Force your throat to swallow
ignore the familiar numbers
you punched
a million times before
promise the screaming dial not to call
do not imagine her
teeth spread wide
for other worlds
insecurities
invisible in the new landscape of dust
a new self falling
defense mechanism
hardening
in the face of your unecessariness
your incessant
need
mourning an old woman that only exists
in your frail memory
small
inaccurate
renditions that were never real to anyone
but you
you stupid bitch
how could you believe
someone so normal
would stay with you?
reach for the familiar
even if they reject your affections
practice surviving that denial
get better at it for the next woman
who will follow suit
and run
make those firm reservations to go home
to talk
to confess the parts of you
wanting to slit your wrists
slow blood leaks
criss-crossing like a Pollock painted there
ignore the thin skin
turned mocking against
your jugular
remember
survival is all in the hours
try not to count them
ignore the tick
ticking knuckle pressed to mouth
fingers raw from the effort
of lying to yourself
repeat her promises
remember summer
photograps of sky
naked joy
and how you thought it could never be winter again
fall into the stride of this new season
remember that love is a brilliant illusion
make peace with how good she was at it
do not kill youself
chant the letters found in a life with so many leavings
her family
was never your family
her mother was always
her mother
her gruff father
concerned with your roots
only as they extended from her palms
her long fingers
parting red stands of your hair
your head is irrelevant
you
are irrelevant
make peace with it
drink more
water
and though you ache for a vice
do not acquire one
not now
not yet
wait
for clarity
remember how you hate the smell of alcohol
on your breath
how stupid
you look after one sip of anything hard
remember that this time is as hard as it is
because your grandmother
your mother
the only person that was ever yours to lose
is dead
you lost your Grand-Mother
woman you lost
your anchor
your place of belonging
so it ain't no wonder
you crying longer
this time
harder
louder
than you used to, child
your heart was broken
and then run over
your heart was broken
then run
over the bridge
and under the racket of wanting one of them to appear
anyone would do
just now
Grandma
her
and still
there is only the night
and no woman
young
or old
nobody to hold me
only the kindness of strangers
cab drivers
toddlers in the airport
tell me
hush
don't cry Mad Hatter
stop that weeping
why are you doinf that all the time
in airports
and windows
and taxies
and strangers
beg you
please don't
cry
lady please
just pay the fare
and get out of my cab
time is money
and this city don't pay me enough
I am become my mother
Mad Hatter in a foreign country
reaching for strangers
because I am tired of being
together
all the time
I have to be together
I am only allowed to weep
in performance
when the curtain
is drawn
I am expected to name the parameters
of my pain
speak articulate
clear
fair-minded
weight both sides
understand why they both had to go
at once
they had their reasons
I am sure they had their reasons
be reasonable
Black
Biracial girl
(Black really)
here stands the subject
crying for home
for Grandmother
for woman
for touch
when I am not sleeping with anyone
New York is so lonely
I dream in chorus
ache
for coworkers
but I work alone
I travel alone
and when I am alone
I do not exist
and now you are dead
and dead is beginning to look
like something softer
than this travesty
of a life
a window
a red wall
a few dogs gone bad
and me
left here with these hours
pressing futile against my larynx-
with the heel of this sorrow placed so brutal
at the base of my throat
I am frightened
because it has never before
hurt so much
to speak