Tag: gothic

• 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

  ---

• 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

  ---

• Under Covers

  Pushing Poppies

  It’s a bit like when a cat

  presents you a dead animal.

  Functionally dependent or an addict,

  that’s splitting hairs, and courtesy

  of a botched spinal surgery,

  there’s a certain significance.

  Mmm, thanks for the oxy dad,

  I will treasure this…prescription opium

  right here under my statue of Isis,

  though I won’t tell you that.

  Had period cramps so bad I threw up

  one time

  and he was traumatized.

  Oh my ex was the same way.

  I’ve got terminal cancer meds

  from an old folks home—

  they don’t outlive these pill counts.

  Fun fact:

  many don’t “go bad”

  they just take longer to kick in.

  Why do I know this?

  America.

  No healthcare,

  everyone works half or mostly dead

  with no retirement

  and your only constant is pain.

  But no pain I’ve ever experienced—

  and baby that’s a lot—

  was so bad I didn’t think ahead.

  What if? Just in case.

  There might come a day

  when only one recourse remains,

  that I’ve held on for someone I love,

  a painless death.

  A Happy End.

  Silence

  Breath, rhythm, vibration, touch.

  The fundamentals of pain management.

  You must be present. Waves. Move with,

  not against. Gravity is your friend.

  Do you need cold or hot? Listen.

  Water. Bread. Mint. Floor.

  Naked in your struggle sweat?

  Shit, text my ass.

  No TMI between us.

  Seen all this shit before.

  No pun intended.

  Just throw those out,

  we’ll get you new britches.

  You might feel stinky, sad, and gross

  like a forgotten potato in a dark cupboard,

  but I promise I only love you more.

  Long past wrinkles, arthritis, and dust.

  If the worst appears over, get up

  and take a shower. Just stand there.

  I’ll support you if I must.

  Sometimes staying in range is all you’ve got.

  I’ll lay you down.

  It’s enough.

  1001 Kisses

  I’ll hold you close,

  brush your hair, trace

  the shell curve of your ear

  and the shivered nape of your neck

  and tell you how we met,

  a place I’ve made inside.

  The first cool sighs of autumn,

  when night lingers long past

  previous predawn.

  When you open the door and pause.

  Churning star pierced sky, low melodic chimes,

  a dog startles in the distance,

  restless willows, clattering signs, groaning eaves,

  fan palm fronds sails at high sea,

  in this darkness

  you can be anything, put the road

  beneath your feet.

  They all lead to me.

  The tension upon delivery,

  awaiting a newborn’s first cry.

  Nothing so lost I can’t find.

  Who stole the whispers and wonder

  in your eyes?

  Come outside.

  Try. Try. Leave it all behind.

  Remember where you belong,

  you were always mine

  stolen child.

  Open Pollinated

  For three nights

  I was visited, I dreamt

  first a moment so real,

  from my phone an ethereal instrumental

  somehow, when I woke had to be sure,

  but it was still storm sleep sounds.

  Next I coursed the brick walls

  of a pub-ish industrial room somewhere and there,

  in the middle must have been a man,

  if a man were a fluffy sound cloud,

  ram took off and turned up wow-round.

  Atmospheric disturbance. Overlapping signals.

  Soft rain blue, some light show. He sang

  but I couldn’t tell what, tender as winter birds at dawn,

  interview simultaneous,

  he was to be wed and no one more shocked

  about that than himself. An unspeakable

  joy he dared not name lest it slip from his grasp.

  At last. At last. Ambrosia

  on the tongue of mere mortal man, some kinda

  intervention. Are you a thing that exists?

  Am I allowed to have this? But one magic

  the gods can’t possess,

  for there is no love without death.

  What kinda woman

  takes a tempest to bed?

  Puts a rope and a bell on it, he’s

  in there somewhere, breaks ten pair shears.

  Settles him all the way down. Finds the right shape.

  Trouble though. His most beautiful song,

  food for the gods, hung in the balance.

  Wouldn’t exist

  unless he made the right choice.

  Waking dropped barometric in my chest

  as if my jurisdiction, when ya boy

  biffs it so hard his gods dial up my spec ops ass,

  Steve Irwin of ho handlers, said

  with utmost affection. Godspeed

  whoever he is, don’t make ’em tell you twice.

  Last, through a stilled memory I carry

  from a park festival where a daughter

  sat on the ground hiding

  in her mother’s bright skirt at a food truck.

  A woman’s voice

  sang through the sunlight and towering trees

  in an accent very clearly

  ancient Irish. Celtic, rather. Old Gaelic.

  The oldest.

  When I woke then, I wept with release

  and wrote Aisling Aengus. How it must go.

  Look,

  I know when I’m being told. I know what I know

  when I’m meant. Haven’t been wrong yet.

  There’s so much more

  to being human

  than you think.

  Does a caterpillar

  know what a cocoon even is,

  what it becomes upon entering

  a state of living decomposition,

  or does it just have faith?

  True Oak

  What is true is always true

  and may be observed

  through presence of mind.

  Who has need of locked rooms,

  musty robes, and tomes

  has need of lies.

  We have need of trees.

  Music

  is the only valid currency,

  the spiritual blood of humanity,

  that which remains in motion,

  the purpose of your mother’s pulse,

  how blood is made inside bones,

  and yours grew from hers and hers

  and hers all the way back

  to the First. Ancestors.

  Conduction

  is a mitochondrial function.

  Before we rise in unison, first

  I must convince you Tree is Good.

  Back to back to basics,

  real toddler shit. Uh oh, that hurt.

  Tree is Good. Oops, fell down.

  Tree is Good….Dog is Good.

  Hey. Hey. Dog is—okay, Dirt is Good.

  I can sit here much longer than you.

  See that kitty cat?

  It’s Good.

  Life’s just about

  taking care of your pile of things.

  As many as you can reach.

  The only way

  to attain impressive height

  is living to love longest.

  Love the most, variety

  is riches.

  Where

  have all my trees and creatures gone?

  In the name of your “wealth,”

  a false God.

  Mabon

  Once upon an autumn equinox

  as a young girl I’d found a book

  describing the Wheel of the Year,

  it seemed quite practical, sensible,

  oh I was no fan of any church.

  But I’ve always appreciated rhythm.

  Relationships. Webs of cause and effect.

  So I said fuck it why not,

  on a breezy morn much like this one,

  and cooked a meal for a happy family

  I didn’t have. A harvest

  of foods no one would miss. Open

  invitation I guess.

  Well afterwards I took a bath

  for the warmth, even though water

  always made me homesick.

  Suddenly exhausted,

  I fell asleep. My first

  hyperrealistic dream. Looked down

  at my hands, and my silver vine ring

  I always wore on my right hand

  had been joined

  by a gold vine on the left.

  I suppose if my mind must concoct nonsense,

  I’m grateful it showed me what it feels like.

  I’d always be well aware

  when something isn’t Right.

  Striking Beauty

  Your real totems

  are the media you consume

  when you’re Going Through Some Shit,

  dicking around on YouTube down

  some kinda hole,

  blanket up over your head

  and haven’t slept.

  My thing is grainy nature documentaries.

  This one guy devoted his life,

  wished to be remembered as a lover

  of the wild. An amateur

  in the truest sense of the word. Spent months

  alone in a tiny hidden tree tent, unmoving,

  eating so plain he lost his human stink.

  He waited.

  Then, he woke in the night, half

  gone out his mind, and saw a tigress,

  mouth dripping gore.

  He cried. Named

  her Bloody Mary in reverence.

  When she bore cubs, he had privilege

  to witness. Named Snow White, Sky White,

  and Moon White respectively.

  Professionals declared his work

  of highest caliber. Quality. Never before seen.

  Another time, some grizzly bears,

  I don’t remember where. When the narrator

  declared the forest a vast cathedral, I felt it.

  Did you know bears, in the midst of fighting,

  fattening, and fucking will sit

  just to behold the majesty?

  They give birth during winter hibernation, asleep.

  I imagined tearfully what a mother bear might see

  in her great dreaming.

  Then in Central America some men

  sought the apex predators of the overstory,

  the all embracing canopy. Harpy eagles.

  Elusive. They mate for life. One or two young

  every three to four years, devoted parents.

  Cascading effect,

  keep every other species in check, in balance.

  Their preferred diet

  is monkeys and sloths. Grizzly size claws

  on a twenty pound bird.

  Those men fucked around and found out.

  Jungles are noisy, and they tracked a male

  back to his tree. If cacophony critters

  weren’t worried, why should they be?

  One begun the climb. After all,

  they were busy right? Besides,

  he wore armor, so it was fine.

  Right? Right.

  A sudden quiet,

  deafening.

  If you can’t hear her, it’s too late.

  He didn’t move and scarcely breathed.

  When the female takes to sky.

  Without that armor

  she would have lacerated

  his cervical spine in precision dive.

  The impact

  alone stunned him, no stretch

  to play dead, could only pray

  she lost interest.

  I remembered ever after that,

  no matter the size, dress, or supposed intellect

  he’s just a foolish monkey climbing high

  like it’s his business, groping at your nest.

  Put Him in his place.

  October 12, 2025

  gothic, meditation, mystery, nature, spooky season, The Old Ways

  ---

• Life Support

  Tiamat

  Somewhere out in Georgia

  they’ve strung a woman’s

  desecrated corpse up

  to incubate a failed

  pile of flesh and blood.

  Sit

  the fuck down

  and call it what it is.

  Try

  ego trip meets cowardice.

  These men won’t do right

  without a gun to their heads.

  The oldest, oldest sin

  is matricide. Didn’t just die,

  it was malicious negligence.

  Remember this, we’re just parts

  in a pretty dress. Disposable, yet

  the mother’s mind regulates growth

  hormones, the brain and nervous system—

  a universe intelligent. If she’s not home,

  if she’s oppressed, there’s only so long

  they can sell the crown of God’s intent.

  Clinging to the prefrontal cortex, high

  on pathetic hubris. You emerge

  from the great dreaming

  of your mother’s subconscious

  as surely as every drop of life

  emerged from the sea.

  Positive Reinforcement

  Call me a gorgon,

  the way I make a man

  shit his pants just lookin’ at him.

  I’m never what they’re expectin’,

  one sentence followed by consequences.

  I’ll show you punctuation.

  Ain’t worth my articulation

  if he don’t listen.

  I’m warm as I am calm,

  no taste for a fuss,

  if I’ve gone cold means I’ve had enough.

  Learned from the best, the first

  of my name froze hers on the porch,

  an abusive drunk stone dead at her door—

  call that Choctaw divorce.

  Divine Feminine

  Not to sound like a dragon,

  oh but there’s somethin’ to be said

  about all your pets and an affectionate man

  asleep in your bed.

  Keepin’ all your pleasures in one place,

  just you and your favorite mug

  thinkin’ on what you’ll do

  when he wakes.

  The perks

  of him workin’ late.

  Early to rise is me,

  got plants to tend and chickens to feed,

  a woman needs

  room to breathe

  radiant volume and dust mote sunbeams,

  barefoot in a dark nightdress

  treadin’ the shoreline

  of the deep.

  Send ’em off, from depths receive,

  first and last is where we meet,

  no bolt hole so murky

  as beyond my reach.

  Run lover, fast as you please,

  I’m gonna get you.

  Breathe.

  Yew Berry

  The final gift of dreams

  is lucidity.

  No matter what, how far, how many,

  who or where.

  Mine is the crown of Nightmares.

  Tamer to the jump scares, dread

  is for the unawares. I become myself.

  Whatever’s legs can be a horse.

  Can handle those.

  These here were broken once, both.

  Let it hurt.

  Clawed fingers, drag your body

  through the dirt. If you can’t,

  if you can’t be human, good.

  Just as well, might

  as well be all

  over now, safe at least if not

  strictly speakin’ sound. Come out

  from under those covers, tell me

  what you’ve learned.

  Set Design

  Gorgeous if you’ve gotta count rice,

  throw rhymes or do a dance,

  who cares

  how you get from here to there?

  Got that Van Helsing Rube Goldberg kinda weird.

  I won’t stake your fretted heart,

  nor sever your pretty head—

  all this nonsense ’bout the undead—

  for the record:

  spooks can’t cross runnin’ water

  without their Magna Mater—

  the very soil they sprang from—

  ain’t fuck shit to do with the church. The point

  of silver: it’s a superior heat conductor, star

  studded channel for electricity. Catches charge,

  the magic happens when I throw sparks.

  Sometimes you defibrillate sickness in a herd.

  An ancient covenant between Mothers,

  the strongest of mine for the best of yours,

  spare no sacrifice for a daughter

  of the blood, a man ain’t never been

  the savior of a land.

  Weaker Sex

  Women need twice as much meat,

  and thrice while pregnant. Pigs

  can have that salad. More iron

  than men can do with. Their guts

  are inefficient. We risk

  our lives to wait, the last possible second,

  because they don’t have what it takes:

  over 50,000 calories and pure marrow DNA

  to build a human brain. Actin’ like

  whoopsie daisy there’s a baby,

  we’re right handed as a species,

  premature on the titty, because the left

  holds you to our heartbeat while we

  forge society. Fat heads.

  If a man fell pregnant

  here’s what happens:

  he don’t make it three months

  before multiple organ collapse—

  if his fried limbic system don’t drive him

  carbon monoxide mad first.

  His tissues shred apart like pot roast,

  him or the babe starve,

  just a fetid slump of gore. There is no

  miracle of birth, no Father’s hand

  in a woman’s work.

  Zoonotic Approach

  There was an old jaguar

  up in Alaska, rescued rough,

  but that’s just 250 pounds of cat

  to love. They gave him the biggest box

  of straw, a whole shippin’ container,

  and some fun tree stumps.

  He was gettin’ on, long in the tooth,

  but his handler still sensed the flame

  of his youth. Capacity for joy.

  This was her boy. Always.

  A multinational team

  assembled to draw his own blood

  and spin fresh bone jelly to be

  injected straight into his calcified

  joints. The first operation of its kind.

  Predators are hard to keep under,

  the slightest mistake and he’d die.

  A room full of doctors takin’ cues from the handler

  because this was her boy.

  She never left his side.

  Eyes on his face and hands on his chest,

  knew if he hurt from barest of breaths.

  A lost jungle king of two interventions,

  able to jump, climb, and play again

  because one woman spoke for him.

  May 22, 2025

  environment, gothic, love, mental health, motherhood

  ---

• Gothic Electric 3/3

  Scary Godmother

  They say you become who

  would have saved you as a child.

  I don’t know if that’s true,

  but there’s nowhere in this world

  or the next I won’t find you.

  Ignore my toothy teasing dear,

  I’d kill God and the Devil both

  just to keep you here.

  For whatever it may be worth,

  if allowed just one companion,

  it’d be your chatter to which I work

  Eden from ashes of kingdoms gone.

  Please, don’t be frightened.

  I’m the one who set the fire.

  Basked pale beside embers delighted,

  your fine eyes so much brighter.

  Errant Domain

  Plants signal others when damaged,

  stress reeks on mammals by breath

  and through sweat.

  What gives off, I wonder,

  when you haven’t met another yet?

  Some silent extinction level event.

  As a youth I had the strangest Thing

  about the smell of gasoline, wafting

  some crucial memory like reaching

  for a sneeze. Sat at gas stations

  focusing.

  In old school DnD

  when nearest to the end,

  any player professed of faith

  or not

  may roll for God Call. Anyone,

  anywhere listening. Probability,

  ghost in the machine, witness

  to a scream.

  They say paradise turned Sahara

  in one generation

  because God couldn’t hear himself think.

  Better the best breed of noisy,

  so I’m gonna turn it all green.

  Witness me.

  Real Estate

  You don’t remember

  how long you’ve been on this road,

  where you came from or must go.

  A journey you’ve taken alone.

  All you know

  is nowhere to call home,

  keep moving, not home.

  Indigo hills cast silver glow

  between this wilderness

  and another,

  always another. One foot

  in front the other.

  Numb as a front line soldier

  for whom never ends the war.

  Once upon an exposed nerve

  no more.

  The way is clear, but this night

  a door,

  awkward as a teenager braving

  the first dance floor.

  It’s out of place.

  But so are you.

  Alas, it’s unlocked, too.

  Curious cat and a twilight stoop.

  Inside, a series of rooms,

  and room to room it grows,

  piles and trinkets somehow

  familiar echoes.

  Storied clutter crime scene outline

  of where a human goes.

  But when you reach the resting place,

  so strong, you know.

  You know.

  Somehow you’ve lived here,

  someone spent their life tracing

  maybe one sketchy finger at a time

  trying to feel the hands holding them

  and didn’t get close enough

  until just now.

  You feel every step ever taken

  all at once.

  Just now. A human

  body is so heavy.

  When whoever built the only

  house you’ve ever seen capable

  of containing a spirit so restless

  as yours returns, will they know you?

  Or will you have to move on?

  February 9, 2025

  gothic, meditation, poetry, romance

  ---

• Gothic Electric 2/3

  Make Believe

  I put my stuffed animals together

  so they’d feel loved if I wasn’t there,

  built houses and worlds and family to spare,

  when my dead grandpa joined them

  perhaps I should have been scared.

  But this was a man held me and sang me,

  fed me and read me every day of my life,

  so what if he died?

  Left a girlchild knows to be treated right,

  besides, I see with more than my eyes.

  I made do.

  You’ve got Dreaming and dreaming and that

  over there, music and noises and turbulent air.

  If at three in the morning a semblance of peace,

  some glow of affection wrapped around me

  so for once unguarded I sleep,

  that’s fine.

  You have your words, and I have mine.

  Were you better off inside those lines?

  People pretend all the time, that this

  is all there is. Opium den of acceptance.

  I’ve got a golden eye in big furry darkness.

  Don’t worry, I know the difference, I’m fluent.

  It’s painfully obvious, you see.

  Kuromaru

  My organizational method

  is Butterfly.

  I keep everything out in the light,

  what’s chaos to you is choir to me,

  colors you can’t imagine sing, isn’t

  obvious until I speak. Define

  what an object means, the basis,

  breakage, I still know

  where the beginning and end is,

  symmetry is how you maintain it.

  Beauty is the story

  of a court maiden who loved insects,

  family hated how she dressed, no attempts

  at a husband. Asked a dark sorcerer

  to intervene. Society

  resents this type of joy, you’d be pretty

  if, so pretty if. To break her spirit

  they planted kodoku beneath her bed.

  For surely she wept for the blatant

  disrespect of her peers, the open dismay

  of her family. Once that foul insect emerged

  surely his form so disgusting she’d

  turn away.

  Well this demon once born would bond

  to his master. A disaster,

  such was his power. By court order,

  her pupal stage pet to be put down.

  But she wouldn’t allow this.

  Wounded by a gift’s retraction,

  what should have been given with love

  was merely a deception.

  She’d never be enough.

  She never gave up.

  When he shook loose his cocoon,

  something they’d never seen,

  expected some vicious, torturous thing,

  but no matter a sordid origin story,

  nothing a demon can’t do or be, tamed

  when his weird girl’s love gives him wings

  and a name.

  Bass Instincts

  Now I like to have beasts,

  little ones, or a man at my hips

  at all times and anything less

  ain’t no kinda life.

  Not if he’s bland or annoyin’ though

  and it’s pandemic grocery store pickin’,

  inferior monocrop so borin’.

  What’s a man

  but hands, heart, and mouth open.

  Tears aplenty no whinin’.

  Wild, loyal, and grateful

  whatever comes.

  Needs ya more’n air in his lungs.

  There should be blood between ’em,

  Baby Boy throws down in arena—

  don’t matter which one—

  only cares you’ve seen him.

  This is what a man does,

  all else a snotty chihuahua

  flashin’ teeth thinks he’s a big dog,

  want ’em act right, huh?

  Well you gotta be a woman.

  February 7, 2025

  gothic, romance

  ---

• Gothic Electric 1/3

  Sunny Side Up

  Cracked egg in a bowl

  by the door so evil takes leave,

  mother smashed the whole carton

  just to make me.

  When I was a young woman, eyes

  swollen shut from weeping, still

  stopped to help skunks cross the street.

  Sleep don’t come easy,

  I’m not the type to lay down,

  fought anesthesia and five nurses around,

  I’ll shoot from the dead because you made a sound.

  Staring at the concrete flipping a coin inside

  about falling, just for a slice of silence

  and the chance to feel alive. Flip

  a coin over the edge and door closed tonight.

  How you go under is how you rise, sometimes

  you pay a shadow tithe, because you can,

  because someone might

  need whatever dark grace been given—

  it’s always been reapers favored my side.

  Fiery Arrow

  Sekhmet the wrath aspect

  bore down with disgust at the weakness

  of men. It’s said

  the tides of menses and labor feed her,

  bloodlust a growling gospel fever,

  soaked winged lioness stoked dread,

  the end of life on earth and in heaven.

  Unless he could convince her to spare them.

  Full figured amphorae from across the land,

  every last cup of pomegranate wine at hand,

  enough to stain a great lake deepest red

  right in her path.

  So rich its color, not one drop survived her,

  she drank and she drank so great the pleasure,

  battle madness subsided and she took a nap there.

  When she woke thought perhaps one thing she likes better

  than the taste of blood and terror

  thick in her mouth.

  Wet White Shirt

  I’m here.

  Six feet and then some,

  my mist plush mound in the moor,

  the good kind of unsettled, my body,

  and room for yours. You knew

  I wasn’t indoors.

  Fingers run rivulets along your seams

  from behind. Broken syllables

  hitch beneath your theory of mind,

  tight little hips snug between mine.

  Lovely as a maiden with melancholy,

  dearest not so undead, teeth

  sweet at your nape where I smell you best.

  Hot velvet on pulse points,

  broad tongue where you bled.

  February 5, 2025

  folklore, gothic, lyrics, romance

  ---