1.

​

Here’s to you, and trying to forget

My father, who art in nowhere.

Your face, barely seen, burns in memory,

Damned be your name.

 

My father who art in nowhere,

Would you know your children’s faces?

Damned be their names.

Yours was mine, but erased from me.

 

Do you know your children’s faces?

Have they been hidden from your kingdom?

You were mine, and erased yourself-

May your hell be as it is in my earth.

 

I try to hide you as I forge my kingdom,

But daily your ghost creeps back to me.

May your hell be as it is in my nightmares,

Your ghouls the faces of your forgotten children.

 

Your ghost creeps back to me,

And I cannot forgive your trespasses.

The faces of your forgotten children,

I imagine them happy in your absence.

 

I cannot forgive your trespasses, oh father.

Abandonment is an ever-weeping wound.

I imagine myself happy in your absence,

And in moments of temptation, I let myself.

 

Abandonment is an ever-creeping wound,

Climbing spine and occasionally finding brain.

In moments of temptation I let myself

Be delivered from your evil.

 

Here’s to you, and trying to forget

Your face, barely seen- burns in memory.

 

​

2.

​

He left the curtain closed again,

You can feel your bloodstream churn

Crashing red-caps of pulse beat beneath fingers.

 

Breathe slowly, in and out with the metronome of dogs barking

A symphony from the shared wall. Tap your fingers to their music;

If you can hear them, someone would hear you. Surely, hopefully.

 

You keep a knife in every room, just in case, and you white knuckle fingers

Around it as you attack the curtain, finding it concealing nothing but bottles.

You are no less calm knowing that you must climb in and conceal yourself.

 

Shave your legs and keep your back against the wall. Feel the solid grout with your fingers.

Wash your hair with eyes open through burning water, closed they are a swirling horor.

Keep the water running while you slide open the curtain, keep the surprise on your side.

 

Hastily dry yourself with fumbling fingers, nearly call 911 at the shower stop dropping.

Pull your shirt over your head and expect to see a mad man on the other side. Crazed, like you.

Dad’s childhood pranks have nothing on this ruthless anxiety instilled by years of harmless ‘fun.’

 

The bedroom door closes in a trap; but the stairs are still a murder race, don’t look behind you.

Double check that the doors are still locked. Locking you in. Locking in the lurking, too.

Rush to a seat with your back firmly against a wall, feeling its solid comfort with your fingers.

 

Now wait. Exercise your wildest tortures, knife still close by, still waiting.

Envision the doorknob turning, strange fingers curling around the closet

Door that would block you in. Plan an escape route for each new thought.

 

Drink your coffee with not-yet-caffeinated jitter fingers.

Try to read a whole sentence without looking up.

Check the time. Almost there.

 

Finally, the first fingers

Of dawn slip through

The window cracks

 

And, finally,

Its all

Over.

 

​

3.

​

There’s a man living above my shower.

More like a goblin, really.

He’s harmless,

thus far,

Though he peers through cracks

Onto my nakedness.

 

The vent is dusty and spotted

With mold never cleaned.

He sits inside the vent,

His eyes bulging through spaces

In his head,

Like  two blood

Oranges with slits--

Pulpy and dripping

Where there should be whites.

His blackened fingers,

Miniature and curled

With yellowing talons,

Splitting and peeling,

They wrap themselves around

The molded metal, leering

For a better look.

 

While I rinse and repeat

I wonder

How and what he eats, if he does.

He’s never been spotted

Outside of his vent.

He must creep out in the night

To feed

On skin cells and loose hairs

Left about the drain.

Maybe he eats the small roaches

Who crop up in the bottom of the bath,

Or maybe, he breeds them..

That seems like a gremlin thing to do.

 

My showers are always safe, save

The peering and sneering

And the clacking of claws.

But in the closed eyes

Under the shower stream,

I wonder

If he climbs down from his vent,

His skin scarred and bubbling

With boils ready to burst,

Patches sloughing off mid-molt,

Carefully careening into the tub

With a swiftness unexpected for

A small thing so round.

Sure to keep his long hooks

From making startling noise,

Does he enter the space with me?

Those fingertips could surely pierce

My naked flesh and leave the tub

Running red.

 

For now, though, I’ll shower

With gremlin attending,

For my exterminator

Doesn’t believe in gremlins.

 

​

4.

​

Staring through yourself

Into the mirror, you wonder -

What atrocious act you've committed

To deserve this young, but sagging body;

This too-round face and dirty

Brown eyes glaring back

In hollow ambiguity.

Your hip bones are indiscernible,

Your belly quivers in a bread dough

Jiggle of overindulgence and hidden shame.

Your man hands reach backside, once thought sexy,

Now understood as imperfect and oblong.

 

But her, wow. Just look. She's radiant;

Her smile a washing warmth,

Her swagger a soft swishy sashay.

Her breasts, perfectly capped with cold

and bobbing unencumbered.

Her backside a mesmerizing pendulum.

As she walks, she casts a numbness over

Senses and eye-movement. You are caught

In her gaze, her ass, her sensual sway.

You think of her in the mirror,

Hands careening over those worshipped bits.

She is a goddess of confidence, clueless.

 

But, she is you, is she not?

Little do you know her obsessions

Over cheek dimples and roll overs.

When she sits she fidgets with shirt lengths

And riding shorts, worries about thigh

Dimples And perky-enough-breasts.

She sweats internally from her too-fucking-early

Sexualized childhood, which convinces her

That life is some sort of overdrawn porn;

That she must be sexy, and it's her only

Redeeming quality- her ability to harden

Certain male appendages.

 

But if you only knew that each Earthbound goddess

That struts past you spends hours in scrutiny

Strutting past demon mirrors of her own.

And that you're all god loved goddesses,

If you could only see your pillows of flesh as

Intentionally placed comfort for men and babes alike,

And find comfort in your own unique humanity-

That which makes you you.

If you could only see how others see you

In your laughter and untamed silliness.

You would know that to someone,

You are the confident goddess who rules the world.