page4

I've exploited this image so much, my manipulations are almost effortless. Almost expected. So I'm almost disposable. And I asked for it. I asked to lie down on a huge sheet of butcher paper and get traced and fill in the outline of my body with crayons whose colors I renamed. I asked to recline and view this murder of crows from a luxurious angle. From a clinical angle. I handcuffed myself to the examination table, covered with stiff white paper so my flesh doesn't corrode the metal. The implements are dangled in front of my face and then yanked away. I don't want to look anymore. I don't want to think about him anymore. The only thing I like about sadness is how it grants me reprieve from my anger - but not for long. The anger comes back strong until I think I'm not a poet or artist at all. I'm just some angry girl.

I just wanted to flirt with the hissing sexual tension, all wrapped up in his dark hair. I failed to notice the present was wrapped up like a bomb. I just wanted to brush his hair and see what happened. I just wanted to attract his attention. But his attention span was gone or I wasn't attractive enough. I wasn't dark enough for him. I couldn't hiss and curl around his neck like the serpentine solace of his own knotted strands. That sultry, hissing tension that ends in a sordid sigh, a last exhalation, a snap. Something snaked from his mouth with a succulent hiss, a deathly kiss. Black paint on warped nails, turning madder blue. Cyanosis. Discolored saturation. You grew your hair so long after he died. My hair is so long it mingles, entangles. In tangles.

When I use my fine-toothed comb, I see I've been shot with silver. So I can't be the fairy tale heroine anymore. I'll have to be the witch. With a flock of pet crows to do my bidding. I'm talking a murder. I'm talking a searing oven where all the artists will burn like candy-coated martyrs in the sweetest sacrifice. I'll slide out the silver tray of gingerbread poets and I'll consume them all. I'll stash all their words inside my ribcage. Until I hack them up. I meant to stop with a spoonful; but I grabbed the knife by mistake, so I took that as a sign. To cut out the shape of a candy-buttoned boy. To bite off the eyes and let them melt the right tone on my tongue. That buzzing, wailing tone. That hair-curling tone. That excruciating vibration of motorized pinpricks and red beads. That tone that wraps around necks like a tight necklace. Now you tell me you can't breathe. Now you tell me you can't collect all the beads as they spill onto hollow chocolate floors with the sound of dollhouse bullets. Do you think I'm just a doll? Do you think my eyes snap open and closed when my head tilts back? Why don't you get your dick out of my mouth and focus on my hairdo. I bought a new wig to hide the ugly roots that twist us up inside. The imprint as sharp as a stiletto in my side. I'm unsatisfied. I'm unsettled. I'm insatiable. My lips are marooned. They're painted so prettily, you want to stick something in. Fine, go ahead and shut me up. Go ahead and fuck me while I sleep.

In my dream or in my alternate reality, his voice seeps into the room - through the cracks in twisted floorboards, through the cracks in the veneer, through the cracks in my make up. It rises up and slinks around my throat like a black boa. Feathers float and spike my bare shoulders. I'm naked and wet and my hair is dripping a sweet-smelling trail down my spine. Spiky black feathers and lovely perfume float all around us until we almost feel like we're flying; like we're angels. But then I see all the spiders with mocking demon eyes. Did he think that rope was dragline silk? Did he think that gag was a kiss? Did he think the choking sensation was pure bliss? I wish the music in my dreams would wake me up to the truth. I wish I could transcend all fiction and deranged pain. But my dream intersects with real life in one way - the floating never lasts as long as the sinking.