once, I knew the words to say.
now the Worlds take me anyway

to gods below

You came to me like pearls before swine
and I thought – if it’s promises this time
I won’t keep them. I won’t keep you
waiting at the corner of the bed, through
scapegoats and mythos and ghosts of my past
(if you considered this silence, it might be the last

of them holding to brickdust and
grabbing at mortars; reach into neverland
for I’m the one with borders).

Honey-thick wine for a bribe, then.
Next time I’ll know you’re a liar when
your breath arcs to wings and the thief
comes alive in you (wake little sleeping gold-leafed
darling, I see your eyes in the rain drops
lilting off his grave). You can’t stop

your nature more than I can stop the sun.
You can’t stop your nature more than I can stop the sun.
You can’t stop your nature more than I can stop the sun.

(When I’m free, Oh lover mine, the bribery is done.)

the altar is ours

Three words. Nine words. Eighteen words.

If you pack them all up carefully along with the ceramic, remember not to leave any dust behind.

I had been sitting around an almost-circular table, drinks sweating into the wood, smoke piling up at the mouth before drifting off into the rest of the room. We hadn’t seen each other in weeks, although it felt like longer – months? Nearly a year, possibly? The laughter grew raucous; people took turns going up to the roughly-built stage to tell their jokes and their stories.

Did you hear the one about the serial killer who stabbed his victims to death? He told the judge he just wanted to make new friends. Testimonies said he would approach random people on the street with the murder weapon. “So KNIFE to meet you!”

It was funny. Or maybe it only was in the haze of liquid courage and the physicality of people I thought I had lost. Where had I been for so long? They were jabbing my ribs with their elbows; someone handed me another drink. It was my turn to go up to the darkly lit stage. Tinkling music played quietly in the background, turned down by the barkeeper who wanted to watch us have our fun. Other people lingered at the edges of the room, but this was our time, our reunion, our excitement.

I took my glass to the small stage, touched the microphone. Hello? Is anyone out there? I asked. Laughter for a response. With the light on my face, individual people turned to shapes in the dark. Movements in the periphery. I took a drink, and another. Set the glass on the smooth floor. Stood up and faced the light.

When the rush comes, you know where it’s pulling you.

Shadows glimmered just out of focus range; my mouth felt dry despite the drinks. My heels clicked as I shuffled nervously.

Once there was a girl, I started. Images of a woman, standing across a street I once knew. A bus rushing past, cutting off my view of her. She had this sweater, right? I continued. In my mind’s eye, I followed the woman across the street, towards a familiar building. No, that’s not how it goes. So she gets a sweater for her birthday, okay. I shift backwards, and my feet slide smoothly against the ground. The light is blinding now, everything else a distant echo, but I can still see her walk up the black onyx steps, carefully weave through the grooves in the ground, and stand. We face each other, now, and her ground is my ground. I blink against the glare of the city street light above me and gain focus of my surroundings. Shadows beyond her – buildings and cars and walking commuters. But it’s just she and I. We make eye contact, and the ground melts under me.

the reasons we run

The warning had come the day before.

If they reach the city, now… well. I fear they’ll target you. 

I knew it a week earlier. I had known it since the night with the lines crossing our boundaries and his hands reaching for threads wrapped around my wrists. It was no new prophecy.

There were helices in the sky, little clouds twisting downwards towards the filthy earth beneath. I should have taken notice. I would not have guessed that it would come so soon. A man approached my car on my way home that night. I assumed he was asking for money, and I shook my head a negative, but he walked to my window anyway. Touched the glass of the window. Looked up at the darkening sky. I followed his gaze and saw nothing I had not already seen. When I returned my gaze downward, he was gone. The light turned green. I drove on.

These are the stories of a girl lost, a girl who moves and travels and fights. When the dirt flies, it is her car that kicks rocks into the space above it. We are not caught in stasis any longer; the blood of the ancients fuel our passage on.

Do I tell you of nighttime often? Do I tell you of when the air grows still and the dark grows thick like chalk dust coating your tongue, your throat, your lungs?

There was nothing on the road, though my brain bid me to look. I looked.
There was nothing on the road, though the hair on my neck and arms stood on end and a surge of cold adrenaline hit my heart.
There was nothing on the road until its form showed in the headlights, horse-like and large and muscular.

What do warnings mean to girls who flee?

there was a morning once

There was a fuzzy feeling in my throat when I woke up this morning. Very odd. After I put on my eyeliner (one-one-two strokes, to make it even on top and a whip upwards at the edge) I drank half a bottle of water. The fuzzy feeling remained, but I put on my sweater and got in my car anyway.

Halfway to my destination, the feeling stopped. Sometimes I don’t remember what it’s like to really breathe until I’m allowed to do it. I ran a yellow-now-red light, because there were no cops around.

At 10:17am, three minutes after I had stepped away from my computer, I remembered the dream I had last night, and I got the fuzzy feeling again. It lingered like a blanket you stuff in your mouth to keep from crying too loudly. It moved on my tongue like a Halls that’s supposed to numb the pain but only distracts from it.

There are days when the doors don’t open for me, even if it’s not very often, and I move about pretending to fit in with the other millions. If they all have cotton in their throats, then maybe we can collectively pretend it’s insulation for our vocal chords and not worry about the ticking that follows closely behind.