Oh, Baba Yaga: A Good Score Is Between 40 and 60

I love that my soul is in ten sweeping universes as we speak. I love that however terrible forty-five minutes can go, a weekend approaches. With dancing and ill, malformed, delighted wiggling and sweet wine. I love that there is purple hair dye in my bathroom calling me. I love that silk robe that seems to make the world on my shoulders feel escapable by parachute. I love the kind whispers saying the kind words, all done as if we’re in a film noir. I love that I saved myself. I love that I knew what to do and did it. I love that I am willing to throw myself into the fire and burn myself to bones for a good idea. I love that piercing eye.

Imago Fabulae

Aloneness is not weakness or bravery. It just is. It is a state of self that exists in me now regardless of how many people I share a room or a drink with. It exists in me even when I share and recognize it in others. Even beyond logic. I often crave it even as I’m experiencing it.

Avast

There were epics in which I never uncovered my face,
though I saved you
from the cannibals desirous
of your scalp,
from the Lorelai,
from the mirages in the desert that sung your true name.

Elan Vitae

A muffled noise, the feeling of sheets being draped over and pulled away from his body inch by inch, one by one until the darkness…

At the End of the Day (For Peter)

It feels somehow, at 11:30 p.m. like you are sitting on the day’s windowsill as the earthly set designers change the scenes around you. Draw in a tree and drape blue and purple leaves on its arms, pull out a curtain of evening sky and stud it with zirconia, paint the middle distance until it pulls the eye into infinity.

Death Ward

And they, with delicate hands so very rarely seen and never thanked or held, clear away the silver pudding skin of time and throw all of that delicious stuff, the umami of the spirit, the meat that makes a man from a mouse, a woman from a whisper, back in the pot of what might yet be.

The Fate Thief

I don’t know why I can still feel you here, why I still observe the calendar with some urgency as if we are approaching anniversaries where we would surely need to meet and celebrate. Me in my horrible dress, you in that wrecked shirt. I give you up to the wind and the earth draws you back and spits you into my path. This is no great destiny, but you gave me comfort and purpose once.

Self-Esteem Recipe

Those voices in your head: not all of them are wrong, and on a hard night running, one of them is willing to take charge for a minute and help you power through. Life is so dismal these days. It isn’t bad to sometimes let it work for you.

Robot vs. The Monkey

If it goes, you go, really, with it to the scrap heap. And the robot runs the work, while you nestle without pain into the witch jar of rusted nails and half-broken thumb tacks and sharp memories claimed to be forgotten. You dream in the lemonade, you start floating around with the chili pepper, you burn and reformulate.