Red and Yellow

With the strike of a bat
the piñata rained candies
and they dove for them
greedy grubby hands
snatching the sugar away
when in the corner I found
a yellow lollipop
half-smashed by an eager shoe;
lemon or butterscotch.
When I bent to claim it
a Perfect girl with butterscotch hair
and mint-blue eyes
approached,
a red lollipop
in her clutch,
a scowl on her lips.
That’s dirty she snapped;
how she glared at me
like I was dirty blood
how she loomed above me,
tainted blood
You’re dirty, she said
to my licorice head
stranded in a lemon sea.
I ached to shatter
her red lollipop to shards
that would lodge into
her Perfect mint-blue eyes
and bleed the vanity out of them.

Cassandra

Cassandra

When I’ve been shredded to confetti
fluttering in pieces to the linoleum,
my blood lures the wolves
with their straitjackets
to throw me in a cage rusting
somewhere on the west end of hell.

These reruns of my future play
in blurs and snapshots
set forever on rewind.
I am no clairvoyant;
I just see the inevitable.

Maybe this is all a hallucination
that blooms like the dandelions
rooting deep inside my skull
thriving off the cyanide.

Everything is glitter and black
In this labyrinth where I am nothing but a pinball
Flicked through plastic channels.

Tear me apart and scatter my ashes
on the vacant lot of this dream.
hurl me into oblivion;
and never hear me scream.

The Chapel of the Dormition

I was seven years old thighs numbing on the church pew, swinging my legs feet strapped into black patent Mary Janes and frilled ankle socks, pressing a wad of spearmint gum to the side of my mouth in a show of respect before the rows of red jar candles flickering beneath a gilded icon of the Holy Mother on her deathbed tendrils of incense intertwining with whispers of They need to move it and they told me Elizabeth stay where you are don’t move as they filed out the door in their black tweed black linen black pumps sheer-to-waist black stockings with a run on the left calf Stay in the chapel, Elizabeth as my legs thrashed ever more violently on the ancient polished wood spotted with candle wax and greased with orange oil Just wait in the chapel as I scraped at the grime on the pew till the undersides of my fingernails turned black and I desperately clawed beneath them to scratch out the tar until they started bleeding and the icon of Saint John’s head bleeding onto a silver platter was staring at me from the east wall and Saint Barbara’s disembodied eyes bored holes into my forehead with every choking breath of smoke thick with resins I gasped for outside air Stay in the chapel, Elizabeth and staggering towards the ancient double doors I tried to shove it open but the lock held fast until one door slid half an inch forward and one eye strained through the crack spying dirt stray grass blurred sky fading to slategray haze of upturned earth streaked with grassblades thudding of footsteps my father’s coffin caked with dirt being hoisted to a new plot by ruddy sweating men in linen shirts with their sleeves rolled up sweat rolling down my forehead stinging my eyes Saint Barbara’s eyes Stay in the chapel Elizabeth choking on frankincense smoke on the silver platter boring holes into my skull slate dirt stained mahogany swirled with beeswax incense blood of St. John blinding as I stumbled back to the pew digging fingers into grime and candlewax panting when my mother in her sheer-to-waists and the black linen brigade returned they found me on the pew swinging my legs spearmint gum mixing with metallic bloodtaste— Good girl they said.

Samhainophobia

Trick-or-treating in grade school,
we hunted the houses with the most
polyester cobwebs, strobe lights, bedsheet ghosts,
rubber-masked grim reapers with flashing eyes
that cackled and snapped their jaws;
the more obscured by tangles of twisted oaks
and brambles and shrubs the house was,
the faster we tore across its lawn.

Sophomore year of high school we ventured into
the deepest shadows of surburbia, costumes for armor:
a prom-queen ghost, a hanging victim, a zombie nun.
The firehouse siren blasted nine. We tramped across asphalt littered with toilet paper streamers, shaving cream spatters and dried leaves that crackled beneath the rubber soles of our sneakers
in the post-curfew silence. It was at the junction of Westwood
and Terbell Ave. that the prom queen's arm shot out,
fingers gripping plastic scepter until her knuckles turned white,
as her drooping jaw cracked the white foundation caked on her face
and her melting eyeballs streaked her mascara.

She prodded the rest of us with her scepter until
a rustle sounded in the distance; she shrieked and bolted,
and we followed suit, sprinting half a mile
straight to her house.

In between bites of bonbons and caramel chews
we learned from the prom queen sitting cross-legged on the carpet,
crown cocked to one angle and scepter on the piano stool,
that the two-story gray colonial with the unfinished driveway
at the end of Terbell, abandoned since the summer of sixth grade,
was home to a convicted rapist who had just been released
on parole the week before.

Inspired by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's perfume blend of the same name

A Murder of Crows

In a gauzy dusk pierced by the screech of a murder of crows stray petals from funeral swags swirl in icy gusts scattering them across the headstones;
With lips chapped raw, bluish feet upon the granite, I trample bruised petals and dead leaves on your sepulcher.
Naked branches rattle a disjointed rhythm and crows cackle, all oilslick wings and marble eyes glinting in a shaft of moonlight as the edges of a vindictive smile curl upon Luna’s spectral face.
With every crack and chap of salty lips every stream of blood streaking my nightshirt clotting in the crevices of the engraving; every crimson blotch upon scentless petals blown over from a spray that was not even yours sends your poison seeping through cracks in the stone through six feet of packed earth to its source in a pine box.
When even shadows tremble in the chill and dead leaves are embalmed with frost is when I finally leave the sepulcher and your memory to the crows.

Aftermath of the 4th of July

Aftermath of the 4th of July

Lawns are bathed in
lurid prime-time television glow,
air saturated with anti-mosquito citronella.
Fireflies string together on azalea bushes,
garden lanterns bobbing in the breeze like glowing tangerines, stillness peppered with mutters from upstairs and the buzz and crack of moths and beetles exploding into sparks
in electric bug-zappers as cicadas hum to the tune of a crackling radio
playing in the background for teenagers
on the driveway lighting sparklers which explode into anemones that dissolve and fall gently down to earth in a shower of confetti shards.

Chiroptera

I
By blacklight they flit
through darkness splotched with violet;
electirc veins the skeletons of their wings,
webbed with pitch and rubber.

II
They gnaw the lightbulb filaments
and the dreamcatcher to shreds.

III
Swirling into a cloud
of white vapor and moonshine
pierced by crystalline drops
of glass and snow and ether,
they shriek unholy hymns
into the night.

IV
A wasteland.
Vast expanse of blue earth.
Under a tin-can moon
shadows dance around a bonfire,
weaving and reeling as its flames
curl into dragons that seethe and fade
with a hiss into smoke wisps.
A chariot of umbrella frames
rattles down through the fire
and explodes into copper sparks.
Beating of wings;
they fly on.

V
A grand ballroom.
Swirls of gilded opulence.
She clutches his bloody eyes
In her hand as he blindly twirls her
over the marble floor at her command,
grasping for them and every time
losing a finger. She laughs and
the chandelier echoes her.
Candlesticks glide across the ceiling
To the rhythm of a black waltz.
Beating of wings;
they fly on.

VI
A deserted asylum.
Lurid fluorescent corridors.
Wind up dentures chatter into a phone
on the reception desk. Doors
flap open and shut to the cough
of a congested radio. Wheels grind
over vomit-green vinyl tiling
with a clatter of metal; walls tremble.
Moans issue from the abyss
past the exit sign. Blackout.
Beating of wings
into oblivion—

VII
White light. Halogen.
They vanish.

Inspired by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's perfume blend of the same name.