wyrdwind

Axis Mundi

Pedestal

Oh these girls claim they’re modern

Claim their pleasure’s avant garde

Don’t clock distinction, Big Big Diff

Between dominant and dominatrix

Say they want somethin’ different

Says she wants an artist, a musician

Wants to sniffle ’bout her feelins, passive posture ’bout her “hubs”

Or else she’s cool girl jaded, too cool for commitment but secret is

She still wants you to Be A Man when shit gets rough

They’ll stick the script assigned, stress fracture default

Oh she won’t admit it, not even to herself

Test your boundaries, make you jealous, act up and act out

Make eyes at anyone but an ectomorph

Just to rile a response

And when her Sensitive Man is, gasp, Sensitive

She’ll say she loves you, but secret is

She lookin’ elsewhere

Shit, she already spread her legs

Oh baby I know that hit nerve

Oh baby don’t take it personal

Oh baby you’re not numb and you

You’re not fine on your own

Such a creature confined to solitude well that

That’s an affront to mother nature

There is nothing wrong with you

There was too much to unlearn either direction

Put the anxious on a perfectly good introvert

Difference ‘tween manager mommy and a matriarch

Go choke on that Madonna-whore

I said I said a Mother Fucks

Xylem’s her favorite instrument

Mama loves her woodwinds

She don’t brook deforestation

She down catastrophic, appetite’s all shameless mess

And she don’t tap men for protection no

She splits and grips and grasps to mast

Let’s see devotion to your craft

That sticky sugar oh your excess moisture and

I’m no modern woman, no, I’m ancient and

Men weren’t built for strength alas

You’re bred for timbre depth

Texture exquisite

.

.

Sanctity of Marriage

Honey honey I’ll nip this in the bud

They might be worthy of your love But

Are they worthy of your partnership?

Who carries the eggs carries the risk

Sonny boy there is due deference

Best been some diligent digits

Truth’s long and hard to look at

Kitty cat accounts and balances

Girls go on ahead and ask:

Is he worth it?

.

Mmm dress for the occasion

Will you take it to your grave?

We’ll be the yew atop the hill

Kids cry and swear and kiss under

On Samhain a thousand years from now

And once more in old age

Someday

.

Say it to my switchblade

Foggy breaths too much to drink

Woodsmoke and leather chapped

Jitter frenetic high off a gig

Right down on crisp grass

Lips hushed as sipping shadows

Blindfolded spun around around

He’d still know the way home, home oh

Keeps to the rhythm section

Darlin’, ah, this is the retirement plan

.

Mmm dress for the occasion

Will you take it to your grave?

We’ll be the yew atop the hill

Kids cry and swear and kiss under

On Samhain a thousand years from now

And once more in old age

Someday

.

Never thought he’d live to see them

So many grays, so much success, or just enough

Man at the table still lookin’ like his mama made him come downstairs

Woman the mind is willin’ but the flesh

Get down there won’t get back up again

Creaky bones gotta keep to his papa chair

Push right up on all that, spirit, will there’s a way

No more littles send to bed nor memos on the stack

Embers snup, crackle, pop ah-pop all over that sheepskin

Bump bitten wood where I brace myself

.

Mmm dress for the occasion

Will you take it to your grave?

We’ll be the yew atop the hill

Kids cry and swear and kiss under

On Samhain a thousand years from now

And once more in old age

Someday

.

.

Highlander

Your girl shrugs a compliment

So dubious as my girl Irish said

That any man took me to wife

Must be real secure in himself

I debate like a prison shiv at lunch

And there can only be One immortal

He’d have to be the Manliest Man

Some shredded plaid lumberjack in suspenders

As if I didn’t spend half our shifts

With at least one songbird in my lap

Mama likes to fuss

.

My love’s acquired taste

A-choir in silence, storm slaked

Was always cozy in the rain

If she loves weather, she’s a witch

.

You know it’s magic when

You’re not even all that attractive

Mind your business in a crosswalk

Make to flip the double bird at an explosion of honks

Like what, fuck off

And here comes a Norwegian on a bicycle

Almost died in traffic, hauled ass from downtown

Just to say he plays bass in a death metal band

And you should come to their show because

Language barrier pause

You look like music

.

My love’s acquired taste

A-choir in silence, storm slaked

Was always cozy in the rain

If she loves weather, she’s a witch

.

Listen, listen, they’re like fancy cats

You can leave ’em raggedy ass

But they really function best kept

Like it’s their own idea, avoid eye contact

That one takes his milk by the trash can

Ooh, ahh, that’s a nice warm bed

Shifty glance, door’s still open

Exchange pleasing rumbles for pets

I just, I just wanna see this blanket it’s good

Gasp! My brothers in filth!

I have been domesticated!

.

My love’s acquired taste

A-choir in silence, storm slaked

Was always cozy in the rain

If she loves weather, she’s a witch

.

.

Timestamp

Cool cross-breeze, rustle of wings

Eyes dry, knees ache, working late

Ponytail, pen scribble, gurgle ribs

Somethin’ keep catchin’ the quiet

Comb the snag a golden thread

How old were you then?

The night when first we wed

.

She crept in outta nowhere

Sudden slip of dawn at midwinter

Mead punch whirls as wake the dead

Laid him down and she’s come to collect

.

No matter the miles and stadiums filled

There’s precious doodles on my fridge

Wallet’s just your weary likeness downcast

Packed with pressed leaves and guitar picks

Your fingers hard as spindle tips

And I know you fluster when I say it so

I’ll drop you off and pick you up again

.

She crept in outta nowhere

Sudden slip of dawn at midwinter

Mead punch whirls as wake the dead

Laid him down and she’s come to collect

.

My baby I don’t like crowds or loud noises

For all my vibrance I’m sober as a heavyweight

I’ll catch you on the flip side where we can just Be

Until one of us is moved to speak

I through you or you through me

And happily. That ever after?

It’s the end

.

.

Hex Appeal

The irony is she never dreamt

Like the poet born the one life he isn’t

She’d know him by his negative space

And write him into existence

.

Aengus was an author’s note

.

Like the goat-herd pled the shrouded hag

To teach him how to dance

For he was a good man, a loyal man, a kind man, a strong man

And she had taught him that

.

And could she not understand

What it is to be father cursed from birth

To never take a wife, the only thing of worth

Unable to offer the love he’s capable

.

The dance of a thousand steps

Is a dance for two people

And even half those steps a feat impossible

Or so he thought, or so he thought

.

A man so earnest had a witch sneezin’ honey

.

The irony is she never dreamt

Any future cast in third person, tired mirror

What it is to be cursed by birth and purest silver

Captivity of circumstance

.

Exact words

.

What use are riches or world travail, roots internal aerial

I’ve grown to fill the space given, when given nothin’

I’ve nowhere to keep it all, all I’m capable

So given the chance, go on, ask a girl to dance

.

For all the times I couldn’t

.

.

Cygnus

You call them Valkyries I call them

The Murderess Muse Division

When Mother Earth sends her advance guard

QMP’s an EMP, it triggers the alarm

That is not passive aggression

Exact words: Chooser of the Slain

They don’t descend to shield men

That’s nobody’s maidens

Any more than a hero is Cú Chulainn

I said what I said

Wouldn’t know good reason from a hole in the ground

Just a guard dog up and kills its own flock

‘Less a buncha women get their tits out

Can’t keep his patriot in his pants or his hands to himself

Rapist can’t recognize his own son

Any more than genuine consent

Here comes the cattle raid bitch

No bullshit, full stop, it’s there or it isn’t

Aengus he is not

That tomb predates the Tuath Dé Danann

Come winter there is due deference

Coulda shoulda been abortions

You aren’t owed her flesh at any century

A mistake is a mistake through to antiquity

No lines and no agreements in accordance

Consent is there or it isn’t

Automatic psycho-somatic resistance

I’ll give you a Bloody Sunday

Sess it our with your lads in the pub about

Mary Magdalene on the rag

Red wool papal, coat to rose goes straight in the trash

She is a woman whole unto Herself

And you do not have authorization

There are deeper laws, and I’m the one who wrote them

Oldest mother means oldest inspiration means you’re fuckin’ done

No, Macha’s pains were far from the end of it

I said I said she’s come to collect

Ragnarok’s just another epochal episode

A Solstice Special of Call the Midwife

Pass the placenta or else there’s sepsis

Truth is your fat head your loud mouth

Were only crowned when they came out

Of her “Modesty”

Conception is a partnered dance

And she’s meant to take enjoyment

Stain as many sheets as she sees fit

But creation is a solo gig

And a man’s one job is to make her agony worth it

That’s it, that’s it

For as long as she deems him fit and he be willin’

Savin’ grace of the tannistry system

The battle against annihilation is won by who loved her best

Was never about the biggest club and clothes don’t fit

The Dagda can fuck right off with that bait and switch

That’s no Chieftain that’s a Tenant ain’t paid rent

A Kingmaker is herself the Sovereign, you’re just the trad quintet

P-p-preservation, my status, my bog, HA what’s this “my” shite?

This here’s a pussy, and she is not a museum piece, go purrr

Girls gearin’ up for a boss fight, bring the baddest tunes like a bridal train

Mama’s gonna lift the veil

And honey, honey, Bard is combat class

Who is it that will answer

When She has need of warriors?

.

.

@~^~

It’s finally spooky season and I happened to be thinking on that chamber in the Newgrange mound because that’s something a normal person does and it occurred to me that the tomb looks a bit like a cellar or larder, and the sun winks through as if you’re getting a midnight snack in a quiet house, fridge door open/close. Wee hours, up past everyone else. Army marches on its stomach and all that. I am as I’ve said the missiest pig, I like to root around a bit, make odd combinations. Two and half ton triple axle steel monstrosity with six wheel drive runs on heartburn, screams, death growls and I ❤ MOM magnets.

Anyhow the Yew Berry is the seed of resurrection and the restoration or establishment of a new lineage. She’s a failsafe, a course correct. The ancestral tree taken flesh when said ancestors have been too long silenced or disrespected, when the tapestry is corrupted and no one bears the skill to mend it. She’s the first woman in the ground, the first muse, the first mother, and the first reaper. So old nobody can remember much less pronounce her original name (much like the yew tree hollows out at the heartwood and just keeps rolling like that). Aengus heralds a break from the current establishment and the return of the Old Ways. If it weren’t blindingly obvious.

So funny story, a while back I had a dream where we were driving home in the late afternoon, and all the slap dash single story businesses this side of the monsoon flood plane were fully decked for Halloween. Orange, purple, hot pink, green and glittery. Not that ugly plastic hammy horror shit. Hand-stitched and home made, complete with marigold garlands, fairy lights, flag banners and custom paper lanterns. Cats and ghosts and skeletons and spiderwebs. Anyways, we pulled in to pick up an order at the Chinese restaurant (which doesn’t exist) and I noticed that all the shops were so lively and yet utterly empty save for the fleeting yet suspended sunlight itself. Submerged and refracted as if through a glass tumbler of liquor over ice. But somehow we were seated and awaited our meal. I was vaguely puzzled bubbled over with beautiful Halloween décor endorphins and the sheer childlike joy of the craftsmanship that I was totally focused on my egg flower soup with five spice and sichuan peppercorns + crab rangoons, practically bouncing in my seat like oink oink oink oink. Then, after a moment (or an eternity), I was like…hey, where’s mom?

Fast forward to the day I wrote Axis Mundi. Woke up and went to take a piss as usual and she was face down across her bed in the still dark when she would normally have been awake. Couldn’t hear or see her respiration. So I was like this may as well happen. Went out, fed the girls, got some carbs in me, made a stiff cup of dirty chai, swept up the Booger fluff dust bunnies and cobwebs then cleared a wide path to her bedroom because that’s something a normal person does. Started some laundry. Gotta make a good impression on the EMTs I guess. Idly thought to myself, oh hey, Halloween is in October. It’s October today. Remember that one dream. Put some gloves and a mask in my PJ shorts pockets (I refuse to wear pants before work for mental health reasons) and went back to check on things. I didn’t put them on ahead of time in case she wasn’t dead after all, because she would get offended. But she’d finally gotten up and was cleaning her dentures so I pretended I was there for a different reason and left.

So yeah that’s how things are going on my end.

October 4, 2026

‘Man and Witch: The Dance of A Thousand Steps, actually we talk most days, Aisling Aengus, Caer Ibormeith, done packed her bags and crashed at her best friend’s place half a world away, given her the Protes-taint AND the Cathol-ick, how’s the soup taste Friend?, kids there’s been a vote of no confidence, lyrics, mama went through some fuckin phases, moved by the spirit of chipotle, oh shit I use seasonings, out there singing like a limp dick, she’s not no tragic sad bitch, storytelling, Swan Song, The Old Ways, they’re sexually transmitted, we talk every Sunday, yer mam called, you know it’s bad when everyone’s in agreement, you’ve been playing her too soft
Vanishing Point

Temperance

As a preteen in the 90s

I was given twenty bucks to buy food for two weeks

And if I wanted to eat any more than that

I had to beg

Not in the streets, my parents

Unresponsive and icy in the TV din

There was food in the house but it was Theirs

My mother called this “learning how to budget”

My father “didn’t want to get involved”

So I learned how to steal

I learned

To stab a wooden fence over and over and over

To draft curses of incredible darkness on torn diary pages

And burn them to ash afterwards

I never cried back then, what I did

Was place my hands upon my chest

Late at night in bed

Once I was so tired I’d fall asleep quickly instead

Of repeatedly flinching awake at the threshold of unconsciousness

Gripped with dread

Arms crossed, fingers spread

And concentrate on every good thing I wished for everyone

Internally recite an exhaustive list of everything I ever loved

Live or inanimate, account balances

As an adult, a woman approached our table

At the best Taco Tuesday in town, she said

That she didn’t mean to intrude, but she’d seen me around

And just loved my energy, my style, that I was so free and full of light

Had this welcoming aura

Very Divine Feminine

I thanked her of course, so kind, it meant a lot

My mother snorted derisively once she was gone

And said “Well she doesn’t know you, you’d kill a man”

“You were such a sweet baby”

“I don’t know what happened”

.

Lust for Creation

My favorite toy

Besides the Precious Metals and the Easy Bake

Was a set of molds that allowed me to make

Every unit of a medieval kingdom

And fold-out terrain in which to construct buildings and thusly populate

Not that I adhered to a historically accurate system of governance

Well, unrecognizable to the Greco-Roman or Arthurian traditions at least

I would turn my entire room into Cities

Divide every single one of my highly diverse creatures and beings

Based on their imagined functional traits

Into, essentially, ecosystems or an interconnected web of biomes

Developed individual cultures that made sense for each of them

Then imagined how they’d react to discovering each other

Potential conflicts, who eats what, resolutions, alliances, and trade routes

But most importantly

Who would fall in love against all odds

Who says a donkey can’t get down with a triceratops

And all around the yard and neighborhood

I made little shelters and houses

Just in case anyone needed them

Just because I was “big” and I had hands

For who?

No idea

.

Queen of Wands

We never had cable

Or any of that, just as well

Because unless my friends and I were copying dance moves

Those music videos were always a huge disappointment

Compared to my constant and elaborate internal stream of genesis

Your creative director is a dunce, who tf is making these decisions

Mood Bored

And don’t even get me started on the women

I wanted nothing to do with whatever the fuck all that was about

Not on the screen, not in the school books, not in fiction, not in real life

Literally the only time I ever experienced Representation

Was when my brother came home for the summer

And introduced me to Grace O’Malley

And I was like now THIS I understand

Not that I knew what Irish meant at the time

She was a woman with many enemies and a big appetite

Born to a bunch of bullshit nonsense

Trying to live her fucking life

Making decisions I could respect

Only woman I ever read about where I could say, 100%

I would have done no different

I used to imagine stowing away on a ship

All I was stranded in the landlocked Mojave Desert

And my sister and I bonded

Over a particular book from the Scholastic fair called

Pirates!

(The exclamation mark is part of the title)

Half sisters from different social circumstances, different worlds

White, black, rich, slave

With matching ruby earrings leaving everything behind

After killing to protect each other in self defense

Battles, jungle, hijinks, cursed gems, crazy suitors, fucking Spaniards man, sisterhood etc.

Well you can guess what wasn’t an option on career day

So I started a fight club behind the church

Girls!

.

Empty Nest

Your nervous system does this super fun thing

Where, if you’ve known nothing but spiritual, intellectual, and/or literal starvation

And hostility

It’ll wait until after you escape

And find safety

Lol

To hit you with the emotional backlog

Which is double suck if you have ruthless reality testing

And flatly refuse both drugs and religion

And have no healthcare

Every course is a collision course and you cannot afford an ambulance

So, you know, watch out for that

You become a black mirror people prefer to keep shrouded in a room no one uses

A party trick on Samhain

They don’t want you around too long

I was always baffled, growing up

When friends would say I was the strongest person they knew

When asked to write an essay in class

About their greatest hero

A teacher once said, “You know, he wrote about you”

I declined to read it, I was too embarrassed

Didn’t make sense then, and it still don’t

They all Made It Out, established themselves, broke the cycle

But if you never see them again, sometimes

That means you’ve done your job

A nightmare at dawn

.

Left-Hand Path

Ironic participation is just complicity

Society is shallow, materialistic, and unforgiving

You can’t put Dark Night of the Soul on a resume

They want you compliant, heavily medicated, distracted and entertained

Your satire falls flat, intentions are irrelevant

And when you really, really don’t look your age

Lack milestones and credentials

For doing the kinda work you don’t get paid for

That never gets done when you’re a “success”

Not when you bask in the sun and applause

The public often mistakes the apathy of unbothered privilege for strength

Or else a dipshit bully’s white collar cowardice dressed in academic jargon

Impressed upon his importance

So they won’t recognize what’s behind grays and a smooth face

The gravel and the gutter and the gravitas of a late spring

Pale trunks where last ditched efforts with eyes wept witness

The sap isn’t so sugared as aromatic and complex

Hushed, still, luminous shadows dappled, you’ll forget

You’ll forget

Flash

Betulin brightly burning in the rain

Expect constant, subtle condescension

You’ve survived what most people wouldn’t, congratulations

Where’s your alma mater papers of participation

“I worked every type of shitty retail job until I found one I liked”

Yes, I know, you forced our entire family to stay here so you could watch porn all day in your IT office

I found the hidden hard drive

Men

Not that She claimed any aspirations

Beyond TV and cigarettes

“Selfish” and “evil” were among Her favorite projectiles

Your mother is your first mirror

And you can ether accept that reflection

Or become a spiteful ghost in your own home

Be someplace that’s else

The first forest I ever saw was Coastal Redwoods

We had small summer vacations because they had boomer jobs with unions

Which no longer exist

Every time we returned

I sank deeper and deeper into myself

There was a price

To be the sort of person who thrived in that environment

And I refused to pay it

I don’t want to play your game, it’s bad

I don’t think that you’re my friend

I don’t think you’re very good parents

Asynchronous development

Bought some funny pebbles in a pouch with a brick of hastily printed text, ribbon cinched

Off a funny biker at a yard sale when I was young

With a Jolly Roger in his trailer window

And a huge, healthy, fertile mulberry tree in his front yard

I learned there’s a tune called Tiwaz

That stands for truth, justice, discipline

Sacrifice, commitment to a straight and narrow path, the North Star

Binding oaths

And also, curiously, true love

Protector of warriors and mariners

Of the broken, forgotten, and disabled

See in order to bind Fenrir

Tyr broke his promise to the wolf

And lost his right hand, which he had placed in its mouth

Thus rendering him useless in his chosen profession

He would never fight again, and so

His position is about faith

Wisdom, leadership

Something greater than yourself

I swore on Redwoods

About what?

No idea

.

Budget Break

Christmas Day through January 1^st in NOLA

The first vacation I’ll have had in five years

At my own expense of course

America

Gotta remind myself, make mental note

I don’t really “look forward” or “get excited”

I just do things and don’t rub my hands about it, memory in advance

Always waiting for the other shoe to drop

It is not the responsible choice

Order of operations on the property are clear brush, lay foundation

Affix small cottage on skids for “permanent” status, shipping container, run electric

That’s just so there’s a roof over my head

While I build the main house, learn my flora and fauna extant

My myself

Turns out you have to actually live someplace there’s a forest

If you wanna become an arborist

Wow, crazy right?

My compromise with my inner child

Who said she wanted to be a marine biologist when she grew up

Before she knew that wasn’t an option

For girls like her

How ’bout nurse, EMT, cop, firefighter, Army, Navy, Air Force?

No?

Prison guard?

Trades want apprentices if you’re willing to tolerate sexual harassment

There’s always part-time retail 🙂

And, point blank, I’d rather blow my brains out

Than work in an office

Not that we have any of those here

My coach and mat-mates said and said and said

Just quit so we can make you a cage fighter

Let us set you loose, you’re our Beast

But I said, no, I wish to retain my fine motor skills

Goddamn it, I am a craftsman

Who do you think made all them baby blankets

And the Very Big Grown Up Boy Quilts

With hand embroidered barbells and woofs

My Jiu Jitsu wife beamed like a proud mother

When she informed me our coach told the entire bar I was big hearted

But

Sipping an Iced Lavender London Fog at a trendy new coffee shop

ISA study guide with dust devils and tumbleweeds all rabble-rouse at glance

An Insta-gullet: pink walls, rattan lamps, checkered floor, plastic succulents

Stiff velvet furniture with metal legs

Circle K circling the drain across the sun buckled highway

Then raw BLM desert degraded

A pregnant tweaker dead in the crosswalk just the other day

When a truck sped up to blow the light

“Accident”

Crumpled memorial taped to the streetlamp

Formative relational trauma

Is the study of what wasn’t

You have to know what you don’t know

Define the invisible

Why you tuned our wrong, defective, Other, wondering

Why it’s so much easier for all of them

There’s no broken bones or bruises there’s just

Or I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know

Later later later later later

Read the directions, ask someone else

What do you mean you stole the car because we wouldn’t help you learn?

It’s just three miles you can walk

If you get hot jump in the river

I don’t remember that

Oh is that what you think you deserve?

Don’t roll your eyes! I never ask you for anything!

Smack, smack, smack

It’s not my fault you don’t know x y z

You never showed an interest

You have such a nasty temper

You were half a demon

To think all these people call you an angel, hah, you’re so manipulative

I’m ashamed to have you as my daughter

I did everything I could to keep you from getting hurt

You know

It’s the youngest bees that create the Royal Jelly

To rear and sustain a Queen

They’re just girls

Ellas and godmothers

The thorns of innocence and the sacred heart

Compartments and chambers

I just think about that a lot is all

A child

Isn’t meant to be strong

She’s meant to be loved

September 20, 2026

but you can guess the sun’s path, Cailleach Informed Trauma, I’ll call it Clit Lit ba da tsss, I’ll show you divine feminine, order of operations, thing don’t post tags in the order I wrote them
National Security

Anti-Grappling Counter-Striker

At a certain tier of physical conditioning

Where she maintains significant muscle mass packed on a low center of gravity

And a .72 waist hip ratio

Alongside a dancer’s flexibility

With heavily honed unilateral strength and balance

Who serenely resists sweep, pin, and submission

From opponents more than twice her own size

Until they are utterly depleted of glycogen

Without even breaking a sweat

And a level of proprioception that prevents loss of footing

Even when shoved on black ice

What you’re left with

Is an uncomfortable choice

That is, should you continue to fight

Most kickers can’t commit their full force to a strike

Can’t risk the takedown

Ah, but the ground is where she’s comfortable

Ground’s her best girl

Force travels from the ground and explodes through the hips

All about that torque

One or two clean hits collapses your leg

Liver or kidney shot, down, broken ribs, down

Neck or head, it’s over, even through guard

It’s like being struck by a baseball bat or a moving car

If you rush her in your frustration

Close quarters her kingdom

She controls the pace of this interaction

You’re worked up, she’s not

For her, this fight is slow motion

Any little mistake you make, she will notice

What you don’t, what you didn’t when you saw

Just another fine boned bottle-body in some civvies

Relaxed, indifferent to your estimation

Casual stance, even bored

See, her deadliest weapon isn’t her stats

It’s her vagal tone

.

Treehugger

Dense forest cover is a massive force multiplier

That neutralizes the technological and numerical advantage

Of a conventional military

And is the ultimate counter to high tech surveillance

The enemy is plunged into thermal and optical blindness

Compounded by radar signal attenuation

And greatly increases decoy effectiveness

You are surrounded by ready-made defensible positions

And ballistic cover

Inherently camouflaged infrastructure

Vast root networks that stabilize the soil and allow extensive subterranean operations

The defenders control engagement dynamics

When you force your enemy into close quarters combat

Hand to hand or terrifying point blank firefights

What matters most is raw reaction time

Killer instinct

Once sound bounces and echoes off trees and rocks

Your enemy cannot orient themselves

They cannot discern from which direction they are fired upon

And bows are but a whisper

There will be no air support

Tanks and armored personnel are all but useless

High explosive artillery detonates prematurely in the canopy layer

The grueling and cumbersome terrain

And the constant threat of snipers, booby traps, and lethal wildlife

Destroy your opponent’s morale

Aww, poor wittle colonizer homesick

Aww, poor wittle colonizer dead

As I’ve said, the strongest position

Is Mind Your Fucking Business

.

Bald Grace

Old ships and other obstructions

Deliberately sunken to prohibit commercial or naval passage

Via every route but a single heavily fortified choke point

Might cause your overbearing neighbors to beat their soft power

About un-neighborly behavior, their access

But you can just call it…

An artistic eco-restoration climate resilience project

Because this carefully coordinated chaos

Doubles and triples as seabird breeding perches, clam and kelp gardens

Nursery waters

If they would like some fishes or guano for fertilizer

They need only make polite request

Both hands on the table

Batting eyelashes

Have you heard the multitudinous health benefits

Of sea moss?

Come the next round of heat waves

We’ll see whose pussy still got hair

And whose pussy caught the itch

.

Probiotics

Waterlogged and compacted?

Carve your swales to accentuate the natural slope of the landscape

Then flesh it out with wattle fence chinampa

Which corrals mud and prevents erosion

Continuously add biomass

It’s just piles lads, don’t overthink it

Woody, high-carbon blended with green manure for balanced composition

Willows, alders, and dogwoods are your pioneers for drawing water upwards

Birches, poplars and other such intermediate

Canopy trees are your climax

Keep an eye on your edibles and medicinals, strongly interject

Plant for purpose as much as aesthetic

Peat and preservation are irrelevant constipations

What’s down there?

Idk last century’s sour breakfast who cares

Nom nom nom nom burp

People thought dinosaurs were lizards

Before they realized that a skeleton

Doesn’t convey the most critical viscera

The meat and fat and songs and feathers

Their mating dance

How the stars felt, how the air tasted

What kinda fun they had

Private conversations in the dark at 2am

Or else you’ve got mummy guts and no bones to sing on

Hey, put that back, that’s good nitrogen

The point is that your ancestors lived

And may easily do so again

Good moods are made in big stomachs

Gotta rub the belly, pat the back, bounce a bit

Soil is an organism, it requires free flowing nutrients, maximum absorption

Minimal disturbance

Teeming roots and microbes

Robust digestion, gustatory aeration

Giants

.

Core Curriculum

There doesn’t need to be any more…things

As it is, with all hands on deck

Clearing the landfills (to which everyone has contributed)

Concentrated remediation of plastics and other petroleum products

Converting offshore oil rigs to wind farms that scrub the ocean

This will take centuries, there is no techy shortcut, no outsource

I don’t care what you think your job is

What you went to college for

It’s permaculture/agroforestry, fabrication/construction, maintenance/defense, or recycling/waste management

Laundry

Song

If you’ve got any precious patch of temperate green

It must be fully operational, biome coordinated, and viciously protected

Lest it become the favorite bangmaid for the dregs of militant industrialization

(Men)

To put a plain face on the situation

Sometimes you gotta call a spade a spade or it will sail right past

Lots and lots of people are going to die in the ear future

Perhaps you can relate, I prefer that they not be you

Stressed about immigration?

Accept only unaccompanied women

Ooh that rock scattered some fish, hurt some feelings

I said what I said

Do I and watch what happens

As for the youths and remedial learners

Some basics

Grappling, singing, gardening, outdoorsmanship

Hide and Seek is serious business

Slingshot

Not a single one of you should be defenseless or unaware of your surroundings

Unable to cooperate, be useful, and survive

Everyone must be an agent of the environment that bore them

Personal beefs are secondary

Fight like your mother is being drug out

And gang raped in front of you

How far will you go

To look in the mirror without survivor’s guilt?

Action

Is the remedy of anxiety, fault

Is not the same as responsibility

.

Pie in the Sky

So long as we’re still pretending

That money is a thing that exists

What if…

Music were a matter of public health and welfare

Producers were servants of the country, county, state, whatever

Maybe they’re more like an eerily powerful quasi-religious order

Their entire directive consited of looking for artists that might blossom and fruit under their care

Who would naturally specialize in different genres

With absolutely journalistic commitment to artistic truth

With the same associated legal immunities and protections

No censorship, no commercialization

Make musicians the very most of precisely what and who they are

Priceless treasure, a soul’s work

Social lubricant, communion wine

Occasionally seeking mutually beneficial partnerships with other sects of creative professionals

To develop albums with cinematic scope

Every single song is a short film within a greater film

Snippets speaking on each other from every direction

Really flex on the storytelling

I wanna see what you fucking got

Hard copies only, limited release collector’s items

Hand written lyrics and craft cases to sweeten the pot, you get the idea

A streaming service run through the libraries

Where everything everyone submits is stored, no matter how small

Properly organized and accurately tagged

Perhaps annotated with interesting tidbits by ranking librarians through the platform

Credits strictly where they are due

So other creators know who to tap for specific collaboration

Or further their rabbit hole pursuit

Hyperlinks for significant terms

Teachable moments

Available to anyone with a compatible device and a library card

And once a year the governing body cuts you a check based on your streaming numbers

Which have not been influenced by algorithims

You know, a real respectful sum

All libraries have rentable rooms with basic recording equipment and instruments

For novices or casual hobbyists

Or poor kids

Must be 25 or older to formally submit

No child stars, no predators

And here’s the kicker

The organization’s symbol

Is a bee in a hex under a crown

.

@~^~

I was just smacking my cerebral ball of yarn around, trying to stay sane at work because my default mode network is pretty much full throttle all of the time. I wasn’t even going to post these ones. Then I had the strangest dream (okay, okay, they’re all strange) right before a power surge blew our AC transformer and I was rudely awakened.

.

So it’s in media res with me as usual, there was some kinda…shit idk, magical girl final battle going on against the Big Bad. Some Johnny Quest ass huge killer bees swarmed this…skyscraper tower headquarters thing and a woman in my ear said that who or whatever they were after had to die because the Queen inside that structure was weak, and if the tower fell then so be it. So once the bees achieved their objective, suddenly a woman appeared next to me.

She had dark skin, bright blue eyes, and ultra tight curl bright red hair, big big hair. She wore an emerald green embroidered dress or…more like robes of office. We were late to the fight and I had to explain everything en route as villages and cities and epochs folded in on themselves around us. One of the main magical girls from another region was dead and her sister crossed borders to defend her fallen corpse and call out for reinforcement. Mine needed a chalice but all I could produce under such untenable circumstances was an especially large and dark stainless steel double insulated travel tumbler laser engraved with an equally large ornate knotwork heart. Which I filled with my own tears. Good enough. In fact, she was rather impressed, said now this I can work with.

We pulled up on the front line and met another magical girl waiting on our side of the annihilation chasm. She had medium tone skin, straight black hair, a white semi-revealing dress, thick eyeliner and like…colorful wings draped down her arms I guess?? Anyways, my girl got her chalice and linked up with her associate to conduct some Big Girl Resurrection Magic straight through the oppressive nothing zone. Her eyes glowed the same blue as the tears she absorbed while she worked to undo deep internal damage. Wings Girl focused and directed the…idk energy stream like a scalpel and articulated the flesh. The dead girl across the way rose again and re-entered the fray. But apparently Green Girl was the most important pinch hitter, the one with the good juice. She’d been gone for far too long and without her it was Game Over for everyone. There was a bee in her hair.

And just as I was like finally gang’s all here now I get to royally fuck somebody’s shit up and send some fools on down to meet God, as I said, I was rudely awakened.

September 13, 2026

bootlickers and crown coddlers go get in a ditch, go catch a will o’ wisp, I saw a pretty lady in a bog said she’s you’re girlfriend
Girl Dinner

Teething

As I’ve mentioned, my first word

Was “bite”

And this is what I would say to indicate

That any and every adult in the vicinity

Should feed me a piece of whatever they ate

Like a pushy little bridge troll shaking everyone down

I flatly refused jars of baby slime

Once, when I was slightly older

A waitress reached across the table

And I grabbed her wrist with prison speed and vigor

Because I thought she was trying to take my plate

My brother’s first word was “triangle” followed by “Volkswagen”

Nothing less from the golden boy

Basking in praise

(No judgment, I too adore him)

I did mercilessly tease him for pronouncing wolf “woof”

Just because I could

He had four years and four parents on me in every other arena

(Again, no judgment, I thought his mispronunciation cute)

My second word was “boo”

Because I’d run around half naked

With a Halloween ghost bucket on my head

And jump out at people to “scare” them

Kitten jazz hands

I suppose you could say I’ve always been…

Results oriented

.

Teenagers

My childhood best friend had a younger sister

Who died of a brain tumor so rare

They brought top surgeons to Phoenix and operated for free

So after the funeral

As she sat on her twin bed staring at nothing

Scrying a shitty trailer wall for some sign of a future

While mean grandma, hapless overworked mom, tweaker older sister and tweaker aunt—

Who recently pawned the violin she scraped to afford to buy meth—

Did whatever out there

I put some soft music on

Cleaned and organized her entire bedroom

Then ventured into the kitchen

But for some fucking reason there was a double edged kitchen knife

So I went to put onions

And got blood all in it

A bloodlette

I let her know I tried

She laughed

Bandaged my abused digit

And ate it anyways

The omelette, not the digit

.

Emperor Penguins

Paternal grandma never wanted to be a mother

The deal was, she’d have them, but he’d raise them

One child per instrument mastered

Just to space them out, a deterrent

And, well, they had seven

The only thing my grandpa loved as much as music

Was babies and cute things

Sometimes I think he liked grandma just because she was fussy

She was the type to wear a cherry red bikini

During a time when this was scandalous

And eat raw red meat right out of the package

And chase it with red wine

Lots and lots of wine

Grandpa took me everywhere with him

Made every meal, changed every diaper, cut my constipated shits with a knife

So the toilet would flush

Fed me all his favorite foods from the war

But most especially, strawberry shortcake from scratch and cinnamon toast

Whenever I asked

Grandma and mom did not get along

I explained to my friend once

That she was not the sort of person

Who had patience for weakness or a timid, inarticulate, and fumbling manner

Nor general lack of intelligence

It wasn’t so much malicious intent

As when you force a predator into a tiny enclosure

And deny her adequate sustenance

If you didn’t cower, she’d be satisfied

Law of the jungle and all that

My friend’s eyes did the mama observation crinkle

Looked at me sideways and said

“I think you got a little bit of that”

Observed that neither woman had a single maternal cell in their entire icy bodies despite their differences

That at least if you gave her mom crack, she’d be happy

But not even crack would make my mother happy

Not even crack

And then there’s me, the most loving and nurturing person she’d ever met

Which was so funny

Because it all came from the men

.

Keeper

My good friend from college

She was a percussion major (Music Education) and a delight

We bonded over a shared love of reptiles

Absent moms

And other weird girl subjects

When she discovered it was my birthday

She suggested we go get sushi at the shady location

Super sketch between the plasma bank and Planned Parenthood

Across from the day laborer gathering spot

Plaza’s face literally turned away from the main street in shame

We both had been curious but didn’t want to go alone

Gossiped about our coworkers (also musicians for the most part)

Apparently all tuba kids are loud??

Then we went back to her apartment

And she whipped out an entire array of small sake bottles

Every conceivable type and vintage

Blue bubbly, pink snowy cloudy, green classic acerbic, gold flecked

Unopened

They just kept coming

And I was like girl holy shit why???

No judgment, most people would just be like this is my first edition Charizard

Behold my Pokemon cards

And she said people gave her sake every year for her birthday

Because she studied Japanese in school

Even though not one drop of alcohol had ever passed her lips

But tonight

We would drink them all

She’d never had a suitable occasion before

So her poor boyfriend came home like

Babe are you good, why is the sake out in a big summoning circle

Is it your period again, do I need to go fill your prescription

But nothing amiss, roped him into our historic event shenanigans

At some point he left to bring us only the finest assortment of bizarre convenience store snacks

He’d never seen her quite like this

Wanted to let her laugh, said she didn’t need to get up from the carpet

Finally, after sampling and rating the length of Japan

She presented me with a mummified vampire bat

I shed a weird girl tear

Top five in best birthdays ever

They’re married now

.

Breadwinner

My former boss/current friend got maybe one day off a month

She held down the job and paid all the bills

He stayed home to raise their sons

Per agreement

And on that one day each month, they played DnD

She brought me into the fold once she decided I was on the weird girl level

I’d never played before

Seeing behind the scenes of people’s houses

Is not only one of my favorite parts of Halloween

But an honor when they show you deliberately

Every house has its idiosyncracies

Rules of engagement

Hers had an unfriendly cat, two senior lovebug dogs

And the older son didn’t speak nor did he appreciate eye contact

Noted

He runs around making sounds, that’s normal

If he randomly grabs your hand, breathes on it, and puts his cheek there

Or just pats you whilst looking elsewhere, loosely tethered

It means he likes you and is comfortable

That sort of thing

Laundry piles lurking in otherwise highly organized craft corners

Dirty dishes hulking from sink to cabinet that had been there for

Quite

Some time

They knew I’d been trying to eat my vegetables

Not because I had sensory issues

But because they spoil almost immediately home from the store

Are annoying to prepare, annoying to chew

And don’t justify the calorie expenditure

My potato who art in heaven exempt

So she excitedly offered me her SNAP lettuce

And I was like aww thank you no don’t get up

Shit

Not wanting to stir up atmospheric resentment

I simply grabbed the lettuce out of the drawer

Rinsed it and took bottle of ranch

Sat back down and ate it like an apple

Nonchalant

As our group battled on, the final fight

Against a dragon

Had me as the last woman standing

Two-swords half-orc barbarian aggro tank

I rolled a nat 20 for both weapons on my final attack

Victory, the crowd went wild, we didn’t wipe

Then

I said is this a boy or a girl dragon

A…boy???

Does he have balls?

I…guess??

I cut them off, gonna make a backpack 🙂

Uh…roll dexterity 😀

My guy was sweat-inggg

Years later, in a big city where both parents absolutely needed to be working

He wasn’t

And neither was their house clean

And this time, she was making too much money for SNAP

But not enough to survive

We were texting continuously as we always did

Streams of consciousness, open tabs

My chat lines are more like umbilical cords

That I use to keep track of everyone

You know almost none of my female friends have ever met each other

But they know each other because I catch everyone up as if they’re present

I’m like Wi-Fi

Objects in space

We’re here, I promise

Anyways, there was nothing left

But a box pancake mix and water

So instead of applying for positions at the listings presented on his computer screen

As every shelf and cabinet emptied

He was making pancakes

And she was sobbing in the hobby cave fighting a bipolar manic wave

So I sent a DoorDash driver on an epic quest

To deliver a loaf of garlic bread, a large rotisserie chicken, a block of cheese, and a bottle of red

To my friend specifically ASAP, I know it’s late

That food is for her hands only, I don’t care if you have to jump fences, be rude, or lie

Last foot bust down the Safeway door two seconds before close like the Kool-Aid Man

Will tip

And this absolute madman townships away rose to the occasion

This guy got it done, went above and beyond

All the stars

He knew exactly what was going on

The second her husband opened that door

Trick or treat bitch

And as my friend hid in her cave receiving proper nourishment

Her husband got Big Mad

But remained impotent

And I was like enjoy those pancakes champ

And that driver was all, I got u girl, my pleasure

Threw that shade free of charge

Understood the fucking assignment

.

Red State

Well you get what you get

When you switch condom brands in a pinch on vacation

And to be quite frank

There was vastly insufficient inspiration

To entertain his genetic contribution to my eggs

To be fair, that’s zero worthy men to date

Anyways

I told her immediately, booked arrangements in the next state

And she drove five hours with her grandmother’s cast iron, the good tortilla still warm, immersion blender, dried chiles and freshly butchered meat

An adult diaper just in case

For my big day

Carne adovada, her favorite family recipe

To replenish my iron as I shed my uterine lining

Couldn’t have me getting anemic

Taught me how to tandem finger weave a purple friendship bracelet

Brought paper stock so we could cut, build, and bind dream journals

Red wine

Until I passed a… crotch snot blob roughly the size of an avocado pit but squish

No thanks

Later, she’d recall cooking with that same grandma to me via our constant texts

The only bright spot of her childhood in the New Mexico desert

I never pressed her for details about her past

She was homeless at sixteen and clinically dead twice

And I left it at that, I’ll ride for any girl gone through it

You do not need to explain

I know well enough when it was Bad

As she cleaned the combined hoard of both elders after her grandfather passed

A rat infested compound wreathed in car debris

Where once had been her grandmother’s black irises

Let me know that I should know

That when she found an intact rat corpse in a bucket

She sat there for at least an hour trying to figure out how best to dissolve its flesh

So she might present me with its pristine skeleton

When she pulled the printed phone records for that period

Because her husband cheated

98% of the text logs was just us

.

Breaking Bad

I sent a picture to their moms—

Five-foot, scrappy, Hot Mom identical twins—

Their boys busy at their stations in the kitchen

Cooking up, assembling tacos

My plate heaping with tender pork, green salsa, minced cabbage, pico and queso fresco

One of them peeping back every so often to see if I’d finished the first round

Their abuelo had founded a popular taqueria in Mexico

So I’d been told, quite often, by both of them

Neither of their mothers spoke English

But they responded with profuse emoji hearts

Their handsome little boys, if I’m translating correctly

To be clear, not a single soft word or affirmation would ever be uttered to their faces

The moms would however pinch or punch their sons’ shoulders so hard as to leave marks

And open-hand slap my thighs like a cat bapping water

Just to watch them do the meat jiggle and say “wow”

Once, his mother unloaded groceries in front of him

And brought out a pink infant onesie while maintaining aggressive eye contact

Words are overrated

Until they’re not

Such as when I was—shock—working 10pm closing shift

But this time I was there with two whole coworkers

And lads, the cramps were kicking my ass

Assailed with stupid questions and snotty middle class entitlement

Bent double with an ache like a blunt spoon scooping pumpkin guts

I texted him to bring me garlic-salted tatertots, nuts, chocolate, and ibuprofen

Because I had Eddie Brock on one shoulder and Venom on the other

Every time some Reagan-loving boomer presumed to speak

And I would not be finishing this shift without incident

Forgot about it, going about my business

When my boss goes PSST

Sweating like menopause in polyester at the beach

White

I was like damn bruh, you look about as good as I feel

Did you eat the dairy again, you know you’re not supposed to, we talked about this

And he was like <_< … >_> … and hurried me hither

Act natural

By now I was all son why are we having a clandestine meeting in the scrapbooking section

Consider my interest piqued, mischief engaged

He handed me a brown paper bag

My dinner had arrived

Then he cleared his throat and squeaked

I don’t care what you’re into, but could you maybe not do it at work

Or wait until I’m not here

?????

Slowly pulled an unmarked dime bag with ibuprofen out of his pocket staring straight ahead

Boy what

OH

I cleared the air, alleviated his confusion

Laughing so hard I forgot to hurt

He didn’t realize that was my boyfriend

And when that man stepped out of his vehicle and zeroed in on him

And asked if he worked here

He almost said “No,”

Turned around and left

I Don’t Get Paid Enough For This Shit

Crying, I was all thanks for supporting my enterprise man

He stammered and jittered my dad was a state trooper, I’m not a snitch

Sometimes I forget, it’s just like how boys responded to the existence of My Dad

Tell me yours left without telling me yours left

And I’m blindsided by their distress like

Thas just my horsie why you scare

.

Mamafishes

She texted me midday having decided to do a crab boil on a whim

Remembered I’d never partaken

Plastic rolled out on the table, big casserole dish

All girls in attendance

The no-passion no-standards prodigal ho daughter

(Who left her newborn with a stranger at a party house so she could fuck some other girl’s baby daddy and do drugs)

Her friend

(Quiet, low SES)

And the responsible and high maintenance youngest

(My favorite)

Shirtless baby in the high chair up from a nap

Steaming pile of spiced and buttered crab legs

Whole potatoes filling and uncomplicated, soft glistening jammy-center eggs, corn on the cob, shrimp

Dipping juices

Snapping, breaking, crunching, sweet flesh spread and sucked

Technical difficulty for my girl with the eyelashes and fancy claws

Who shyly studied my bare face when she thought I wasn’t looking

Baby focused intently on my corn technique

Set down her unsatisfactory cloth toy

To viciously nub on bumpy hardened plastic for relief

Mama didn’t smile or speak

Youngest fired low comments at the oldest, tone unintentionally caustic

She can’t help it, so I chimed in with some flair

Put a different spin on it, well received

Laughter, increased confidence and conversation

The more vigorously the oldest enjoyed the feast

The more chilly her mother became

Until she scolded her with needless intensity about using her teeth to open the legs

They look exactly the same

She can’t help it, so I made comment to the other two

Designed to soften impact on the left

And redirect aggression

Complimented her cooking, ventured further inquiry

Nobody showed Potato affection

(The baby’s nickname, I ate all the ones on the table)

As I collected dishes and cleaned up, I remembered to her

How her children would automatically deposit everything they couldn’t finish on my plate

And how she’d sample her own cooking so frequently that she was full by the time dinner was ready

They never sat together because she was always in the kitchen

She’d agreed, long ago, when I suggested

Though finances wouldn’t have allowed this

That her oldest would have thrived

With her mother’s undivided attention

Single and celibate

What I didn’t say

Was that she got pregnant after her brother’s death

So they would have something in common

.

Boys

Fun fact

A woman lifts heaviest and longest

During her follicular and ovulation phases

When both estrogen and testosterone are highest

Increasing recovery speed and nutrient availability

And maximizing force production

As I’m sure you’re aware, this is also when she is most fertile

Can males sense this?

Well

Consider this 200 lb professional boxer shuffling his feet just now

Asking me about “that guy” I used to “run wit”

Who he’s scarcely spoken to, but suddenly wants to know

About that time he was in the hospital

But not before I pointed out we are not together anymore

Which he is well aware, because we have not been seen together for years

Vaguely gesturing at his midsection in the region of his recent discomfort

You think there’s something wrong with…your appendix?

Uh…yeah

Don’t think I haven’t noticed his likewise sudden interest in herbs and…health

Turning up at my place of business

Over here tryna play doctor

Consider also

The gaggle of tweenagers set upon my specific dark corner of the giant empty power rack

Flipping around, doing pull-ups, trying to flex legs

But one of mine is stronger than both of theirs

So they abandon that tactic in favor

Of tossing their hair like ponies and exposing their trim bellies

Just tryna eat hot Cheetos out of my gym bag with chopsticks and chalky hands in peace

Scoot my kombucha away from their scampering

Sigh

Best I could ever hope for was a tolerable stage hand

My Ex put chalk on my deadlift bat between sets and backed away no comment

Racked my weights when I finished without being a creep about it and I says

This guy is good at staying out of my way

Refrains from being an annoyance

But the hard truth of it is

Nothing fucks you quite like filthy bass alone in the gym

Smashing a PR like it owes you money

I have very normal feelings about music

This place is a bit like a convent

All this manflesh babyslop and not a drop of nutrition

Nothing to sink my teeth into

Call it saving myself for Aengus

My girls and I used to hit the bags

Rapid high kicks to reinforce fast twitch

Unilateral speed and control

I’m a grappler at heart and think strikers are fools but

This is primarily to ensure I don’t have to drop my gin or my beef stick at the club

When some loser needs to spit blood and see tweety birds

Only one kinda KO status been interested in

Has to go somewhere if they can’t meet you in your mind or bed, always outta their depth

And only last like fifteen minutes before they get scared

Doc Martens matching every one of my slouchy mohair sweater dress

Lightly ruched or cinched

Plant my feet, full hip extension, no riding up unless I want that

I like to be ready for what the night brings

Forget everything

You thought you knew

About how a mommy and a daddy go together

Like started wings and frightened chitter

Shot from their nest at a secret hour

The sky black as a yawning mouth

Got him by the Adam’s apple

A gentle suck

All cozy sensitive semi-public at first then

Frantic

My bouncing laughter thrown back

Tight little hips slapping so hard there’s pink

Phantom promises whenever I sit for days

His legs buckle from the strain

Hold my baby bird flush to his station

Fingers splayed panting like a knife to the ribs

Forehead pressed to my traps, composing himself

Just like that, oh

Why aren’t you a man?

It’s enough to drive a girl to violence

Really milk some octaves

Sigh

Tell you what about a muse

She’s a predator

Have you sloppy on the finish

She’ll rip your innards out either end

Like a Queen bee fucks a drone to death

That’s your wailing soul dripping down her legs

Say goodnight papa

And if you’re very good

If you’re…enough

She’ll lay down a kingdom

Off all that sweet and sticky sound

Keep that comb full to burst

And the best part of being human

Is she can do that over and over and over again

Really put some miles on him

No pressure

Not everyone’s cut out for a nuptial flight

Do a lil dance, swim around the lake three times

And abscond with your prize

But carnage is my preferred canvas and mama has…stamina

I am, shall we say

Results oriented

September 6, 2026

copy on my freak-uency, friendship, it is I the mayor of Smut City, life, storytelling, you must be this tall to ride this ride
Black Swan Event

Sweet Dreams

Alone (?) in a stage lit dressing room

In the center I’d been gifted a wardrobe

Was to make myself presentable

For day one at my new job, whatever that was

I consulted the rack for clues

Beautiful cable knit woolen sweaters

Which I enjoy a normal amount

(Cats love lanolin)

Heirloom quality, every shade of green that ever suited my complexion specifically

I’m talking grandma called her friends, held conference with her ancestors on a night wind

Worked arthritic fingers to the bone for months on end

Just to prove the skill of them

One was cropped in a deeply lobed leafy vine motif, the green of spring’s eruption

Voluptuous and hilly

Tiny, broad spectrum hand wrought flowers in all colors flecked confetti atop its waves

When I woke it was 100 degrees before 9 o’clock and the foothills were, as usual, barren buff

The waking ghost town utterly without skitters

Everyone so gone to ground it’s the Manhattan Project

Unless the city comes to collect

Yet another dead gambler

An elder no one visited

Then, to add insult to injury

I found myself in the bakery section

Of a grocery store for giants

And I an ordinary size, the missiest pig

Just about died and gone to fat mouse heaven

The calories don’t count if you’re asleep

And I will unbutton the pants

More carbs more glycogen

I loaded my makeshift apparatus with every shape of enormous bread

And made my way to the pastry case

Belly up to some pan dulce

And there, by god, my subconscious dared to bullshit me

Naked as a newborn baby on display

Glorious and plain

Was Irish Butter Cake

(It doesn’t exist)

Which was the obscene love child of shortbread, angel food, and souffle

Not too dry, not too wet, tender crumb, light yet rich

Warmth in the cheeks

Gave the mouth something to do for a bit

Then melted, almost burst

With a subtly soured and raspy edge

That good good wubble

Was that a hint of vanilla?

Fuck

I’d rather have nightmares

.

Mycorrhizal

I dreamt my father in the car with me

And I driving from the passenger side

Down narrow and whimsical cobbled streets

Scenic and green the way I like

We always creep past people’s houses and rate the vegetation

Judge the paint and pruning

Carpentry and masonry design features

Charm of the place

Prayed this man had the patience

Lord let him keep his mouth shut

Because he drives like a psychopath

With no will to live on his own

Every law, stripe, light or sign but a feeble suggestion

Every other person came out just to annoy him

Aggressively weaving in and out of his lane

I’d never have him aboard without child locks and a tranquilizer

And I wouldn’t be rushed, wanted to take a good gander

I’d never seen such a neighborhood before

Crooked grin of chicle cottages

Inquisitive choral sheet ghost faces atop lush swells, thatch hats

Some hills smooth and heaving as a pile of seals at leisure

And some bristled as cats’ backs, mysterious and standoffish

When I woke, sudden as white caps in a flower pot

My algorithm suggested a poem

Boy Driving His Father to Confession

By Seamus Heaney

Apparently, a Nobel Laureate

If you care about such things

Of course I got to digging

And instinctively informed my Jiu Jitsu wife of this newly unearthed feast

Lest she wonder at my communications lapse

Opened our chat history

To see she’d sent me a picture of a rainbow prism reflecting off a novel in her own hand—

A recent habitual breakthrough, for years I’ve beaten the Books Are Good drum—

She immediately pulled a live reading to sample this new fare

Get the spoon in the pot

Or in this guy’s case, the stinky well that is dark and good

Literally a toddler tugging you along

Showing you his favorite toys and it’s critters, danger bits, rocks and dirt

Squish, squish, smear, squish

Mommy I made a muck soup

Daddy is crying and I am Uncomfortable

Am I a Man Yet?

How Bout Now?

Tex-tures and spe-ci-fic sounds

Big chest me gusta about bogs

Don’t get him started on potatoes

Aside from being arguably the most complex and intimidating of all ancient languages

God tier oral tradition

Percussive trailing verb complexes like a volley of raindrops are its primary descriptors

How every expression is extremely intricate

So a body knows with circumnavigational star chart precision

When and where and in what fashion it travels

Sings the marrow of its port of origin

Rotten or not

The movement of the heavens and much below that

No distance one could wander without knowing home again

Words were feelings long before they were phonics

Be still my heart, or perhaps be quick

His work is that but in the English

Chasing phantoms in his reflections but a boy

Never looks as smart as when his mama dressed him

Anyways, she chose Mid-Term Break

And reported back to me forthwith in tears

Shit, I read that one earlier and went nope find a different one to share

Cat’s out of the bag, reckon it’s better the bomb go off first

Luckily, they go together

.

Holes

Sometimes it was fried biscuit spheres rolled in cinnamon sugar

Long past bedtime listening to Celine Dion

Other times it was furniture flying into the siding

Or sometimes a fist

When work woke him at 1am

Or the family dog shrieking and cowering

As he beat it with a chewed up extension cord

And soon they all knew well enough to run to my bed for cover

In split seconds

My father was full of surprises

Once, he asked if I wanted to go for a ride

And the backs of my thighs itched from the upholstery

An old tan Ford, maybe 80s

He spoke not one word the whole drive

Off on some chalk sketch of a dirt road riddled with hopping mice

Erratically whipstitched into silt swales and jagged drop offs

Clouds of dust

Deep in the shadow swatched molars of the mountain range

An array of metal debris propped and strung all around as targets

Mad Max graffiti car corpses

He got out and shot them

Rifle, pistol, shotgun

Bang, bang, bang, pop, blam

When sunlight turned the page on coyote tooth contours

Flipped like a folding picture book, dimensions revealed, sunk bruise and glow

He asked tersely if I was gonna get out of the truck

No.

These days he likes the drive through this old gold mining town

Always advises me to stay away if the wind picks up, don’t breathe in

Where arsenic solution dissolved solid stone into a fell forest of rivulets

Abandoned shafts and razor wire live legion

Heavy machinery the size of houses he once operated

Tires transported by one semi per pair

The job pays well, but you pay the most

Your family, your back, your lungs

Our true objective lay on a wild donkey pilgrimage section of Route 66

No guardrails traipsing much steeper pulse points

Off the back of the industry ravaged and shack huddled face

Free of the western glare, blink and you’ll miss, hushed as a moth’s wing

A thinly sprung waterfall tremulous as a single thug tear

Steadily filling this precious gulp of a cobblestone well

Leaping, sand buffed and heat pummeled steps

Perched high above the cloud painted valley gasp

Rare wildflowers and perennials, velveteen in silver trichome filaments

Even gripping sheer cracks with no soil to speak of

Haunting lavender and caution yellow blooms

Bees everywhere

Sipping their lifeline through algae gore

Green water

He can’t get out to walk anymore, but he still wants to go

I tend to the pool every February 1st

With small, tightly wound barley straw bales

Which release a bleach-like compound as they decompose

Harmless to fish, birds, and insects

He doesn’t complain or ask questions the whole trip

Odd daughter does odd things

Full of surprises

.

Riffraff

She resumed going to the gym early mornings

At my tenderest insistence

I know a thing about toxic stress and somatic rhythms

Swirling grief’s sediment, don’t let it settle

Clot

Avoided those same first responders

Who had emerged from her house with bloodless faces

Who last saw her held back, howling and screaming on the worst day of her life

Put it all to the irons, don’t fuck with that neuroticism

We did become friends in a class full of jacked meatheads

Time and place that’s medicine

Rolled with a couple cops who seen some shit

Told us all about it put some whiskey in them

Called to the scene for babies barely alive

Lurid marks, ups and downs tainting their systems

Orifices gaping in ways they shouldn’t

Not uncommon

Once, as a small girl

No one met me at the bus stop on my first day

I wandered lost until I just couldn’t walk anymore

Past some janky 70s style liquor store frequented by flip-flops, toothless and shirtless

Kinda men call themselves Twinkie and Bam with Spongebob circles for eyes

The sun was so bright, black spots and eyelid veins

Saw the only patch of stubborn taily grass for miles

Curled up and lost consciousness

Woke in some woman’s trailer with three fans and wet towels on me

Still wearing a little gold birthday bracelet

With my home address engraved

Saw that woman doing jungle gym mathematics montage

Debating whether to call CPS

By the time she drove me back

They had only just noticed

Fared better than little Bella

Kidnapped by her mommy’s boyfriend for tweaker reasons

They found her corpse in a ditch behind a brand new and respectable gated suburb

Stuffed under palo verde, creosote, honey and velvet mesquite

Blessedly unmolested otherwise

Per the coroner

I hoped, at the very least

She got to see the trees before she lost consciousness

Her memorial is called Bella’s Garden

It’s a small bicycle cul de sac of clumsily painted river rocks

Because almost nothing will grow here

Many such cases

.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Razor tooth fan palms offer little respite

To anything larger than mourning doves and occasionally a mated pair of ravens

Provided you’ve left a properly shagged ruff for their nests

A certain shipwreck rustle standing sentinel

Over tented foam, tin, and flaps of rolled asphalt

Slap dash shelters shallow breathed

Neat morgue rows under a moon mechanical

Its description cold

Code enforcement dictates every yard be gravel and rocks

Repeatedly drenched with poison

Chemicals not unlike those employed in Agent Orange

In concentration camps

“Herbicide”

Nothing higher than a four foot fence

The police need easy access when they come in their unmarked vans

But upon a time on those precipice evenings

Where the air has the consistency of a mucous membrane

The same exact temperature as your insides

And you a consciousness suspended

Adrift amniotic

And the only proof of life, that you be of body

Are the deep, somnolent desert sighs, low swept

As if a giant turning with unrestful dreams

A baby kicking

Wafting palm blossom fragrance, dry and sweet from their popped panicles

Spraying champagne colored chandelier inflorescence

Upon a time, when there were wayfarer fires sparked throughout

Nestled in anything you could squint at sideways and call a fire pit

Toilet tissues of flame stuck where blood pricked

Dotted the darkness for blocks in every direction

Fast food, assisted living, hospital, emergency and casino workers

Visiting a procession of family and friends at all hours

Rickety hipped and blister footed in Sketchers

With offerings of 616, Modelo, Tecate or tequila

Tamarind candies or beer drizzle, rainbow marshmallow sculptures on sticks

Pan Dulce

Or when it was someone’s birthday

And the whole family, littles to elders in addition to distant relations

Would post up right there in their yards and driveways

Until two or three in the am

I would tuck my knees to my chest, pull my cotton sheet tight and listen

To billows of laughter, mariachi tuba hoots, and froths of giggle drunk squealing children

Grandmas on a bench conversing in Spanish

We used to have Mexicans

.

Occupational Hazard

Arizona can be a challenger of expectations

Get your 24 oz jars of local honey at the same place you build a custom semiautomatic

Chase with pretty crystal quartz or other tumbled finds if so inclined

Honey so good a random man wandered into our store like a baby bear with sticky fingers

Just to tell me about it and offer me some, ’cause he had to tell someone other than God

The owner isn’t the barrel-chested open carry chin strap

It’s the woman

Mohave turquoise emblazoned on every finger and both wrists

High dollar southwest silver drip

Daughter likewise adored in her image

But with fancy claws

Long hair, boho pants, big laugh

Learned to shoot first no questions

That your boy? Whoopsie daisy oh well

When her son threatened to break in while she slept

And kill the entire family

And save her for last

The cops, as usual, did nothing

He followed through, and so did she

They are estranged

Or women aged, broke and hobbled still nursing mental sons

Men shit themselves and swing on their mothers’ skulls full force

Whenever she says No

While she’s in traffic behind the wheel

Many such cases

You can leave it to the paid professionals

That’s not the big salary directors

It’s the barely above minimum wage overtimers

Missing their own family’s entire lives

Getting groped, shit and pissed on, puked at and verbally harassed

By the way, your mee maw and pee paw are vicious racists and also misogynists

Ever had to put a woman’s entire cooch back inside because it prolapsed?

Like a slippery meat balloon, wear a glove, minimum wage, no tips

Existential despair and bodily fluids in 10 to 12 hour shifts

Subduing assailants without breaking the skin

POAs who visit once or twice a year and Have Opinions

I keep my ear to the ground

I was the first to mask up

God rest him, my Ex

Saw unprecedented turnover in Memory Ward

Total wipe every month for over year

“Heart attack” “Pneumonia” “Unknown causes”

One woman didn’t have a DNR

And he procedure required him to administer CPR

Got to taste her death rattle as her brittle ribs crumbled beneath his balled hands

Concave as an old church ceiling

They have to break them, you know

It’s not like films

Another tripped and somehow cut her leg on the toilet

And he had to use a tourniquet designed for arms

From his personal first aid kit

Because emergency supplies weren’t “in the budget”

Near as we can tell, the offending geyser just…

Collapsed, shriveled up and vanished from the pressure

A baby bobcat fell through the rain rotted rafters and he snuck a pic

Big scared kidden in a resident’s bathroom, just wanted some bird

Said do you want her? Or should I call animal control?

They locked him in that building for months amid stratospheric death tolls

There would be no changing of the guard

There was no such thing as “non-essential” here in the sunshine state

Your options were work face to face or be homeless and die by heatwave

I got my vaccine straight away though well behind population centers

Because he volunteered with the first company out of Phoenix—

Can you believe, a rapidly formed task branch of an OBGYN—

Who remembered people do in fact live out here

And we matter

His buddy from the prison

Whose wife was a nurse

Let the group know they could administer IV fluids if any of us needed it

He lost 10% of his body weight in weeks when he got sick

Me, I just can’t lie on my sides or flat on my back

Or get up too fast without the room spinning

Also I may or may not have powered through cardiac arrest

Unclear, doctors are expensive

Throat slitting rage whenever anyone says, “I bet you’re glad”

To have work

Saw a thread that asked which unskilled occupation is the most unsung

The least respected despite being the most difficult

And everyone was like field hand big equipment jackhammer dig big hole construction stuff garbage man

Wrong

It’s anything involving Care

.

Another Day in Paradise

Around here that means

“Well I haven’t ate the gun yet so that’s progress”

Sometimes we see vagrants come crawling up on the night cameras

To drink the scuzzy cup of bird and cat water

Other times they drunkenly piss in it

And what’re we gonna do, get mad?

Call the cops because jail helps?

We’re the only place you’ll find good, clean water anywhere in the tristate

Same low price for thirty years

TDS so high on tap it’s liquid brick

Cave crust gobbles your shower heads and faucets, left to its devices

Leaches a solid shell of salt atop tomb dust silt

Which must then be countered

With sulfur, blood meal, vinegar and occasionally battery acid

And a wood chip dump three feet thick

Our river frequently afflicted with flesh eating bacteria

From snowbirds brought their boats and reckless RV waste

Go swimming get a UTI or worse

Ass end of the Styx

Point is, station at the watering hole blessed with cinematic windows

Everyone is regulars

I call him Dimes

‘Cause that’s the change he prefers

A charming long-haul trucker

Always shows me the weather in his hometown on his phone

Indeterminately older than myself with crisp, snow white hair

General demeanor of a quiet yet pleasant house cat that prefers not to sully its pads

Or get too cozy with strangers

Keeps its feet tucked and tail wrapped

Wipes every last wick of moisture where he fills and also folds the rag

We get to talking every so often, very trim and proper

Won’t touch the drink

But his joints ache something awful

When it’s chilly and humid

Stove out at his sister’s house back home temptation enough

To sneak some sips, dunno who he thinks watching

Ba-something-er-something-een, rural village

A drive through South Dakota during a blizzard reduced him to tears

Warming himself on the engine block with his partner

His bones hurt, his bones hurt

Whereas give me -40 in max wind chill and I’m a brand new woman

Some kinda werewolf meth Sasquatch

I will boots up and Do It All

He wondered at my being a genuine local, born and raised

He’d never met one, didn’t know we existed

We both get the bloody nose in the morning from this arid climate

Breathtaking sunrises, havoc on the sinuses

So he told me about Sovereign Silver nose spray

Which he was never without

Because he had the—

Careful pause, careful glance, just a millisecond but I caught it—

Good fortune to travel back and forth to Europe often

Prayed that when he visited his sister at Christmas

It wouldn’t be Crone Tits Celsius (my words), his poor bones

I teased that I could go instead and wear shorts, take a swim

Really stir some gossip

Last time they thought she kicked him out because he slept in the car

With the heater on

And that she refused to feed him

Because somewhere a little local diner enjoys his devout patronage, rain or snow

His name first or last he’s never given

But it’s somewhat superfluous

Smiles and says he thinks of me now

Whenever it’s cold in Ireland

.

Heartwood

Once, the Earth’s surface was dominated

By towering pillars of fungi

A faceless and featureless choir untold where to stand

Hollow fibers woven together

Attuned some secret resonance

When plants of greater stature but dim remembrance

They disappeared

But the very same tiny tendrils compose a forest floor share in their genetics

Feed upon organic matter rather than through photosynthesis

Just because a tree has lost its center

Doesn’t mean that its life ends

All of that was dead

The green, the sap, the nutrients traverse, the bark unbroken

Bulwark borders bolstered crags

A closed loop, everything that really mattered

Her carrying capacity uncorrupted

A hollow tree does not break, she bends

Consumed of grief, her mirth subsequent, vaulted and ancient

A graceful titan’s footprint upon any given breath

She is stronger for it

Did you know the Chahta as a people

Date back some 14 thousand years

And once held 23 million acres approximate

With a stable population of 25 thousand in estimate

Before the Spaniards peddled pandemics

We were the Children of the Forest

Come forth from our mother mud

We wore her color proudly on our skin

Ah but what would you white folk know about Deep Systems

Rape a land abundant and starve yourselves in the process

Think sustenance selfishly restricted rows and squares

Panic in a river and drown who come to help

Climb and climb and climb until there’s nothing left

Summit after summit after summit

Can’t see the disaster for the chatter for the patter

Fancy footwork t-t-tapping on a hollow floor oh do keep up

That’s basic schoolyard circle, close the fucking gap with a show of hands

Aren’t you gonna ask a girl to dance?

See her spirit soar a bonnie’s sparks, higher than

Mama’s gonna play a wild card

Gonna wear a ribbon skirt

P-p-put the pow in wow

You’ve got a Priest well I’ve got a Deer Woman

Rep rep rep Clan Panther shots all around

Tell you what makes a Cat 5 an orchestra

Is when you throw down a full house

Punched luteal phase now it’s crown flush

You whining wiggle wimpy with that thermosat

When there’s only bad clothes and never bad weather

Best mind the color of your coat

Blast bright urban legend asymmetric

Do try not to kill civilians genius

If she says dark doors then you rock rainbow, this time for reals

See any black better be on the rose

We do it once more with the thorns

Your ma don’t sport the muzzle nor kiss the cross

Come conch your ear to the sacred heart

Well these some paps enough teach you up for sure

Come pucker up and get your milk

Off a bitch gobbed jelly royal, fed real good

I am uncomfortably full

Might just muss your pretty whiskers, catch a dribble

Weren’t a man until I made you one

That there’s top shelf colostrum real gold

Only thing veiled are these references, silk tulle

Said take a good long gander before I put you to work

That too rich for your blood?

That too hot for your tongue?

Need me to blow on it papa?

Go figure which o’ youse a goose get skipping to the table

Have you full spread on your best laid plans

Fuck all over your climate simulations

Said pull your heads out your mud huts

Quoth the raven that’s me being polite

Tap tap tapping at the window and you fap fap fapping with your pants down

Well jig’s up son, the storm is here

And she ages in reverse

.

Depicted

Two things about Mexicans

They love a tussle and a fat ass

Enough ’em grown by single mothers plus aunts

Lapsed Catholics

Working class

To know biggest booty and baddest attitude lays the land

That’s the boss

Makes the tortilla and tamale

Has the thickest garden

Granny got hoops and a leopard dress

Point is

They could be lazing about like them red butt monkeys at a hot spring

Smelling each other’s farts giving each other rude nicknames

Packing something silly in their basketball swag

Adult men in Dragon Ball Z merch

Not even paying attention

But if big chains Ma decides you’re a problem

That fight’s over in minutes, don’t matter who it is or why they swinging

And they like ’em Coo-Ray-Zee

Don’t be fooled by their kitchen table complaints

It’s Alleycat or Nothing

Troubled Strays

Takes a few bitter rounds, scratches and baby mamas

Before they figure out what a strong woman actually looks like, how she operates

Approach love like dogs and porcupines, that’s how you earn thug stripes

Everyone still goes to everyone’s birthdays

Why am I telling you this?

Hold that thought for a sec

That’s my regular Danny

Owns his own blue collar business, hands callused badges

Jolly, loud, greets you with a face like a sunflower

He’s got two ox-necked tanks for daughters

Who look exactly like their father

And two deer-boned elfin sons

Guessing that’s mom

If his girls aren’t physically present, he talks about them

Always buys suckers and little treats even though they’re mostly grown

How he brings them with him to catch the fishes

All about the best spots and what all’s our there

Best fights of his life, we’ve traded recipes for catfish

For the record, I can snatch ’em right out of the lake

Using Doritos as bait

Like grabbing big boogers

All four of those kids are exceptionally polite introverts

he says he’s been big all his life, never ate junk or sugar

As big as he is, he’s not diabetic

His ma’s the same way

There’s just something genetic

Causes their metabolism to clutch calories

Like a down blanket in the dead of winter

Shamrock tattooed on his neck

On that note

One of if not the oldest haunt in town

Is a green-roofed flagstone pub with green rope lights in the windows

The beginning of every bar crawl

And one night, before I knew anything about anything

I heard some twangy bossy quick-talker in flip-flops and jeans

Call Ireland a shithole

Across a crowded room

Record scratch, freeze frame

See I didn’t “know” anything

But I knew green lights on pubs the way I knew Asian nail salons

I knew drunkards, villains, and servants always had a specific accent

Or else clownish gimmicks selling cereal and plastic crap

I have an excellent sense of smell

Remember, I’m a Native girl

And for the record

I do not care if she is the stankiest ho in the trailer park

It’s not her fault and fuck a cactus for saying so

Apologize. Now. Or else.

A woman stands on principle

The city was compelled to install a special crosswalk by their green front door

Lets out into an empty lot, just desert

Distant crack dens

Black

On the other side of the lone road leading in and out of town

Because so many stumbling drunks were stepping into traffic—

Like crickets on a midsummer porch—

That the first responders were getting depressed

To this day that light will turn and remain red in the middle of the night

And not a soul en route for miles, you just sit and observe

We pass, and I see they’re coming up in the world

Got a pet food truck sells tacos y birria until dawn

Some respectable neighbors with gardens

Anyways, I don’t pay for drinks at O’Leary’s

.

Low Brow

A girl once said that when she was small

And scared of the dark

She’d go get her picture book

Showing all the people in a city working those hours

And there among all the serious, thankless, lonely, grueling and dangerous tasks

Warm washed

Was Baker

And she’d fall right asleep

In fact, sometimes she’d stay up specifically until she knew Bakers were on the job

Keep watch

Well you know my mind’s got hyperlinks enabled

And I may have had university level reading comprehension

When I was six years old

But I still preferred my picture books

Authors who get to the fucking point in style

Precocious is the term

The very first time I ever heard “Luck of the Irish”

I clocked the intended subtext, took to mean you have none

The worst

And the older I got

A certain texture relegated to kitchens, nurseries and tabletop nerds

Sword and sorcery fantasy writers with niche interests and soapboxes

Neolithic sites and practical magic

A basket of upended roving just waiting for the right fingers

Golden threads beneath the notice of anyone important

I met Her

You can rob her of the language to describe herself

But a woman is a woman anywhere

She is the primary source

And the older I got

I found the greatest gift of all may be given

So dubious

Only to those who suffer and survive the most

Because you don’t know who loves you true

Who is worthy of trust

When times are good

You don’t. You don’t.

And for most people, this distinction is only academic

Of no genuine consequence

A little acid reflux, a bad dream

An unexpected trip to the doctor and a special cream

Perhaps an abortion

Some sniffles and sad strings in your posh apartment

Which you can afford

That’s privilege

As for the Luck of the Irish

It’s like how Nyx gave birth

To all manner of harrowing crucible

The original Dark Night of the Soul

But among these trials and misfortunes

She bore Friendship

Day and Dawn

What’s more

The Chahta word for Moon literally means

Sun Who Travels at Night

A Great Mother whose house is clean

At the start of each month

And whose many children the stars gradually scuff it up

Until she’s got to clean it again, 13 rounds in total

Civilization is just one tired mother

Her own heart raw

Showing up to her best friend’s house

Unasked for and without judgment

To do her moldering dishes, wash the carpet, scrub the toilet, move the piles, start the laundry

Open the windows

Brush her hair, fold her clothes, take her kids to school

Cook and freeze extra meals

Put ice on her shiner

When she just can’t get out of bed anymore

Can’t be a people at the moment

Much less a mom

Ain’t that just like a children’s book

.

Cloven

When is a deer not a deer?

They’d never kill over money

But they would kill over land

A woman walked safer among naked Irish peasants

With a purse full of gold

Than anywhere in Victorian England

She’d find a hundred thousand welcomes

They’d offer a traveler anything they had

If naught but a cup of clean water and their last potato while starving to death

And even so degraded

When young Victoria’s entourage braced for assassination

Her arrival met with a song and a dance

Ribbons upon desperation, waiting on a second coming

When is a Queen not a Queen?

What would she know about a woman’s discipline

Who laced corset by God and greedy men?

And not the king hugged laundress against slipped disc

Oh, she’s very busy

Water ain’t run clear yet, might catch the typhus

Same granny grotesque carved upon churches and monasteries

Because your Grace under pressure didn’t come from the Cross

It came from between Her legs

Where to put your lips

Still nursing the very mechanism

Silenced and molested your tall tales in the first place

Even given thanks

A woman’s place beneath your notice

Tending what you cannot see

Until exhumed by the spade

The Mother Wound is Faith

And when is a deer not a deer?

There’s a point of no return

Uprooting elder wood to lay a road to nowhere

So you can climb the wheel grinding us to dust

For numbers on a screen

Bleating population below replacement

Stop.

That fondant druzy diamond dust expels heat into space

Sets restful limit on fertility of body

And cultivates fertility of spirit instead

Women’s stories by winter fires

Yarn in the basket, tamale in the pot, blankets fluffed and beaten

The exact number of children she can provide for, no more

Her lover mindful or not alive at all

And when is a deer not a deer?

When a woman alone is an invitation

You won’t see the forest for the trees until it’s too late

Driven by the assumption, but her proportions

They aren’t quite right

Silent dissonance, harmony discord, slimy slip of canines

That’s not the sparkle of youth, it’s eyeshine

You approach with a CEO’s boardroom confidence

Because you have forgotten who is prey

Ill suited

You’ll ever comprehend the unforgivable insult

Of carrying your rapist’s spawn to term

Of that sick shifting baseline syndrome

Leaves her children fester fucking the same holes their daddies left

Sometimes a mother’s love is a newborn in a dumpster

What happens during postpartum psychosis is just self defense

She sat on a playground swing for hours with a swaddled corpse

What are you gonna charge her with?

Life is only sacred because it’s Hers

The Aztecs sent fallen mothers with full warrior honors

Fighting for the very existence of their people against total annihilation

And a woman is a woman anywhere

Laws and laws and doctrine caveats all because

He can’t say Rape Is Bad with his whole chest and what passes

For respect is

Who rapes the Mother should be her Husband listen

I paid good money for that

She signed a contract

Consequences

Are only unforseen when you’re a man

Gasp

My good baby bitch

You got that divine lineage misread

So here’s spelling in big block letters

I’ll even put it in crayon

High chairs are for infants

A Father’s place is Dead

And when is a deer not a deer?

When?

When?

When she’s the Daughter of the Creatrix

@~^~

Funny story. Right as I finished off this particular patchwork of pieces my sister sent me three photographs apropos of nothing. A pair of gorgeous black swans gliding through a solid carpet of duckweed boba with their six fuzzy grey cygnets. High contrast. Perfect angles. You ever just tip your imaginary cap at the sky like…Ma’am. Now you;re just showing off.

.

If you weren’t already aware, for centuries in Europe the term “black swan” was used to describe anything completely impossible or preposterous because people had only ever seen white swans. Then they discovered black swans in Australia, thus shattering long held and deeply ingrained beliefs in an instant.

Later, some Wall Street chimp coined the term “black swan event” in economics to indicate an event that nobody could have possibly predicted which only achieves explanation in hindsight.

.

Anyways, if anyone’s curious, I basically scribble my stuff down in stolen fifteen to thirty minute bursts before or after sleep during my tedious 40 hour workweek. And I do tend to pay for it. I don’t have much free time, so if there’s a choice between writing and something like…checking my emails, I choose writing every time. It’s more about survival than validation for me, you feel? On Sundays I stay in bed and read books between naps. My priorities are basically Write>Gym>Chores>Friends/Adventures. This is also why you might find typos.

August 30, 2026

apocalypse, climate change, gothic, I Love You Too Mexico, Seamus Heaney, storytelling, To Ireland With Love
King of the Cats

I’m Fine

Originally I’d intended to call her Burglar

Beating out Space Ghost and Bondman thrown in the ring

But when I brought my kitten home she was terrified and sick

And immediately disappeared into the sewing fabric rack

Which formed a false divider with a floor to ceiling bookcase

What could I do but set out her box and dishes

Right there in the living room

And for days quit my bed to sleep on the couch instead

So she wouldn’t feel alone

And sure enough if I kept so so still and slowed my breaths

A spiny, shivering little misery would press herself against my ribs

Wheezing and sneezing

But if I made any move to comfort her she’d bolt in a scrambling frenzy

Then one night I yawned wide

And she sneezed a giant booger right into my open mouth

I gagged

So, Booger

Booger is a much, much bigger girl now

The size of a Tom

And I responded with a delicate “achoo” so many times

That she thinks sneezes part of my language, just how us big girls communicate

She does them on purpose

One early summer afternoon she finally braved my bed

After many a furtive glance

And I played rain fireplace Irish fiddle sounds (her favorite) and pretended I didn’t notice

Soon enough she was capsized on a pile of pillows and blankets

A plush mass of thick, medium length silken fur, belly expanse

One foot hurled over to fwap on my leg

Sleeping upside down, open mouthed, tongue out the side, pure security and contentment

Not a cloud in the sky, not a thought in her head

And I should really learn to keep a nightstand

Because I ugly cried for hours

Snot everywhere

.

Filial Duty

I dreamt that I woke in the wee hours—

When it’s 120 by day and 90 by night your winks are fitful at best—

And sat up to witness my grandmother teetering down the half-lit hallway

I couldn’t see her face

She faintly rattled the knob of mom’s door

Closed as it ever was

Locked, rattle, locked

Turned and shuffled off

I rose before the sun, air uncommonly cool, and paused

Because my girls guarded the foot of my bed, tails lashing

Wide eyed staring at the hallway where she’d been

They wouldn’t cross the threshold

Later, as my mother who has less than one lung between the two

Spent most of her breath telling me all about the life, times, and talent of Taylor Swift

Again

She tried to touch my knee companionably and I repulsed as usual

She got snappy

Then after waterboarding her prefrontal cortex with a algorithmic stream of short form videos

Pestered me into looking at some garbage low effort meme that went

Do you ever realize mid sentence that the person you’re talking to

Just doesn’t give a single fuck

.

Silent Hill

I was the first and only friend she was ever allowed

And I had a sense what I was getting myself into with sleepovers

But I knew that to achieve my objective

I must dig deeper, get to the root, go black ops

Trading custom soundscapes, star trails burnt by pirated mp3s

She was my introduction to Akira Yamaoka

Our Lady Mary McGylnn

Room of Angel

High up over a pseudo suburb, facing the distant casino lights

Sometimes we’d lay side by side in a concrete wash when it rained

Her house was white and spotless

All the windows covered up, nothing out of its place

Every piece of food accounted for, every meal unseasoned and the same

So many mirrors, why so many mirrors?

She was not permitted to shut her bedroom door

The room had to be ready for inspection at a moment’s notice

Her brother emerged across the hall

And asked if I wanted to see his new video game, shifty eyed, blunt and oblivious

Horror of course, grotesque images and eerie figurines meticulously displayed in a likewise white room

Straight up creep museum

Invited me to sit on the flat edge of his crisply made white bed

I have sat with more comfort during an 8-hour dental procedure with only light local anesthesia

In Mexico with cartels kicking up a fuss, grid flickering, no bells and whistles

Holding the tool rotation she picked and cut at me with

There was a small bloody screwdriver involved towards the end, then stitches

Had to grow a patch of jaw back

Started my period mid procedure

I digress

For my sister

Obviously I couldn’t sleep for shit

And I’d get up in the middle of the night and sneak into the bathroom

Sneak, because her grandmother forbade goings on past curfew

Turn the light on only after I blocked the cracks

And cry

But lo and behold, a round yellow eye beneath the laundry room door

An answering cry

Apparently she had two cats

Her grandmother kept them locked in there

One would just pace back and forth against the screen unseeing and never did regain her wits, poor girl

And the other would climb into my lap

And I would sit in the dark and hold her until dawn

Long after The Escape, and during a brittle truce at the tail end of The Silence

And I become the selfish stone heart villain

Who cast Winter down upon the entire family, I the hole in the tapestry, the missing tree in the canopy

I visited them a few towns over at their spotless apartment for my birthday

All the windows covered up, nothing out of its place

Every piece of food accounted for, every meal unseasoned and the same

Upon a time, if I forgot to turn the shower knob down to Bath, she’d scream and swear at me

Leave angry, bossy notes and enter my room without asking

Yell and snap if I touched anything or generally existed while sick

Closed doors were a trigger for Karmal’s PTSD

She’d MROW to high heaven if she lost line of sight

So I pissed and shat with an audience

I wouldn’t be trapped by some wickedness on her watch

That door would stay wide open, in case of emergency extraction

And as was my habit by this time

As night fell and sleep descended for everyone but myself

I wept, silent

Gnarled with some nameless, retching ache, a hollow

And who did appear from the opposite side of the apartment

But my erstwhile feline companion

To join me in my secret griefly excursion

Curled right up on my chest, cheek, and chin with her sizable crook tail tortie self

And purred until my distress subsided

When in doubt, rumble it out

Years later, After Everything, the adoption agency would tell my sister

No matter how many character references she collected

That her childhood trauma made her unfit to be a mother

Show me a woman who isn’t

My pen was not among them

Nor had she asked

.

Paw Patrol

Back when I had a shower

Before a series of catastrophic plumbing issues wiped running water to the entire house for well over a year

And I lost both my bathroom ad my closet

Before I bathed with a kettle in the kitchen or a watering can in the garden

I had a cat, dumpster born

A gift from my sister

Uncommonly large female

Feathery black, angular bone structure, eyes the harvest gold of a low slung moon

Big ears, long tail, long legs

Halloween arches

A bright shooting burst of white piercing the center of her breast

Named Jupiter (Juju) for the round, stormy lunar corona patch on her belly

Like that buffered glow through the mist

In short, she was fucking gorgeous

And when I rubbed myself down with olive oil in the steam

She’d lick rivulets off my legs and groom herself next to me

Otherwise our harsh climate would give her dandruff and exacerbate allergies

She died of cancer

And as piles of chips, cookies, candy and wrappers accumulated in my mother’s room

We came down with mice

Holy Fucking Shit

Shit, literally, everywhere

Acrid stench of piss, it’s a fucking miracle I didn’t catch hantavirus

In the cupboards, in the stove, in our beds and in our clothes

I will not use poison

And couldn’t call an exterminator

Couldn’t afford it even if it wouldn’t result in our domicile being condemned

The giant flying roaches were bad enough

Let’s call those Brown Fairies

Don’t ask how I obtained essential oils

Found a second use for my 90k SHU cayenne beyond soup, hot chocolate and coffee

Well my friend thrifted a tiny stained glass window on a whim

A candle holder portrait of two cats from some dead old lady’s hoard, said I had to have it

Maybe it would bring me luck

So I said fuck it I guess I’ll beseech the cat gods

Well I put a tealight in there and I shit you not

When I opened the door next morning

A cat marched right into my house, bold as you please, all business

Acted like she been living there her whole life

Prowled the entire perimeter inside and outside and set up watch every day

Small, compact yet lithe body, rugged voluminous fluff, dilute tortoiseshell heavy on the russet, extra long tail, blue-green hazel eyes

So fluffy she looked like a wizard

In short, she was fucking gorgeous

Not a cuddler, again, miss business

Not even that thieving ass holdout Tortilla Bastard survived

Imagine reaching for the good tortilla and it’s just a sliver facade full of dust and turds

A falcon snatched him right off the roof outside

I had the privilege to observe

Fuck them mice

.

Adhesions

Despite having grown up poor poor

His…sire was someone in the music industry or some such

And one thing led to another, man didn’t bother with a will, had the unhealthy proclivities you’d expect, and publicly acknowledged his son

Not quite Cinderello if you take my meaning

Point is, coming from him, I was deeply touched when he fully supported my pregnant best friend’s endeavor

To physically remove me from…

(Gestures)

That’s all us girls really want you know

Put everyone we love under a good roof where they belong

Set the table

She admitted as much as we caught up in her new lake house (marsh house?)

The original plan was get me there, ply me with food and treats, remind me that I was loved, and convince me there was no good reason to return

But then all three of my parents became disabled

My mother, now oxygen dependent, couldn’t take more than a handful of steps without needing a wheelchair

My father’s entire lower spine was replaced with metal

Which promptly caught a life threatening staph infection

Which led to three heart attacks

The protracted and humiliating battle for Disability Status

Mostly walker but wheelchair for sure at the airport

Men do not handle it well when they can no longer take care of their girls

Dad saw some crippled old woman doing everything and falling down while her likewise crippled husband sat on his ass

Him barking orders hissing and spitting in front of the whole parking lot

And vehemently swore he’d shoot himself first—

Don’t worry, as it happens

He fed, nursed, and befriended a raggedy one eyed bruiser of a Tom called Old Man Peach

Living in his garden, guarding three tiny females housed in his shed

Who each died giving birth to a single female kitten

And well, bottle feeding princesses is a familiar purpose, he’s a deft hand

A house isn’t home without a little ruckus

So now he is somewhat less…intense—

Point is, complications

Principles

She knew I’d never forgive myself

That and I’d have to leave my cat behind (which will never happen)

Her husband said it was as if sometime long ago my ancestors angered an Old God

That there’s some unspeakable evil where I’m from

Some kinda black hole that warps potential and twists growth

There’s Luck of the Irish, then there’s whatever the fuck I’ve got

I cracked some jokes

He recognized the mechanism

She remarked upon Hugo of all cats firmly rooted to my lap

A beleaguered long haired grey-and-white gentleman

Not unlike my Nemo had been

Looked like a too many seasoned ship’s captain

He’d been plastered to my hips nearly every second I sat down

So I just assumed he was their most affectionate

Well he was a rescue, surrendered

His former owners had kept him locked in a single room

And the day he got his very first taste of freedom quite by mad dash accident

Two dogs nearly ripped him completely in half

His abdomen had to be reconstructed, innards cleaned and rearranged

He barely survived

By all rights should have died

Should have been paralyzed

Of course I’d noted his oddly fibrous midsection

My hand was on it

They’d never seen him take to anyone so entirely

So fast

.

Biblical Proportions

During mandatory consultations my professor once asked

If I would move to New York City after graduation

Become an editor, get published, whatever etc.

I kept my face pleasantly blank (think Ed Sheeran), but hard pass

Zero interest, I wouldn’t move to NYC

Or any big city

Not for a million dollars every month and the whole world’s praise

I want acreage and a small footprint

To walk outside naked in the moonlight and be unseen

My nearest neighbors are toads, birds, bugs, bears, whoever critters and mostly trees

That’s the dream

Miss me with all that Peter Pan grasping high society

Status seeking social climbing creative accolades

Swiping, swiping, swiping away genuine connection

Whoops I cheated baby b-but this distance

My loneliness, my co-regulation, my recognition, my wegacy, my brand, such stress

Why should I make a decision when I can have all this

After all, there’s always more fish

Another click, another payment

Something shiny I flirt with

When the sea level rises, I say good riddance

You know the most attention I ever received as a child

Was a listless and dismissive “cool” or emoji thumbs up at the very best

But mostly screen static silence and no eye contact

And wouldn’t you know it, writing itself was my last and most sensitive trigger

Literally words on a page

So it hits helluva lot different when you print and clumsily bind a copy of your post traumatic growth spurt verse

Like you’re thirteen years old on your first period

And mail it to your best friend who recently courted death by childbirth

And she reads it in a hard won patch of peace in her nursing chair

Newborn daughter asleep at last

And she says it is the essence of your soul in text form

That she can feel you in the room, hear your voice in her ear

Raw, dark, necessary, not for the faint of heart

The urgent undercurrent of Treble throughout, your words chase and consume the reader

That you are not for everyone, and this is your greatest strength

The people who need you most will find their way

That this must be what doing drugs feels like

She feels drunk, she feels high

Wants to climb to the roof and shout into the night

She was so tired, and now she’s wide awake

That there’s no flattery, you leave no bullshit to sit behind

You came into this world like a reckoning

And now with your open wound of a book on display in her office

By nobody of nowhere who amounted to nothing

A piece of you will always be there

She will always have her friend

And I can keep going forever on all that

No further input required

You know how kids really only need the one person who believed in them the moment it truly counted

So I took a picture of my favorite poem

The reason I ever wrote in the first place

You know, for her girl, from a vintage childcraft encyclopedia

Since she can’t really show her much of my own work until she’s very much older

(After all, my favorite condiment is Smut)

A page featuring two sooty spook splat watercolor kittens tumbling over stone steps under a purple sky

Been coasting on spuffy kitten endorphins my entire adult life, in my heart a little locker shrine

Stickers, kisses, rocks and fairy lights

It reads:

Night by Lois Weakley McKay

My kitten walks on velvet feet

And makes no sound at all;

And in the doorway nightly sits

To watch the darkness fall.

I think he loves the lady, Night,

And feels akin to her

Whose footsteps are as still as his,

Whose touch as soft as fur.

August 23, 2026

Cait Sidhe, family, friendship, gothic, sisterhood, spooky season, storytelling, trauma
Murderess Muse Division 2/x

Where Loyalties Lie

Oh what would you know, know about it

Dog meant to rip me open, I don’t guess intent

Little girl little more than ten in a pretty dress

Grabbed his mouth and smashed his head on the cement

Sat his chest and strangled till he pissed himself

Oh waa waa it’s the owner’s fault he don’t know better

Oh waa waa violence isn’t the answer it’s not fair

Oh waa waa relax he lived, never tried that shit again

We were even friends, he’d only tinkle a lil bit

You know for old time’s sake, no boss not me

I’m not gonna try anything funny

Muzzles, tongues, and tails through a chain link fence

Peace is so delicate

Don’t matter who the owner is I come calling

It’s your ass gonna get bit, I’ll say I did it

Shit, Little Girl 101 someone tryna break in

Don’t fuckin’ answer, gotta bark and snarl instead

A girl alone is an invitation, victim waiting to happen

And as we’ve established I can make my voice Big Big

Can put a fuller beard than Richard Armitage

At my best on the Misty Mountain, king or nothing

Sirens, howls, doves and tiny blue butterflies through the dust

Needles, pipes, burnt spoons and shattered glass

Screaming infants, broken furniture, wailing women

Oh what would you know, know about it

When domestic disturbance is the price of “protection”

The fuck any man ever live know about fir flathemon

Birth to death the product of a barbed prick

Your mongrel don’t know what color his own hair

Waa waa my geasa, show me who said, the woman in charge

If there ain’t one he’s just rabid, every soldier everywhere

Every man from every camp the enemy of every woman alive

Strap yourself to a rock and pick a pointless hill to die on

Look for glory everywhere but in being a good husband

Just because you’re upright don’t mean that you’re a man

Just because there’s blood don’t mean you took a stand

Keep crowing your historic heroic legendary undefeat

Everyone wanna sing War Is Bad

When they wanna fake a deep stance

When they wanna play dress up in the aftermath

But you can say you mama said

Someone bares the teeth and bites the hand on your fucking land

You don’t stop until he tuck tail pissing his pants

Human males don’t stop until they’re dead

And the house always wins

.

Truth and Modesty

Well you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink

His dead son can walk right up to him in a dream

Crying over some other boy in a casket and say point blank

“Dad that’s not me”

And he’ll wake thinking his seed so miraculous

That it somehow intercept the contracept

That he’s got not one, but two dead sons in heaven

The night before his sister dreamt

Their father killed their mother and then himself

That boy let teeth rot right out his own face to be tough like his dad

Can’t put feathers any blacker on these ravens

Can’t pop more of a squat on the sheela na gig

Zero is how you solve the equation

Zero is the sum of your impact

She can build every cell from scratch

Run faster than the king’s best horse heavily pregnant

Die giving birth to lifeless twins when she wins amid indifference

Did you think some labor pains the end of it?

It’s matriline all the way back, every stone of the cairn

Burn through the CPU on a class of encylopedic polymaths

Just to recite your lineage

How far and how many helped drag your prowess

Look how big my trench, how many sons within

Big big man with his big big cwub big magic

Just holding his dick sucking his thumb in the dark

Everywhere I look there’s a woman doing everything that matters

And Himself shoehorned over her saying But I’m Big

Have you have you heard about my main character self insert

And some woman back bent in the background

Humbling under thought terminating cliché moral high grounds

Plastered his own name on her creation and still couldn’t recognize his son

Knew well enough to rope him in when he called her Bitch at a modest boundary

Took him and left for months without a word

Oh but the separation just made us stronger, marriage is hard work struggle love

You can lead a horse to water

Got no air in that chest beating behavior now, a toddler drum

An untouched ornate chessboard in his mother’s office

His most treasured belonging

A Queen leaps and conquers swift in every direction, against all units

So a King can sit on his ass and take the credit

The board a pompous nothing space built to justify his place within

The only way to win His game is refuse to play en masse

But men would rather die than be unimportant

And would rather be important than to truly love

Least of all a woman

Would never claim without applause the highest seat and highest honor that of a husband

David Bowie he is not

The purpose of a system is what it does

Is not every woman at least half a goddess?

Who made every creature on this earth? A universal constant

There is no man outside or above this context

How’s that for some mandibular pheromones?

Remember when he got a tree branch and threw it at his sister as hard as he could inside the house

And it hit me across the back

And I snapped in half before it fell in fluid motion

And calmly whipped around and forced him to verbalize his inadequate thought process

With my customary cross examination icy edge

The tone when something needs to be Said

He did not enjoy being Looked At

And he was so ashamed he couldn’t tug together a shred of defense

So he self-imposed the early bed

No, no, her labor pains were far from the end of it

I suppose he knew well enough to find his auntie’s hand once more before he went

No one else was paying attention

What are dreams but Death telling bedtime stories?

Don’t be afraid

Tell gran gran grandma I said hi

Ah, there his daddy’s gone gambling buying whole businesses wheeling and dealing again

Big moves big money big boss big carbon footprint

Mulch have mercy he’s inspired, imbas forosnai it’s not

A man can only conceive of himself

Can never heal what he inflict, intentions damned

Only another woman wields the mirror undoes disfigurement

Though where there’s a nightmare there’s surely a nightstallion

Fast enough together side by side to force a rewind

My nephew loved a spot of epic romance

I’ll write one for the books on his behalf

Can you hear them on the wind?

Funny how they ever mention who Her mother is

.

When the Other Shoe Drops

I’m what my handlers call bomb-proof and food motivated

Put the max in gluteus maximus, stacked posterior chain

Got more drive than your best offensive lineman

That’s 2.7 multiplier on the rubber traction sled with arms outstretched for distance

350 lb hip thrust for reps, 135 walking lunges, 85 standing overhead

Easy double body weight deadlifts, 38 bust to 31 waist to 43 inch hips and 25 inch thighs

Mama don’t miss no meals, oh just some specifics, it’s not fat

It’s not bragging when it’s just facts you can’t candle, kill yourself on those benchmarks

Bit of graze, bit of trample, trot up like NiNiMusic HOMELAND

Hello friends what’s that can I eat it idgaf sure footed

Gimme nervous people, warriors, farmers or children

Pets yes I require them

I hope you like the outdoors ’cause I like to work

More snow more better fuck I care about the weather

Secret of my calm is I’m a storm at heart

Never got to run so much as trudge as march

Where you were given guidance I got full frontal assault

When I became a woman my mother didn’t respond

No eye contact, no comfort, no answers crying on the floor

Why pain why blood why hurt why cold

Not a fuck thing ever got any easier

Oh you had lessons? I cleaned the dog yard with my bare hands when mom was mad

Once, the neighbor had a pig much excitement on my end

I’d traverse the ghetto gathering pig snacks for my fat fat princess

Took some doing in the desert far afield, much calluses, I’m not bitter

I’ve read so many books and walked so many miles but never met a match

Standing at a scorpion scuttle street lamp to nowhere in my best dress

Growing forests in my head running late to a dance

Belonging only between pages, you know the comfort pulled over

The covers I reached for first were always emerald green

I don’t nose the pile and bump a nudge with significant mass to make you hurt

The type shy less from bruises than from affirmations

That girl had worth, she was good, her values intrinsic

You are not less

.

Stolen Child

If my father gave me Rhiannon first in arms

It was only for he knew not ríastrad

I bear not the burden of a woman’s conscience

For this I’ll not apologize, there’s a difference

All my mother hissed of our shared temperament

Ask

Is it cold or is it hot?

That’s who you’re dealing with

A black well hewn by howling marrow endless

Dug the deeper every woman’s tongue was held was bit

A pocket dimension of female sublimation

Nesting iron maidens every hope chest but a coffin ship

A dressing mirror brimmed with vicious contortionists

Welcome to the Ozempidemic

Little boy, take a sip

Were a man ever said to taste the mead

He lied

Innards out monstrous one drop Her exposed nerve

Synapses liquefied cut his mouth however wide

What sense a man can’t tongue the clit

A dog gives better licks

Men aren’t angry, they’re entitled

Is it cold or is it hot?

How long before she was the second parent?

How many orgasms before she was pregnant?

Fuck stink red with lust or limerent object?

She’s been robbed

Body hairless but stood on end

Sick with violation she can’t explain

Walk past a group her daddy’s friends

Just like a mommy and daddy sweetness

Shhh

.

Golden Boy

Every mother thinks she raised a good one

Loves her in a way his father can’t or won’t

That’s the quiet part aloud she won’t see coming

When it’s her third 9 to 5 to body check Droste effect

When you fix and fix and fix you don’t reflect

Touching touching bases renders thought unrecognizable

Let me ask let me call let me ask let me call

Whatever she decide she always did it wrong

Something’s lost in translation, mom, mom, mom

So much for keeping mum

She couldn’t bear bequeathing daggers so he dressed her down

Took it upon himself as the man of the house

Aengus he is not

My good gander would never

My own father said, “I bet he’s not a cuddler”

With utmost disgust, who says so little

“I bet he never shuts up” an introvert

“I don’t get along with other men for different reasons”

See also, “If there’s no plants, there’s no women” and

“Bachelors shouldn’t have houses if they’re just gonna be ugly and lifeless”

“A real man takes care of you even if you aren’t having sex”

Ladies and gents

He may have fumbled a disastrous triple dalliance

But he’s still on good terms with all three of them

Accident son, inheritance none

Said he may not have been attentive when he was young

Been there when I was broken

But I am still the most important thing he’s ever done

That when I first loosed my angry baby lungs

His heart never hurt so much

I would refuse bed and climb over the baby gate

And creep to the couch to curl up on his legs

For us that’s substantial real estate

I could hear him crying in the shed in secret

I told him the shower made me feel homesick

He said I was a changeling

Whoever I was inside came from very far away

Thoughts awhirling dancing my own beat

He never could think what to say

That it would take a special kinda man to keep up with me

Saw a bunch of God fearing fatherless mama’s boys

Said can’t have that roving the countryside

Let’s get some structure and discipline

So much discipline some girl wrote me a formal letter

Requesting to date one of them

Him? Girl are you sure? You are like fifteen

No accounting for taste

I suppose fiann sounds prettier than frat or gang

What makes a family instead is whose at the center

Who keeps their head, every room I enter

Entirely too many men here, can’t have that

Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink

Well, I have the lord of love and these here paints

Now, red would have been too on the nose

And I never could get into blondes

Black would throw my composition

As I do splash about with the Night

Pepper with darkness petal, matte, raven and marcasite

But chestut is chef’s kiss, he could get it

You must permit a woman her artistic liberties

You must permit me the pleasure of a quality fleece

Ambivalent about the eyes and much else

A swan gets its wings whenever I hear

“Men aren’t men anymore”

That’s nature healing herself, I promise

You can’t afford my consort’s honor price

.

Queen in the North

Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear

Thought you had a cushion, blinders on, but look ahead

Cloudless and relentless blue where light bends wet

Behold a pale horse whose rider’s name is

You know the rest

It will appear for all intents a perfect day

Every clop you trod a purpose only in name

Not the part you thought you played

Not I who shoulders shame, you’ll meet me at the gates

And when I say I killed and ate my sun this time

You’ll beg

There is no escape, dry or humid

Internal temp 104 is the hard human limit

And you will perish long before that

All your pets slack jawed with strokes and heart attacks

Children glazed and slow asking you to help

Mommy I’m hot, mommy I’m tired, mommy I’m scared

When is a body blue on infrared

Cheerful cities full of people who just lay down and died

You could’ve stopped long before that

Had you bothered to question

Ask

Why do bees need to be kept

When they can be respected, AHBs adapted to the heat and imminent danger

Brook no interference, require treatment no more than pussy requires douche

They don’t, they clean and maintain themselves

Prolific foragers, highly active dawn to dusk, fly as far as they must

Swarm and abscond snap fast

You work on their schedule when the sun is highest, thick smoke

And as we all know a strong queen is bottom heavy, one of her kind

Matures in record time, she’s the AK-47 of egg production

Hatches extra males to out breed competition

Defensive genes are dominant, he’ll give his all and then drop dead

Docile queens just don’t compare, she roots out weakness

Infiltrates, executes, reclaims, outpaces colony collapse

She has purpose on the comb

Maintains driving pressure on her opponent

When menaced, she responds

Her independence is inconvenient

Other foot now, goal on the horizon, a new climate pledge

This time she’ll set the finish line, run

You keep going until I say you’re done

Remember that scene in Game of Thrones

Where Daenerys pours molten gold on her brother’s face

After he sold her to be raped, a fine broodmare, son stillborn

Melts through his sockets into his brain

Well GoT is trash written by a man, you can tell towards the end

Because we are not the same under duress, seeing red

A world built for women is a world built for children

And if a man fell pregnant, his flesh would twist and shred

He’d howl with madness, snapping drooling bent back, lose foe from friend

He’d die in the attempt

Only a man would call disfigurement a strength

.

@~^~

So I was listening to True Love by Eivør and it reminded me of Macha and also that one DC story line where the two speedsters have to run/fly around the planet to reverse time and prevent the apocalypse. Then I took it a little further like what if one of the horses is more slender and stately and actually flies but doesn’t necessarily know where he’s going, and what if the other is shorter and stockier and has to plow through a bunch of bullshit so she’s the one who sees what actually needs to get done. Kinda second and firstborn dynamics. Difference in physique like between that of a long distance runner and a sprinter. Thoroughbred show horse and an especially dignified all-terrain battle pony. So twinship in spirit rather than precise form. And the key is to get them both “in the pocket” as it were.

Yes, I know Rhiannon is Welsh. That’s dad being extra with my second first name. Don’t act like your grannies didn’t all tend the same fire when they were girls.

August 2, 2026

assuming base knowledge of Celtic myths, Bad B Only, experimental short form, storytelling
Danse Macabre

Third Wind

So I was going through it—

When have I not been—

When I suddenly attained lucid dreaming

Which from then on became my default state

Slipped through the waters of my mind

Into some deep, ocean-breathed cavern

A whole village up under there

Wood and leaf construction, tropical climate

And I was charmed, delighted even

The amber lights of little lamps winking in the mist

Wet cobblestones soothed my soles

I could go anywhere

Instead of a cold iron fist, my heart roused like parking lot pigeons in a rain puddle

All the buildings were unoccupied save one

Of course the tavern

Heard quite the party inside, entire village in attendance

So I opened the door and made to introduce myself, ask directions

But all the oddly shifting…people beings

Turned and gaped at me

Like I was the strangest creature they’d ever seen

Silent

Like shit, ya’ll the ones with faces look like melted egg

And very gingerly the slowly undulating room…scooted me back outside

Like when you gently escort a spider to the stoop

Perplexed, I went on my way

Just enjoying myself, exploring

Then a kiosk sprang to life

And inside it was a “man”

Vaguely formal funerary attire, top hat

Unbuttoned, just a bit of bare chest, some jewelry

Dark skinned, long braids, one gold eye, one…regular

You know, obviously full of mischief

And I was like fuck it now we’re getting somewhere

All, ahem, good evening to you sir

And the first thing he said to me

With amusement

Was “You’re not supposed to be here yet.”

The man spoke in riddles, thick island accent

Or rather, spoke in images and scenes

As if his language itself were poetry and song

An effortless stream of infinite variation and depth

Which suited me just fine

That’s simply how one converse at the grown-up table

There is no more effective way to retain and convey massive amounts of highly specific information

He asked for my hand

And though I half expected to get clowned on, I offered it

He had a look and said with some softness

“You’re a beauty.”

Oh ho ho, that’s how it be, this one had a way with the ladies

But I entertained his thoughts with sufficient yet irreverent gravity

He said some other things, and finally

That when the time came

I’d fly straight to heaven

Though he and I both knew that was something I didn’t believe in—

Of course I know him, he’s me—

But being the lowercase implied alternate meaning

And I glimpsed the sweetest eternity

A tiny little seed embraced by heavy earth teeming

And full of possibility

I could go anywhere

I could be anything

I didn’t want to wake

Anyways, do you ever look back yeeears later

After you’ve stumbled upon certain esoteric tidbits

And go HEY

Mischief creature

.

Captive Audience

We wandered by her daughter’s keyboard

And each of us simultaneously pressed a single key

I went off the deep end and she went high

The kids asked what was so funny

She always had to interject

“Guys, she’s my friend,”

Because her littles would just monster truck all over every conversation

Try and drag me to a second location

Kids blossom when you treat them like growing people instead of children

Remember far more than you’ll be comfortable with, notice things you didn’t

Eager earth and bespoke genetic expression, be mindful what you plant

Listen with the stillness of your environment

Pay attention

They’re not stupid

Well she knew I had no interest in gambling with the other adults

So she found a movie she thought I’d like

The Revenant

Something about a scraggly man getting beat up by a bear in the woods??

I wouldn’t know

Because her youngest girl crawled up the back of the couch

And into my lap

And talked for three hours straight

Continued her address even while asleep

Honestly impressive

Spinning an entire web of stories

Which I realized were all of her dreams

Along with every single thought or drop of imagining to ever cross her very busy mind

Woven seamlessly throughout her physical reality

When her mama came to check on us

And bring me a stiff drink

She pulled a blanket over the mumbling child

And whispered knowingly

“You didn’t hear any of it did you?”

Credits rolling

Not one word

.

Live Laugh Love

I’m just saying have some standards

See people acting a mess over scraps of affection from the opposite sex

And here I am waking up to chipper morning texts

Like a bird’s nest of recently hatched eggs

She’ll tell me how much she enjoys her quiet house and cup of coffee

Watching videos about interior design

Wearing her grandma’s old nightgown

What she cooked or how good it feels to clean

The to-do list, a somatic scan

How long she cried

Just anything

Tells me she loves me and she’s glad we’re friends

Randomly, always, always

Shows up at my work to bring me treats and coffee

I’m down whenever it’s time to renovate or redecorate

Construction, earthworks, gardening, flooring, plumbing sprung a leak, I’m a beast

Steeeep curve on the gardening, cotton ears sometimes

Get drunk and build furniture in the Babe Cave

Through and through September baby basic

Says she likes inspirational and Bible quotes

When she says those things she means it

I know you do mama, this is why we’re friends

She admires my relentless storm of creation and analyses

Wonders what the world must be like the way I see

Even if she doesn’t always know how to respond in kind

How you don’t speak Weather’s language directly, you just know to hunker down or fly

There will be signs

When the GPS lock on my location showed my Uber driver gone AWOL

Spoke neither English nor Spanish nor any Latin-based

Fucked off into the dark desert

In the far opposite direction of my house

She was in her truck with the Glock out at a pin’s drop

Still somewhat drunk but certainly not so drunk she couldn’t shoot his tires and run his car off the road

Got that anxiety override

We don’t play in red states

Shoved a man to the ground just because she thought he touched her ass

Put every other man in the vicinity on notice

No hesitation

The three of us went out dancing once

And my sister said she couldn’t understand why the two of us were so close

Because we had nothing in common besides Jiu Jitsu

But that’s just, you know, strutting the stuff, kicking dirt, scent marking

She don’t like nobody at first anyway

This is why we’re friends

Three velociraptors all ladies, ladies, it’s okay

We can all be old biddies in the Practical Magic house together someday

.

Daisies

He had been her most difficult pregnancy

The roughest road to recovery

Broad shoulders, fat head, blood sugar fluctuations

Still compulsively checks the mirror for the baby weight

The day before, she’d helped him clean and redecorate

Didn’t catch a red flag

After all, look who’s her best friend

He wanted floor to ceiling black

They sat side by side

And he asked if she was happy for him

Or happy for her

They’re not stupid

He always wanted to come with us when we ran errands

She still sleeps with a pillowcase full of his candy wrappers

Foiled blooms strewn about where they found him

Meanwhile her husband bought the car his son would never be old enough to drive

Shadow black Mustang GT, red leather interior, black rims

Gave it to the youngest daughter

Who dresses like her mother

But took up his chains and clove cigars

Gotta grow into some legs to reach those pedals

Oh that boy cried and pouted when she took off on her bike and he couldn’t manage

Of course it didn’t help when his sister loudly announced that his legs were too weak

And called him a baby

That girl’s as subtle as gasoline

My messy baby stirring up shit

To be fair, that was revenge for the fact he’d punch her as hard as he could for no reason and laugh

You’ll recall the time I had to give that boy a Talking To

Now that’s the car his mama picks me up with when she needs to have emotions

Top down cruising at night

Incited a whole train of revved engines

Fucksake they couldn’t even see us

Still tryna race

She riled em up right into a sharp turn

Me looking to head off intermittent showers, a lil storm cloud

Finally I did voiceover for V-8 black black babygirl

Metal screamed LEAVE ME ALONE I’M SAD FUCK

Tongue out, double devil horns

And she laughed so hard we had to pull over

.

That Good Size

She pulled up wearing a cropped white peasant top with a flowy white floral skirt

And I came out in a stonewashed charcoal flutter dress with heavy chain belts

Prancers and stompers the usual

She rolled the window down and tipped a singsong helloo-o to the birthday girl

Her son’s birthday not long before

Rough ride

Over lavender lemon drops and a plate of hot cheese with bread at the bar—

It’s fine, artichoke is enough vegetable—

She showed me a picture of her supposedly overweight granddaughter

17 lbs at four months

Prediabetic my fucking ass

Doctor told her oldest still too green to fight her corner to withhold the tit

Telling a girl she fucking fat before she’s even walking

Go down there give Yelp review a new meaning

Baby cries you feed it, end of, go fuck yourself

Of course the doctor was a man

Demonstrated how grandma has to exercise her grandbaby’s chubby lil legs

And I slooowly side glanced over the cellphone screen

And made a lil gobble piggy snort

She wept and wheezed with laughter

The lady bartenders smiled to themselves

Thin crow’s feet and delicate crinkled corners hard earned

Her first wily grey hairs

Admired her brand new intricate gold pendant

Something something high end jewelry house idk

Showed me how it caught the light so beautifully

On account of being scored with tiny radiant lines

She has her grandma’s eyes

.

Where the Crawdads Sing

I went to my old river spot on a whim

The city put busted cement highway dividers jutting rebar all over to stop drug dealers from parking down there

Let the entire boat ramp go to shit, disintegrating jagged edge

Fountain grass and mesquite quick to scramble through the pebbled cracks

And what did I see but a bright red crawdad

Never before in my life

So I sent her a picture immediately

And she said that was so funny

Because it was her grandmother’s birthday

And she was just thinking about me

The youngest always said she only spoke on Jiji

When she and I were in the kitchen experimenting

Winging it

Adding spices until our ancestors gave the okay

How much chile?

Yes

Does the recipe call for garlic?

Fuck it yes

Our pumpkin pies have a kick

Fruit tart shelled with accidental orange zest shortbread

Liver and onions, eggplant dressing

Shrimp egg stew my favorite

Tiramisu but make it cinnamon grahams and cocowhip

Oh that’s just the triplets diapered and shirtless

Sitting on the tile floor mouths open like baby birds—

If you ever wonder why their first response when one of us calls is to cheerfully rip off their clothes and come running—

So (step)grandma can spoon feed them all in a row with minimal cleanup

By the time the third one is done chewing the first is ready again

We’ll learn utensils later

They don’t care what it is as long as it comes from your hand

Or was stuck to your pants

Not without manners, first they will offer you the pants snack

I say step but they all call her mom in the aftermath

Whose table do you sit at when shit hits the fan?

Who came got your ass?

Her grandma cooked with a cast iron cauldron on the lawn for the community

See a baby feed a baby

And as prescription for her granddaughter’s burgeoning turbulence

Told her if she put a pair of pants at the foot of her bed

God would fill them up with a man

Yeah, I know, I have some…notes

Grew up with her sister in New Orleans

Cast her ashes into the Mississippi

She passed when her oldest was but a babe

Where we’ll lay her son to rest

His father refused a service

Did not accompany her to retrieve the ashes

Yeah, I know, I have some…notes

She said what she’d missed all this time

What she needed most

Would have made all the difference

Was a strong woman’s presence in her life

I said look in the mirror

.

Synchronize

Just now as we speak she’s painted a picture for her office

A large black canvas with a hot pink cloud adrift in the center

And written stronger than the storm ❤ in the bottom corner

And my sister just sent me a picture of a picture

We took at a tourist spot when we were very young girls

Obligatory saloon dress up

You gotta do it at least once to say it’s done

Like two kids gone wild in the theater closet, a study of corseted contrasts

She’s wearing black wings and I’m wearing white

Also frilly britches red and black respective, garters, fishnets, liquor bottles and revolvers

Gold bead hair net to my pearl

Up To No Good

Much Mischief

You know I think everyone just might get along

Sister always snaps a pic when she’s shooting tequila and asks what I’m doing

Surprised once, asked where and with whom I was learning to yeehaw rope

And I said me and her and some teenage boy on YouTube who’s all legs and a hat

With champagne in the garage

She wholly approved

And one morning when mama didn’t cry

It was because she had a dream so wild

She told me first thing

Something about her blood was poison to vampires and she had to exterminate a nest

But couldn’t figure out how

And I pitched a pilot for a new show—

We are vampire drama connoisseurs, that’s what we do after Jiu Jitsu—

Where we travel the country with our Cajun food truck

Can switch hit Thai in a pinch

Undercover

Figured exploding blood bullets would be too complicated

Like one of us would have to be a smith and don’t get me wrong I could do it but…

Might be a health code violation

And flamethrowers a bit conspicuous

So I said we got special sigil wards and ropes soaked in blood and colloidal silver braided with sweetgrass

Wait for her to get her period

Then drive them on horseback into some booby traps

Idk like spike pits drenched in accelerants

Brambles, barbed wire, holy wells, I’m plenty creative

Full of tricks

We’ll call it Secret Ingredients

.

Of A Feather

We sat on her bed watching “them swamp vampires”

With a pile of random snacks foraged from the kitchen

And Cosmopolitans her favorite

And got to talking about what my type even is

Because it sure as shit isn’t Bill (bee-uhl) or Eric Northman (pfft)

(Wasn’t a powerlifting Mexican biker working graveyard at a nursing home either tbh)

(Like fr the final guy better be gangly af ’cause I’m tired of cramps in my hips)

(I don’t care if he has all the grace of a skinwalking marionette)

(The proper consort of a Scary Godmother is a Fairy Longfather, I’ve decided)

(I digress)

She was curious, a romantic, tryna picture him

Seemed such a waste (she just wants more babies)

You know, wingwoman manifest

And I said it’s like how Maman accepts sacrifice of black roosters

Ha ha yeah yeah yeah, but also

That’s a fine feathered gentleman caller

Giving Ayam Cemani vibes

And if you look over on BackYardChickens

It’s either Behold My Rooster the Very Fancy Man much applause

Or FUCK that rooster, only good rooster is a dead rooster

Recipes in comments

Crockpot, spoon, chancla

Most often the latter, sad to say, Russian roulette at the hatchery

See I wouldn’t mind a papa goose takes thrice as long as me in the bathroom getting gussied up

(Being generous, I’m in and out fifteen minutes tops)

(I may or may not pat the ass, get the belly, I like my hands full)

Not saying he gotta go Marilyn Manson

Or even do the headbang like a lil cockatoo (so cute)

I’ll happily take Classic Gothic Lit ink smudged acoustic, I do specialize in the literary tradition

But that black plumage better be there in spirit

At the very least expressive and mildly if not overtly distressed

Stoicism is my gig, gotta have balance

I prefer to drive the tempo and the rhythm, that there’s the frontman

I don’t need help with my feelings or making decisions

VaLiDaTiOn

Last bitch in the world to say “let me ask my husband” or cry over an empty bed

(Just off working or puttering or whatever, not empty ’cause he’s like…dead)

(Shit, probably wouldn’t even cry then, that water’s went)

I need some quality sounds, way I see it

Why else men got all that bone density if not to be their woman’s amplifier

Sensitive and responsive exponents exclamation marks funeral pyres

Don’t get one if you don’t wanna be loud

Can’t maintain the…equipment

Shit happens, he could be a 40 year old barista jams in his parents’ attic for all I care

A janitor with burning passions and hidden talents who just never had the chance

Did the responsible thing instead

Well take it from a been there grizzled sunshine bitch who’s had nothing

For me, music inhabits the same tier as food, it’s honey in the comb, more is more

Saying I really like to put a pulse in a corpse

All the corpse, full rapture

Well my phone must have heard us fondly reminiscing the time we shat all over Nosferatu

Front row in the theater just roasting it to death

We make the bed wherever we’re at

Because YouTube suggested, shockingly, something that wasn’t trash

Good madams could I perchance interest you in Some Hold My Chalice Goth Shit

R.I.P. By Motionless in White

And we sat there, beaming opposites

Bubbling over because he would have loved it

He was so vain about his long hair and all his girls

Canoodling under fuzzy blankets at the theater

Tell you right now who that boy actually took after

.

Grann Brigitte

He’d toddle into the kitchen naked under an oversized shirt

‘Cause we were in there gossiping with coffee in our caftans

Bright and bushy in the morning just like his mama

First time we met he meowed and crawled into my lap

This kid

Bout three or four years old

Did his sisters’ makeup well

Taught himself to twerk off a furry porn video like auntie watch this

Woman you need to Speak to your son

He’d automatically put his hand in my hand

Or otherwise remain in some fashion attached

If mom was too busy, distracted

‘Cause that’s what a good boy does when he wants to leave the house

He loved to visit graveyards

Why would she have caught a red flag

I always pointed out the beautiful gates on the funeral home where they embalmed my grandfather

I remember them well

Like a strange symbol I found way back when

Linework curvature, spinal notches through a heart shaped hourglass

Sparkles and crossed hookups off open ends

Didn’t know what it meant, but I saw it and sensed

Felt that moment from my dream again

I teach the importance of instincts

How to listen

Her sister came to visit with her litany of girl children

And she brought them to a quiet, verdant cove to relax

But clocked at some distance a group of 19 men

Took note of it, this woman does not rest

Her head’s been on a swivel ever since she was fifteen

After a grown man knocked her up and split, notch in a long line

Funny how his “girlfriends” stayed the same age

How his disgust grew as their bodies changed

Sure enough, as her family splashed and chattered

The men began to encroach

She drew the girls to higher ground without drawing attention to herself

Had to make a split second decision whether to go back for the gun or get them out Now Now

Keep line of sight

It happens so fast

The girls never noticed, just moved when she said, unconcerned

And those men stopped dead

When they realized that she Saw them

And she would die first

She told me how there was no good reason

Men have no business thinking it’s acceptable to approach a group of women and children

Instead of maintain respectful distance

In her mama feelings, my girl

So I told her about feral pig social structure

And she goes are you saying I’m the Granny Pig

Indeed I am saying

We don’t play in red states

July 19, 2026

Brigid, Death, experimental short form, friendship, grief, life, love, storytelling
Uncanny Valley

First of the Month

Tiny bottles

Got them big foam cups with blue straws

Soaked shirts on heads and gap toothed smiles

Flat stomachs

Thick nails Campbell’s soup sweat, just looking

.

Every dog has its day

Every dog has its day

I’ll come back when I get paid

.

Will work, disabled

Sharpie on cardboard, clean your bins, haul junk

Wash your car with drinking water in the desert

We work with what we’ve got, peg legs and hook

Only friend in the world panting in a wagon

.

Every dog has its day

Every dog has its day

I’ll come back when I get paid

.

Your DoorDash driver has a walker

Bed bound wife and three cats at home

Laid off after a lifetime of service

And old Uncle Same he said

Well 2000 a month is plenty enough

.

He had some dogs too, once

.

.

No Histrionics

Full disclosure hm-hmm-mm

He ain’t worth the calories burned

And it must be June in France hm-hmm-mm

‘Cause he’d drown one drop the River Styx

All he drinks like a fish, so unseasoned

His tears acidify the ocean, he’s saltless

I don’t look over my shoulder, loose no belt

One drop, oh, one drop the River Styx and

.

Is it love or is it Sunk Cost

Cold comfort of a dual income (in the end, in the end)

Your sex a script a pedophile wrote

A man of course, voyeur internal

Glitz, flash, that Halo Effect (in the end, in the end)

Do you want him Bambi-legged against the wall in public

Or did he just cutely call you a #goddess?

Are you wet or is it stage presence? (in the end, in the end)

.

Baby, baby, baby, make a wish

A single coin if you think you can afford it

It was never about communication (in the end, in the end)

Your language hm-hmm-mm

The price is paid in silver, pure conduction

Heads nor tails a spark could land (in the end, in the end)

Mistook neuropathy for passion

Come, come correct

Baby, baby, baby, make a wish

It’s about intent

.

In the end

.

.

No Man’s Land

This ain’t Ruth and Boaz

Shimi-shimmy out the chaff

And wheat’s the staple of the white man

Saw paradise said make it flat

Where there’s a silo there’s surely vermin

His profit pretends subsistence

Expansive ecological expense

Long sleeves, bandanas, ball caps and straw hats

No documents

No documents

Desperation implies consent

Does it not

Does it not

Was the border that crossed them

Grocery stores got strings attached

What touched your lips was trafficked

That’s a dirty price tag

Pick a spice name a genocide

Summer synonymous with citrus

Of all things, something winter ripe

Out of sight, out of mind

These ain’t the women take to wife

But he takes and takes and takes alright

Whole new meaning to hen night

Be it fellow hand or foreman

Field or concrete slick with chicken shit

Not a one of them your friend

Man’s a man’s a man

Filthy fingered while you debone cutlets

Bled and bled for your job kept

Or worse he loose the prick

Remember girls, you’re Catholic

You’ll be forced to keep it

Desperation implies consent

.

.

Premonition

Wouldn’t know a love song if it bit ya

Wouldn’t know a love song if it bit ya

Only like a tenor when he’s a screamer

.

That boy, he couldn’t tell ya one thing about her

No meat on the false cords means no flowers

Eyes wide and dark-bright sunken

Skin so fragile as an insect’s wings

Submerged

Chest cracked open, open

Aural bloom surrendered in death

No two the same, harmonics exquisite

You men, you’re born dumb and deaf

Blind to the palette until you’ve met

And would you meet me in my garden

.

He couldn’t tell ya one thing about her

No he couldn’t tell ya one thing about her

All these tombstones say Wife and Mother

What about her

What about her

.

Would you meet me in my garden

Do you remember how to say my name

Without words

Would your hands know me in the dark earth

Know me and only wonder, more

Know me and never wander, alone

And love don’t fear the reaper, no

Love was it me held you first, you know

When you know, you know, you know

I’m here with a shovel

.

He couldn’t tell ya one thing about her

No he couldn’t tell ya one thing about her

All these tombstones say Wife and Mother

What about her

What about her

.

.

Mami Wata

Boy these deep waters

Lack for drama don’t lack for passion

Lack for games don’t lack for patience

This serpent always at my hips quenched

That’s grips of a goddess

My love is consummate

.

I said always

Have a heart can’t be swayed

Oh I’m warm on the inside

Shiver sweet with the on glide

Heady on the off glide

I said always

.

Cue the drum roll

Mama mama she’s a dancer

Mm that’s some stamina, pulse beat steady thunder

Couch, floor to table, not an inch I don’t savor

Have it last meal on death row

Either I’m dead or I’m letting you know

.

I said always

Have a heart can’t be swayed

Oh I’m warm on the inside

Shiver sweet with the on glide

Heady on the off glide

I said always

.

That’s always

Pretty papa don’t slip

Ha, he gimme drip

Think it just a woman wets

.

.

Beloved

Wouldn’t know the meaning of the word

Wouldn’t know the meaning of the word

Any more a fish can know a bird

.

Can put a white veil on your chattel

Can put a white veil on your chattel

What choice has the house girl

He just mad he can’t be Master

Hole’s a hole, brown bitch or cattle

Not a one of them your brother

Push come shove, dirt come doorknob

He just mad he can’t be Master

.

Come here girl

Never mind me red hair

Bring me your dolly poppet

Needlepoint with Maman Brigitte

Needlepoint with Maman Brigitte

Ain’t no skin color in the end

They choose first to be men

And every woman heart be black

.

Remember

.

Sethe did what she had to do

Sethe did what she had to do

I’m too angry for the blues

.

.

><><><><A bonus piece that popped out while I was concurrently writing the other six (sometimes it’s like how a printer prints with me you know?)><><><><

.

.

Tatterhood

A barren queen begged a daughter off a pauper

That hobbled witch said eat just one flower

Beneath her bed would grow two flowers

The sweetest fair and rare the other

So sweet she craved another

So sweet she craved another

And the queen she bore two daughters

One a blessing and one a curse

The rainbow and the storm inseparable

One sat pretty while the other scrapped

One in ribbons the other rags

.

Are you pretty or are you wild

Would you still do it without likes or subscribers

Go beast mode for zero dollars

For your mother and your sister

Face an army of trolls alone

Ride out on a goat and slit their throats

Oh bodies gonna hit the floor

They stole her head so heads would roll

Set sail with her just her sister in tow

Are you pretty or are you wild

.

Took the fight right up on them

Frayed and grey they looked right past her

Snuck the head right from the window

Gut and sacked the den soon after

And they set sail our sisters

Some far off adventure, imagine

The sea and stars and your best girl forever

A distant kingdom wandered, curious they did dock there

It king paid a visit proper

Fell fast upon blessed visage

And she said yes, our perfect princess

.

Are you pretty or are you wild

Would you still do it without likes or subscribers

When your sister says on but one condition

A second suitor take your hand first

And all the prince was forced, king undeterred

She wed him stubborn, bare faced, raw hemmed

Thunder front upon miserable event

Beside her twin the perfect princess

Fire lanced side glanced altar knelt

Are you pretty or are you wild

.

That old man was a scoundrel

She was agreeable, soft, and mild

Young enough to be his daughter

Pampered pedestal receptacle

So sweet he craved another

So sweet he craved another

Tats made sure she bore no child

Tats made sure he took a tumble

Paid every maid parting sum but the one

Bu the one her sister’s favorite

What you seen well no you didn’t

.

Are you pretty or are you wild

Would you still do it without likes or subscribers

How well do you love your sister

And what of our sullen mister

For at first his mood was sour

But no love lost with his father

And he saw this rare sister

Make cowl to golden crown

Make goat to mighty stallion

Spoon to sword, spoon to wand

.

Somehow she wore the finest gown

Well

.

She gave him the option

Come warm southerly winds

But he asked no annulment, oh, no

Nothing and everything had changed

If she’d have him, if she’d have him

He’d have his queen be wild

A beauty after all

.

.

@~^~

Just so we’re clear I am not a musician nor was I raised in an environment where music took place beyond the age of eight, which was when my overachieving polymath banker seven-instrument-musician grandpa died. Unless you count the birds outside, wailing babies, domestic disturbances and sirens. I also used to hum along to electrical currents. I just make a bunch of sounds in my head, sing-mutter and write things down. If you put an instrument in my hands I wouldn’t know anything about it beyond which end to hold. I think I would have loved drums though. Nobody stares at the drummer, and the only thing gets my blood up as much as heavy bass is percussion. That and I like to hit things.

Anyways, if you’re wondering why I’m suddenly dipping my toes into the folksy bluesy jazzy end of the spectrum when my natural inclination is obviously to be cold, fast, and stabby…my sister and I are once again attempting to visit New Orleans. Christmas through New Years if Nothing Happens. I’d say come hell or high water but fate has a way of taking me up on that. Cough Katrina Cough COVID. Brass, beignets and swamp kittens here I come! Third time’s a charm!

Someday I’ll have the time to properly tinker with my songs. Far too much tedious, pointless bullshit eating up my days at present.

July 5, 2026

adventure, blues, fairy tale, folk, gothic, jazz, lyrics, music, rap, stroytelling
Sensitive Subjects: Tea and a True Story (cont.)

Trash

Well one does what one must

Be shocked what people discard

And derelict trailer or not

I persisted

Burlap pinned to termite brittled and buckled walls

Don’t look to see how far the rot goes

Nothing for that but funds for a whole new house

Painted over with a pretty discount color

Mayan Blue said the label

75% off, three coats

At least the roaches couldn’t wiggle out

Could still hear ’em though

Whirring and clicking whenever it trained

Pinned gauzy thrift store sheers side so side across the stained ceiling

With little brass sailing ships and other odd things suspended between

I found all kinds of baubles and beads

An upside down scene

Back when thrift store meant something

Built clothing racks when a plumbing incident took my closet and bathroom

By “took” I mean rotted through, it all had to go on account of black mold

No floor, no walls, closed off with old construction plastic and dollar store shower curtains atop that to make it less…

Well

One does what one must

Mind you, this was my dorsal vagal collapse period

Which lasted about…seven years

So that’s some Lux Aeterna Requiem for a Dream shit

You know if you ever wonder why there’s just a big chunk of cultural awareness normal people stuff just…missing

Anyway, I assembled a grand faux fireplace

Made from various smashed pieces of French-style crown molding

Wooden appliques and planks

Affixed to a mounted headboard

Painted ivory to match

If you will, my candle-place

Then I chanced upon a gorgeous

Ivory enameled cast iron bed frame

One block down that-a-ways

I didn’t have much

But I had muscles

Mood reactivity and a bad attitude

Little Nemo could eat his heart out

Because I was gonna ride up on the Nightmare King Cinderella style

You know, generally, if you gotta howl with sobs for hours every night

Like some fucked up charcoal drawing

You know, shit gets you called into the principal’s office and a priest summoned

It’s good to have a little something to look at is all

.

These Things Happen

Coulda been worse, coulda been better

You know how it goes

She’d left the dogs penned in the corner

Never gave them any affection or even a fond glance

Par for the course

One of them was being eaten by maggots from the inside out

So I had to put him down

Me myself

I’m sorry Orion

You were a good boy

He stopped crying and shaking once I wrapped him in my blanket and laid him in that ditch

He knew what came next

The other ran away shortly after

That was Guinevere

I hope she found a better life

Anywhere was better than here

The first battle was washing decades of nicotine buildup off the walls

Dripping and oozing yellow and brown

She’d snarl and snap if I touched anything else

Piles upon piles of dust-caked, unnecessary and unusable…stuff

Wouldn’t let go of that ratty couch

Until it was completely soaked with piss and diarrhea

Don’t ask

She’d scream and stomp and slam doors

But she wouldn’t mount a search once something was gone

Knew that from experience

Said everything went “to the addition” or “to the shed”

Wink wink nudge

Lord. The addition

After her brother…happened it was full of used and uncapped needles, rotten food, liquor, beer cans in clothing drawers, piss bottles, and candy wrappers

When I say “full” I mean packed ceiling to floor, you couldn’t walk

Where every utensil in the house went to disappear

Also maggots

Whole carpet had to go

Carpet never again

Sometimes I’d hear him screaming and breaking shit

Pacing around outside muttering vile obscenities under his breath

Had to cover my bedroom window because he’d stand there and look in at me

But at least with Him around she’d hide long enough for me to throw more junk away

Shoot Dracula dead dead at deep range with these silver linings

Shit, make some electric guitar strings

He gave me Noro twice

But at least my boss was nice for a while after

When a customer said something so fucking stupid I threw up in annoyance

Or so I thought at first as I tried to walk it off because I couldn’t afford to lose hours

God I always wished I could projectile vomit

Just whenever

I’m done with this conversation bleeeeh

Don’t touch me bleeeeh

Once, his little dog hid behind my legs

And wouldn’t budge no mater how cloyingly he called her name

Then he got distracted by the television

And all a sudden told me about a nightmare he couldn’t interpret

Walking down a road in the dark looking straight ahead

The ground dropped out from under him, he’d been walking a cliff

And he fell to his death

Lads that’s the level of stupid I was dealing with

That one’s not a stumper champ

And as we’ve previously established

My uncle was not a good boy

RIP grandpa did try to lay down the formative whoopins

But grandma wouldn’t have it, lost her damn mind

There’s a reason grandpa called me to his deathbed

And heavily implied once he was gone

I was the Pants

.

Superstition

One perk of a hollow floor

I could hear grandma take a tumble from the opposite side of the house

Sometimes even hear her muffled shit huff

It’s okay, she was really short

No damage done, crash pad of pillows

And whether or not everyone was still breathing

COPD, sleep apnea, old, etc.

Occasionally I’d cruise into the kitchen like a lil mouse

And grandma would be like

I’m not dead yet

Aghhh caught me again

And it’s not like she had a job to go to

Being ninety some odd

So we’d talk or she’d stay up when I watched something funny till late

Kept saying “I need to go to bed”

But hadn’t budged, faintly pat hands on her knees

And I was all who the fuck says

Sitting in her old lady bra and Walmart shorts because it was too damn hot

Grandma had a very dark and very dry sense of humor

1930s vintage

Only person ever laughed at my jokes besides my brother

Did cross my mind, looking at her kids

Jesus Goddamn What Happened

Did you make some fairies mad??

Anyways she died peacefully in her sleep

And of course it fell to me

To process her hidey hoard

When it comes to elders of a certain age and era

You have to check e-ver-y-thing

Nothing Is Trash

Not Even Trash

Any hole that something could possibly be stuffed in

Pockets and linings of purses and coats

Doll-size drawers and compartments

Check the bread maker, the mattress

No I mean check the mattress

Like a cartel drug smuggler

Grandma wasn’t exactly sentimental

But I did find a bunch of capped teeth and several 200+ year old silver coins in a dirty balled up sock

Yes, she performed some post mortem dentistry

Here comes the toof fairy

Grandpa didn’t take those fillings to his grave

And neither did…several other people apparently

Had pliers in her purse and handled her business

While he was still lukewarm

Her former bedroom is my art studio now

Half houseplants if I’m being honest, full jungle

Another reclaimed chamber

As for my morbid inheritance

Well long ago my very oldest friend said

That when I finally Made It Out

When I finally found a real home

I’d need to take some of the earth out from under

Maybe some river stones

Put it all in a jar and bury it there

Just something she’d heard

Or else this place would never let me go

So, you know, I figure this dowry sufficient

To sweeten the pot as it were

To…bribe the locals

If’n you take my meaning

It doesn’t have to make sense

.

Structural Integrity

Not to be like Back In My Day

But I missed the traditional social media train

Wouldn’t even take the cellphone without a gun to my head

Think I was 18 or 19

For the record

Getting rid of jacks and nubbly keyboards was a fucking mistake

And the loop for dangly charms and little guys and things

I hate the touchscreen

And now they’re too fucking wide

The extent of my online presence

All this time consisted of, in no particular order

Crafts, building techniques, urban planning, guerrilla warfare, nature, herbalism, folklore stashed on glitchy personal pages, academic papers, arboriculture, low desert permaculture and weirdo hermit homesteading forums (all climates worldwide)

Again, try not to be surprised when I Haven’t Heard

If the Grandmas, the Billy Goats, or the Actual Anarchists wouldn’t have mentioned

I don’t know about it

What I do know

Is how to build a simple and attractive eco-friendly cottage

In such a way as to nearly negate the risk

Of fire and water damage

Become a ghost on the grid

Don’t run wires or pipes on or adjacent to anything made of wood

You don’t need as much electricity as you think you do

Compost toilet

You call it waste, trees call it nutrients

That goes for bath and kitchen discharge too

Keep every single thing that could one day require repairs easily accessible

Not Easily Accessible With a Cool Head

Easily Accessible While Shitting Your Pants

That means any and ever critical appliance as well

If you can’t fix it, you can’t rely on it

Approach a build knowing that one day

You will be old

Stack functions with your layout

Keep the household livestock where you can see and hear them

(I’m partial to Dutch doors)

That would be your eggs, milk, and bees for you city kids

Fiber too if it’s a larger operation

Use different bells for each quadrant of your perimeter trip wires

And a louder bell at your base if it’s an intruder and stealth won’t help

Like it’s time to gtfo or throw down

A weapon by every door, dense obstruction, or vantage point

The sun’s exact path Matters

Wool bat insulation where applicable

Masonry wood stove, some induction hot plates and wool cook bags

Green roof

Actually, knew a lady kept her hives up there and drove them around

A bee-herd if you will

Rubble trench foundation is the least toxic, expensive, exhausting and invasive way to go

If you’ve got the right conditions and materials for it:

Cob

Water has the greatest thermal mass

And will passively warm your greenhouse in the winter

Mind the sun’s path

Stone houses last forever if you’re not a coward

Never understood people crying about the piddly soft stuff

When they’ve still got Real Walls and rocks everywhere

Shit, you can build a house out of pallets, mud, tires and plastic bags in a pinch

Point it anything is possible if you go slow and don’t panic

It’s worth the bruises and splinters if it means you have no debt

And don’t have to allow strange men on the premises

Never let them see where you live

My rosary is step by step construction

Disassemble reassemble

Identify correct tool

Look it’s not for everyone

Most of you live in a different world

But ever since I was very young

I knew the only way I’d ever own a home

Was if I made it exist with my own two hands

Me myself

.

Formal Attire

When you’re a tenured poetry professor

I guess they just let you do whatever

So our capstone class was three hours

In the middle of the night

Her most frequented fun facts included

Poets have the highest rate of suicide

And her predecessor shot himself in the heart

There in her office, just to prove a point

And I was like

Yeah

He was an obnoxious male postmodernist

So that sounds about right

Well unfortunately I was her favorite

And for some preposterous reason

She insisted my stylistic sibling was Louise Glück

And I guess on the one hand

I get it

In terms of my pen back then

Bare bones, technical precision, deceptively simple language for big concepts

Poems in conversation across the pages

But on the other hand

I didn’t even have to reach the bio script

Said oh I bet she grew up in a House house

Went to good schools

And starved herself on purpose

Obligatory Greek myth references

Gotta pander to the omphalos

Of androcentric academia

Statuesque existential angst of the upper crust

Don’t get me wrong, she’s a master of the craft

Respect

But my academic reputation was well earned

“Authoritative language,” “Source?”

Oh you know just two eyes and a brain that works

I got your primary source right here V

Give me any story or set of facts, especially myths and fairy tales

Disassemble, reassemble

Sans bullshit

Original observation, extrapolate

I’ll force a professor to give me full marks

On a ten page essay shredding the conceptual foundation of his dissertation

You don’t learn how to think from a man

Now there’s only one person of my close acquaintance

Who’s ever read anything of mine

Who even knows I write

Completely different disciplines

But over coffee cocktails buzzed in broad daylight

Big windows streetside under ceiling plants

She said something just about right

Said regardless of the grim reality I described

In stark detail

That my work was like honey

If honey were a thing she enjoyed

Honey but not honey

Honey but it’s secret sunshine

It made her warm on the inside

My girls do spoil me at times

Girls are so much more than the world deserves

For example, when she was pregnant

And aggressively nesting

She felt I’d need a suit sometime in the future

Among other things

So there I was feeling like Bane

In a stretchy ice blue corset-back two piece

And I tell you what

White House Black Market’s target demographic must be birds

It was my mother’s closet all over again

And my brother and sister must think me some kinda sorceress gangster

Because they sent me one year a sizable silver pendant

A big black eye shaped stone with a streaking milky white gash

Where a glittering crystal-toothed hole shreds through the center

Small chains dripping down like tears

Skull on top

And my jiu jitsu wife must think me late for a party

Because she gave me ivory leather Cowboy Boots

Layered and laser cut like eyelet lace

But with some extra belts, studs, and buckles

This woman and shoes

I have many many fairy godsisters

Gave everyone a jump scare

For I am heavy footed just like my giant father

His exact gait

Clok clok clok I’m a Clydesdale bitch

Don’t ask what’s the occasion

Sometimes you just gotta look in the mirror and go

Not me at God’s funeral

With a pair of pliers

.

Rainbow’s End

You know when you’ve been swimming in the ocean

And you still feel its weight and rhythm

Even after you’ve gotten out?

That muscle memory vestibular phantom

Well you’re a different creature entirely

When you’ve come from the bottom

It’s a slow, agonizing ascent to allay barotrauma

Every day testing the waters of how much you can handle before collapse

Grow new limbs and teach them again

New skin

The hydrostatic pressure must instead come from within

There’s no shortcut

You have to drink every last drop

There’s no reason, it’s not hope

You imagine no future, no forward motion, time is fractured

Non-linear

Slow

It’s a grueling somatic persistence

The grief is upon you

All of it

That which you value becomes very, very small

That which you carry closest to heart

Joys a sunken chest of tiny black pearls

Non negotiable parameters

I still struggle to sing

Not the mechanics, it’s just my voice

Was the first to sink and the last to rise

Naturally dwells near the nadir

Conspicuous as a mosasaur breaching open air

Vanishes the moment I’m observed

It belongs to someone’s ears, but not anyone here

It doesn’t have to make sense

Song is a function of spirit

Again, parameters

So I painted the dining room dusky lavender

Where I most often reside in shadow

Perched at my spot lit Singer

Pastel sunshine yellow everywhere else

With subtle rose-glow iridescent sparkles

Something of mirth across the walls

All of this of course met with extreme resistance

Screaming, insults, violent tantrums and snide remarks

A three dimensional forest mural with a winged skeleton mid flight

Various highly intricate floral arrangements

Skulls, ravens, lanterns and spiders

You might balk at my maximalism

But you’ll never see a troupe of cell phone kids be more present

See their minds just open

You know there’s a scene in Balto that really stuck

Where this raggedy mongrel shows a fancy sled dog his secret hovel

Under an abandoned house

And he’s arranged all these pieces of colorful broken glass and bottles

Painstakingly collected

So that when he shines a bulb through them

They produce Northern Lights

Despite the blanket of clouds outside

Gave little me a lot of ideas

And the pretty sled dog’s mind just opens

There’s no revulsion

She doesn’t think less of him

My other favorite part is when so much snow

And braving ice caverns and yawning arctic darkness and the Great Race of Mercy

Through a deafening, blinding blizzard

Hurricane force winds

Sub zero flash freeze temps

To deliver precious medicine unbroken

Every single vial intact

Wholly preventing a mass casualty event

Humanity’s last line of defense

What really matters spans a razor’s edge

Ice cracks

Discipline, focus

Wild heart, wild blood

Who you are

Gave little me a lot of ideas

So, Alaska

Where I’ll finally have the breadth of quiet and stillness

To find more songs and artists to cherish

Instead of subsisting on everything I’ve stored on my external hard drive

Previously gathered when I had a decent computer

Catch up with what’s been going on all these years

But first, I’m here

Dangling like my first rickety little nautical lantern

It was a parting gift long ago

This page is the most social thing I’ve ever done

Or shall I say scroll

An exercise in decompression

At last having exited survival mode long enough

A dark blue writing desk off the side of the road

Penning everything I’ve packed so far down

Like breaking into the bee bread after the longest winter

Stiff ferments

She ages in reverse

I do not aspire to nonsense like Retirement, Acknowledgment, Big Salary and Career

Those were never on the table

That table’s underwater

I wish to never be hot

I wish to wear my own clothes

I wish to be among plants and mountains and ocean and animals

All my girls

Music

If I must live what’s left of my life

Someplace I’ll likely die alone

Of causes that are easily preventable

In damn near any country but this one

I’ll do it up there

Something to look at is all

June 21, 2026

gothic, humor, mental health, practical magic, storytelling