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

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...

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 wish that you’d listened to the call of leaves and the purring in trees, but you got distracted, turned away (as they do), and left me...

I have a love for beautiful views that began when I was a child. I’d sit on top of the monkey bars or sit in my favorite hemlock tree...

She was squished up in the tire of their pickup truck when I heard her meowing. I crawled under and found a little grey fluff of kitten, not much larger than my hand. She had grey eyes like me. I named her “Storm,” and snuck her into our basement until my parents found her and then she disappeared. I never did find out what became of her, but even as an adult I think of her sometimes.

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...