He said my thighs were boyish, big, said less to crush you with. He claimed my body was a roadmap. Complicated to read without clear-cut direction, without consciousness, I turned over like a cheek & found a cig-burn on my back’s blade. He said I was a hot one, crush of filtered, photo, semen’s spring.

Splayed across the front seat, cock blocked view of the oncoming road. When he pulled out & over on the shoulder, I skirted strangers’ questions. O ring cheap scar smoke eye gallop tripping over six eyes, sex legs, crushed mouth, nip slip, evidence, so many tongues, so many

*** *** ***

Tongues. So many tongues to strip from shoes, so many strings to take out bagged possessions. Ward-Robe, white gown, white sheet, white page, in the ward we ghost inhale & ghost exhale the thought if only I was King here with my idle hands pulled on the shoulder waiting for headlights to flick or brain-fire to be put out.

*** *** ***

We put out & we live by promises of rings & fingers in the right spot good job G strings are prohibited inside the ward no strings but men here laugh say fuck me baby as I beg the nurse to leave me nightingales say here say have a Quiet Room they cough up a cement cell they tell me here come cry in do not threaten, call for help.

I call for help over & over on the land line ask for the extension of the agents of the arm of god my King says firecrotch. Says firearm. Says fired, fired, fired. I fire all the men with reclaimed wood & hobblehorse. Then, some patriarchal god sweeps in & tells them No, I got your back.

If I turn back take back buy back tonight I won’t weep won’t

*** *** ***

Weep))

My iris is a waterbed to poke a hole in

like a condom would be broken leak of fluid

am I really

just a boy turned over like a mouth a stone inside the park that we flip over to find some worms in there

the wormhole is under my body’s stone brim like a furnace

flip me over & I speak so many tongues

*** *** ***

My hobby: dress I kill & later tell it sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry this my neckline con- fessional why don’t you scoop out every inch of fabric of my being / my lost sheep little boy blue ball blue in the iris my ringed pupil yes we clouded judgement vision this here number you can call or even number you can be perhaps statistic call tonight if you are lonely me myself

my hot line & my vein the roofie wafer body worm hole wound-well-open Baptists dipped their hands in me said O my idol-grrrl my idol how many licks years does it / will it / take & does it take the edge off take the edge off of a blotter / white the black-out

body out / to take communion tonight my bible curled to ash a snake’s tongue splitting at the seams I locked the four men in the fire though I only know the names of three. Despite, for every crime I see Abednego won’t burn.

I open the curtain; I close the curtain. I go to therapy; I go to the store. I fill the intake forms in purple gel pen to make it through the inventories. Awake, all night, I remember new pieces of iinformation. I buy a rod to assist in opening & closing the curtain. I look outside the window.

*** *** ***

Call me Angel. Call me Dust. I am a dime. A dime bag. Minnow. Something silver. Something silver. Sinking in the body. Of the river. Change. The men we carry in our hips. Who carry us down stream. Who carry us down stream and skim the skin. The skin. That night I was. That night I was a grl. Supposedly no angel. I treaded, tread, am treading rapids, rapid, dark; I am here again to ask you nicely: am I a wake, awake, a wake.

*** *** ***

I have always been called ‘sensitive.’ I see a stage; I stand on it. I remember my mother pulling me from the staircase: “stop crying”; “you’re making this up”; or “for attention”. I find a curtain to open, to close. I bow. I clap. I stand near the curtain. Some body calls this art. Some body calls this grief. Some body calls this another meaning -ful or meaning -less performance. Some body calls my phone and it rings and rings.

*** *** ***

                                        snap out of it            snap fingers cracked blown piece into the glass             snap out of it            laced weed & pop of PCP into the glass             snap out of it            snap fingers cracked bowl cherry Babe

says any wing-man can (flip) on or for a dime I am a dime

bag or a minnow in the body in the river (flip) in quiet moments when I see your kids’ faces & (flip) inside the moment when you handed over their picture menacing “I’ll use a condom kiddo—" (flip)

*** *** ***

I wonder if the cashier at Arby’s has trauma too. I almost ask them but instead thank them 3 consecutive times in the drive-thru, you know, just in case. I hold my large ice water in both hands. Think of a cool glass of water, there are many grounding techniques—I suggest you carry water with you when you write. when your body’s had enough, too much, take a sip and listen to your throat slake. taste the cool and trail it through your spine. I have spent five days and nights avoiding my assignment. An impact statement. Not details, but how the incident changed, continues to change, my life.

*** *** ***

If I should die before I wake, (flip) me on my back like a good wing-man. Else err on the side of caution tape I’m sorry to the mirror. Play the fault line over yes (flip) over & again. I’ll shave my head to skull to (flip) the tape the movie memory made bare. Bare back get back (full-stop) & (flip) over & again. To (flip) every image that comes back in speck of glass shoved in a hand a foot a foot-hold. (flip) the shattered self & fuzzy feeling. (flip) the scripture that skin reels away. The skin that reels away like film like story marquee trauma (flip) into the glass. No longer on the cutting edge, shrink-wrapped I rarely come undone.

*** *** ***

We’ll start with the hardest, deepest rooted. if you’re willing. then go from there. To hold truth like a curtain. A little flapping lid. My eye. my I. My I: another stage. Another stage; I’m going through.

*** *** ***

When I walked into the white-vased room of the asylum. When my roses were at war & blooming bloodshot on the smallest dark green plastic bed. When the nurses called my halos areolas.

*** *** ***

*** *** ***

If I Should Die Before I Wake, please (flip) me on my back. I’m back. No good wing- man ever made of angel dust & weed; I dust the record off. To voice over our past, play god & ghost, to ghost, to write, to ghost-write. A new version. To open the curtain. To close the curtain. The flutter in the lid. I open the curtain; I close the curtain. I go to therapy. I go to the store. Some body calls my phone. I answer quickly when it rings.