’re like a force field that contains the blaze in me because you learned to grip fire with your hands You’re a phosphoric, Promethean...

I want to be the needle in your thigh plowing endlessly the field of your discomfort like a splintery thing. Extract the venom to your...

I go away Are just three words I use sometimes To break the silence of a fragile state I go away, I say, when the moonlight breaks Through tufts of cloud wisps Blue light spilled out at the windowpane I sift through moods and claim An imagined room that’s furnished With a small wish To go away

I’ve been casting you in lineaments, you vaporous thing. You’re a distorted mirror that bends ‘round my mood. A cold surface of marble...

I quiver like the white moth I found perched on my bedroom wall. Bad news flutters in, in traces it seems. First an omen, then an ache,...

And gold drips through fingertips —coagulated sunlight— soft globs of me spilling out everywhere.

I want to bruise you like fruit, plump and ripe. I want to use you and abuse you. I want to chew on you, blood vessels bursting like raspberries, malice contorting my mouth like a bright red smear. I want you to squirm like an antelope might, thrashing, kicking, fighting until the end. And I want to drag you down and drag you under into my darkest place.

I’m neither here nor there. I feel instead. I feel that I’m far off like stars and cool night air passing through the window, breathing in and slipping out again, a hushed love affair with an imagined state, the feeling of freedom, the freedom of flight. I’m not a woman but a dream instead and I feel…

PART 1: I’m not sure I’m the obvious choice. I’m not bold or powerful. My brothers were always more forceful than me. My sister was...