I smell like crotch. There are so many things to write about that I don’t know where to start.

Picking blackberries that afternoon-- climbing down to the water; he brought a bag and we carried them, sliding down between the rocks-- it was a place that I would like to crouch naked, water running between my ankles with sediment dragging like hair, wound, carrying; we lived together that week, in a cheap hotel where we fucked for hours, beat each other, arm in arm and leg in leg wound like sea creatures, singing, waking up to the muted sunlight through the holes in the curtains, our faces together in bed, touching-- we lived together, a small fridge, a microwave, a shower with warm water, avocadoes hummus tomatoes and organic cheddar bunnies, red romaine leaves he said tasted like butter, that shitty soup, the bowls we stole from his apartment; I dressed for work, pants button-up shirt tie belt black and white saddle shoes, he blew me before I left, his face ecstatic and sweet, my pants around my knees-- I chainsmoked in the car, drove strange streets now familiar, missed him, smelled him on my hands-- he slept.

We carried them, down to the water, back up the incline, back to the hotel room eventually (and I could, I want to I wish I could parse each memory, sift it through my head between my fingers on the keys like sediment in water, like the tentacles of sea creatures, mermaid hair, gentle swirling tugging carrying weightless-- it is hard to let go of moments so precious, hard to let them flow and in some senses other than the body [once touched, electrified, altered, reborn] be forgotten), and they stayed there, hot and rotting from the sun as we swam in the pool, until we left, (the corner, one floor above the pool, layers of paint flaking on the railing, the slim junky forest sheltering the pool, the leaves on the brown water surface beneath, the zomboid treachery of the depths where he wouldn’t swim and I did not-- that too, we left the places where we spoke, we fucked, we pretended we lived there, we left) and we carried them with us--

On that incomprehensible road trip away, the twisting country roads in darkness, back to where I had lived, food-- blackberries peanut butter hummus, remains-- rotting in the back seat, my hand between his legs-- heat-- and kermit sang, he sang, he slept beside me; I carried him with me through the darkness, and we carried them to the sea--

In the dark, the blackberries stung, reeked, naked from the waist up we smeared them on each other, stinging, stinking, we danced in the water and it sparkled with the remains of sea creatures, fluorescent on our bodies, we scrubbed with sand, we drew and broke the circle, we danced, we kissed, we left--

We hold on and let go at the same time-- that is our paradox, everyone’s-- we carry them, they rot, we make wine and paint and dance and love and we leave, reeking, stung, ecstatic.

It is easier to be alone than to be left with nothing but what you had to begin with, your own skin and pulse, conflicting desires, fears, the pockets of air against your skin beneath your clothes, the unending, hopeless responsibility of survival. Alone, working diligently towards something, reaching-- I have nothing to lose. Once I become a part of something, I can lose everything.

Or so it seems anyway. I have learned repeatedly that the way to survive is to keep moving-- to slow and have faith is to be betrayed, to trust is to lose. Everything I have learned in life tells me that this is the time to run. Everything that I have learned in life tells me that this is the time to stay--

if only for a little while, because we have all the time in the universe
and the only time in the universe is now.

this time last year I was driving back from Atlanta
and I could hear the air, huge and blue and quiet outside,
slowing, shrinking, compacting itself to seep colorlessly
through the dark cracks around the windows, the windshield,
the secret deep tunnels of the door, and whirl 
hissing around my head, my shoulders, 
before pooling to a choppy murmur in the backseat,
as if it were sleeping there, tossing in nightmare.

this time last year my jaw was swollen,
my neck aching, my cunt scratched and dirty,
my eye twitching, my face ticcing,
my whole body shook and jumping like he 
would reach for me from the sleeping pool 
of air and close his hands on my body again,
like I carried him with me, his rape in me,
his voice in my ear, his knuckles 
tense and tight in my throat.

last night I feel asleep on the couch
with the ochre light of the lamp arching
over me in the darkness, my spine-broke book
spread on the floor like an upside down bird,
fallen open to the page I had copied and hung
on the door, below the picture of my sister
blowing bubbles into a pristine blue sky:
“In this condition stirred not only by men but by women 
by teenagers and children in latency    by animals such as horses and dogs
by certain vegetables such as carrots zucchinis eggplants 
by fruits such as melons grapefruits kiwis
by certain plant parts such as petals sepals stamens pistils 
by the bare arm of a wooden chair      a little hot sunlight 
a person entering a tunnel in the distance 
a hand alighting on a bare shoulder      a naked tree limb 
by any touch, as the touch of a stranger handling money”

I woke on the couch at the same time
last year that Dante and I had returned 
to his apartment, arguing; and I walked to
my bedroom to lay beside my child, sleeping
naked under thin blue sheets in arching lamplight,
at the same time last year that I had asked him,
You’re telling me you could kill someone?
Someone who wasn’t trying to kill you?
You really think that some people deserve to die,
that you can judge that, and kill them?
And, as that time last year, my heart pounded with fear
of death, my daughter’s hair burning brilliant orange 
in the night, her skin white, shot with blue veins, 
an artery jumping rhythmically in her throat
as I pulled the sheets to slip beside her,
cool fabric smooth on my goose bumped legs

she didn’t wake, and I turned off the lamp
and, eventually, slept, as I had tried to do 
last year, thinking him asleep after our argument,
after I had finished it with him-- I should’ve left--
I should’ve left-- but I lay beside him trying to sleep,
thinking him asleep, and this year I slept while last year
he reached for me across those spaces filled
with darkness, his hand first, fingers snagging on
the sweaty fabric of my t-shirt, curving up, closing,
his mouth and body following, his arms and chest 
and face like bars around me, his slack mouth
O-ed like he was blowing bubbles, eyes closed

and as he raped me last year, this year I slept--

as, last year, I stumbled from his bedroom, sat cold and aching
on his toilet in the dark, shaking, hands tense in my armpits--

as, last year, I turned on the lamp in his living room, and gathered
what of mine I could remember, and find, my hands jerking
on the zipper of my bag--

as, last year, I stood in the doorway to the bedroom, where he still lay,
immobile, face down, and swallowed back the words, thank you for stopping--

as, last year, he asked me to stay, said he was so tired, said we needed to talk about it--

as, last year, I left his apartment, down the stairs he had once dragged me up by my neck, 
watching each foot place itself securely on each concrete step, one, two, three, four--

as, last year, I drove, lost, in three a.m. darkness, weaving through gas station facades, paperboard trees, eerie shrubs in flattened falling streetlight--

As, last year, I lay swollen eyed and dumb on her couch, numb in the roar of her refrigerator--

this year I slept.

In that me, that body, that raped body, of last year-- in that me, that body, suspended over a dark void, aching-- in that body searching, fleeing, shaking, numb-- in that body of last year, escaping, each footfall counted down-- was the sleeping body of this year, safe, at rest,

and to no small comfort in the Dharma do I realize that that sleeping me was in the rape, in the escape, carried in my body, dreamless, peaceful, waiting for the realization that is every moment, then, now, the raped and the sleeping--

And maybe I can imagine time expanding, doubling up, rippling, pooling, and the Daddy of me-now, the sleeping body, the year-later body, in a black bowler hat and white suspenders, could kneel

beside the boy of me-then, the raped body, the sleepless boy, in a crushed trilby and dirty jeans, heart pounding in the rolling roar of the refrigerator, my fingers rigid on the blanket I’ve pulled up to my chin,

and whisper

- my cd’s were stolen-à my gf burned cds of music she thought I’d likeà Regina Spektor was singing a song in my car this morning after I dropped the kid off at her school, and instead of going home I kept driving until the lane turned into a forced turn:

Fuck you for the hand across my face.
Fuck you for the fist against my jaw.
Fuck you for your hands around my neck.
Fuck you for your hand up my shirt.
Fuck you for your fingers between my legs.
Fuck you for your breath in my ear.
Fuck you for your weight up on my chest.

rape, death, inclement weather

I. Rape

His bed smelled like cat piss.
I said, this doesn’t fit,
cat hairs in my throat.
His hand was hot;
he said, shut up,
his body heavy on my chest,
his face pale and mechanical
above me,
the cat watching from the corner.

II. Death

We ran.
Her hands were on his face,
his ear was blue.
He opened his eyes,
his chest rose;
the nurse with her stethoscope
told us that his heart
continued to beat through
his suspended breath.
We waited.

III. Inclement Weather

Dark, hot, 
the child gone to Florida--
the curves and crevices
of her arms lit by sudden lightning--
the image of her skin, warm, on mine
sustained with shocking clarity
as my fever sweated high--
the lightning rolled over silently, 
she pressed her lips to my face, 
her heartbeat steady
on my cheek