Project: MANHOOD

During my journey through Motherville, I have come to that wasteland we know as adolescence. That time when a sweet little baby becomes a maniacal mess of hormones and angst. I live with two of them - a boy of 17 and a girl of 15. In about sixty days, give or take, they will become 18 and 16 respectively and at this point they are beginning to believe that they are adults. Or close enough to being adults that I should pretend that they are. Teen Boy is right in the throes of a delusional manhood fantasy. Which means that I am not drinking nearly enough vodka. Back when Teen Boy was Young Boy, he was energetic and, quite frankly, disobedient. He wasn't "bad" exactly, he just had his own mind about things. It was always hard to get him to go to bed when it was bedtime, eat when it was mealtime, and sit his ass down when it was school time. So, I should not be surprised that Teen Boy also has his own mind about things. In Teen Boy's mind, at 17 he's a man and men don't have to call when they are going to be late (or not be home at all), they don't have to turn the lights off when they leave a room or a house, and they don't have to clean anything. Ever. Another perk to manhood, according to Teen Boy is that men get to blast their music, no matter what the hour. In fact, the louder your music, the bigger your balls. I'm sure all you men are nodding in agreement right now. It isn't just the age that has Teen Boy so confused about adulthood. You see, Teen Boy has a job. Let me be clear. I am happy for Teen Boy and super proud of him for being employed. At a time when so many black teenagers are without work, he got out there and got himself a job. I know exactly how he feels every other Friday when he gets a paycheck with his name on it and exchanges it for cash - cash that belongs only to him, cash that he can spend on any foolish thing he chooses and I can't say a damn thing about it. I know because I remember. I was his age when I got my first job and nothing, NOTHING brought me more joy than buying clothes that my mother hated and when she sighed and shook her head at me I LOVED saying in my most shrill voice, "Mom! It's MY money!" Teen Boy's inconsiderate behavior (coupled with my overreaction, if I'm going to be honest) hit a crescendo last week. He went to work, didn't come home and didn't call. His cell phone was dead and he left it at some girl's house. For more than 24 hours I had NO IDEA where he was. I didn't panic at first because it wasn't unusual for him to go out for long stretches of time and just be too wrapped up in his grown man life to call or text and say, "Hey Mom, I'm at (insert the name of whatever urban urchin he's hanging with here) and I won't be home until (insert some ungodly hour here)." But when morning came and still no word, I started to worry. But I still didn't really panic because I was so well-trained by his thoughtlessness. I texted his friends. I don't know all of their names, but I do write down all of the phone numbers that I find in his cell phone, written on scraps of paper and the call lists from the landline. I texted them all saying, "This is Teen Boy's mom. He never came home. If you see him tell him to call me." I went to work and the hours kept advancing and I never got a call from him. By 10 AM, my heart was racing a bit, I couldn't concentrate and my breath kept getting caught in my throat. I went to his Facebook page and scrolled through his friends and found a new friend, a coworker of his that I knew he'd spent social time with recently. I sent her a message. She called but had not seen Teen Boy in a couple of days. I was caught between the horror that something terrible had really happened to Teen Boy or he was just being an asshole. Clinging to the hope that Teen Boy was just being an asshole, I posted a message on his Facebook page, calling him out publicly and telling him that if he couldn't find his way to make a phone call, then he needed to find another place to live. I went to lunch and pushed my food around a plastic container and complained to a couple of coworkers about my parenting woes. They were sympathetic and assured me Teen Boy was fine, just "being a boy." And by the way, that is the dumbest excuse ever. Every single time a male child does something dumb, I hear that same knee jerk response, "oh, he's just being a boy." Now, if I hit him in the back of the head with a two by four, do you think anyone would say, "oh, she's just being an overworked, stressed out, unappreciated mom"? Anyway, Teen Boy called twice while I was at lunch and he asked, "Why are you looking all over for me?" I was surprisingly calm. Well, more accurately, exhausted from worry and relieved that he was okay. Turns out, he was at my parents' home the entire time. No, I didn't call over there looking for him, and yeah, I guess I should have. But why do I have to look for him at all? Why couldn't he just let me know? Didn't he have a duty to inform me when his plans changed? Funny thing about Teen Boy, he is super sensitive. So the Facebook thing really hurt his feelings. So he went to friend's home for two days to wear his pouty, "I'll Show Her" face. Same one he's had since he was two. He arrived home after sufficient sulking and we talked it out. He apologized for worrying me, sort of. I apologized for embarrassing him, sort of. But neither one of us is really sorry. We are locked in an inevitable battle. He wants his manhood and he thinks I am holding it hostage. So he's making a big fuss thinking he can annoy me into setting him free. Teen Boy, like all of the Teens, doesn't realize that adulthood can't be experienced with training wheels and it isn't something that can be withheld or hidden. It's a life sentence that is waiting for him like it waited for all of us. He hears rumors of late nights, lots of sex with girls, drinking and drugs, spending money on anything you want and no Mother there to scold you or take privileges or yell and scream. But most of the time adulthood is an endless struggle to keep your life held together with scotch tape and bubble gum, surviving one crisis after another, dodging debris, hoping for a day or two off so you can have a late night, sex with a girl, a drink, buy something you need and remember a Mother who used to bear the struggle for you so that you could complain about how she treated you like a baby. God, I hope he makes it. Originally written May 2012

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day, as we know it, is bullshit. Yeah, I said it. Mother's Day is that annual 24-hour period when people think they can actually thank their mothers for "everything they do." An absolute impossibility because our kids have NO IDEA of all the shit we do (and don't do) for their benefit and amusement. No Fucking Idea. Even though I am a mother now, I don't even pretend to know everything that my mother has done for me. I have no idea of all the times she prayed me out of trouble, stopped herself from telling me the truth because I couldn't handle it, dried my tears when she really should have been crying herself. I don't even know what all she did without, so that I could have whatever. You see motherhood is at once a sisterhood and a singular experience. So Mother's Day can't really be anything but a day long illusion. It's a game where our kids pretend to appreciate that which they cannot grasp and we pretend to believe that they grasp something they could never fully appreciate. None of this is to say that kids don't love their mothers. Of course they do! And every time they kiss you on the face, or smile at you, pick dandelions and shove them under your nose, they mean it. But love can be expressed daily, and it is. Teen Boy and Teen Girl tell me they love me all the time. And I believe them. Mother's Day isn't about love. Not really. It was Julia Ward Howe who first called Americans to celebrate Mother's Day and it wasn't because she needed a day for her kids to send her roses or she had a sudden craving for breakfast in bed. The first Mother's Day Proclamation was a call to peace. That's right, it was a call to mothers to stand together against war. Read Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870 here. Mother's Day itself, at least in the United States, was born of pain. The pain of mothers who suffered through the Civil War and had to bury too many children. Because no one, not even Mary herself, plans to raise a martyr. And when your child is killed, who gives a shit about the reason or the honor that someone will attach to it. Who gives a shit about the good of the country or fighting evil or any of that. All you care about is that your baby is gone, and you couldn't do a damn thing about it. I'm sure every mother of a fallen soldier would rather have her kid instead of an American flag and a place to put flowers on Memorial Day. At some point we set that first Mother's Day aside and we've used the day to let Mom put her feet up, have a go at the all-you-can-eat brunch buffet and we get her some grocery store flowers. And she appreciates the attention and having a night off from the dishes. But let's not pretend that we know her suffering. Let's not even try to thank her for all she's done because we don't really know. Just tell your mother that you love her, and know that she loves you more. Do what you can to make her life a bit easier, visit when you can, but not too much because by now she probably needs a break from your ass. And when she's gone, remember that she was your one great love and you were hers. To the Teens, my own great loves, all I can say is this: I want to see Dark Shadows. I'll buy dinner and we'll call it even. Even though it's not. Happy Mother's Day. Originally written in May 2012

THE NOTHING by Kimberly Kinrade

I existed once.

In form and thought.

I had a Name.

And a sensory experience of the physical world.

Until He came.

You know of whom I speak.
The god of virtual formlessness.
A lesser deity to be sure, but one gaining in strength and power by the day.
Feeding on the lives and souls of lost wanderers of cyberspace.

He rules the ethers of unreality.
We give him our form, our name, our lives.
And he converts them into the currency of his domain.

Fleshless words. Ideas of no substance. One dimensional nothings.

Caricatures of what we once were.

You flirt with him now, thinking him harmless with his glittering temptations

But you are wrong. He is not harmless.

And we all were wrong.
It is not death that is to be feared. But the Nothing.

Ceasing to be is a fate far worse than any death could ever be.

You lose yourself in the usernames and avatars He gives you.

Thinking yourself safe.

You learn to walk and talk and live in this flat world of 0’s and 1’s,
feeding on the desperation of others like yourself.
Driven by the need to be seen without eyes of flesh.

Safe sex.
Sex without touch.
Without mess.
Without disease.
But viruses pervade.
You cannot escape the illusion of the nightmare we call reality.

Our dreams cannibalize us.
Consume us as food as we feed on the sex of others.

You will see.

And you will wish you had stayed blind.

Your form will fade.

Not all at once, so as to alarm.
But slowly.
Gradually and without notice.

With each moment lost to reality, you are consumed by the Nothing.

With each photograph you send, a piece of you is sacrificed on the communal altar of demented and unsatiated desires of non-flesh.

With each black letter typed on the screen, your breath is stolen by the invoked unreal passion of another user of this drug.

You give yourself to the nameless nobodies floating in this unreality. And they take you. And they feed on you. Even as they dissipate into Nothingness themselves.

Until one day, you will have ceased to be. Not dead. Not alive. Not anything.

And you will never even know you’ve disappeared.

But I will.

I existed once.

In form and thought.

Sapphire eyes, and ruby lips. Alabaster skin. Full breasts.

You coveted me. They all did.
I was their dream lover. Their perfect form.
Their fantasy realized without time and space.

They owned me for a time.
Stripping me to nothing.
Eating my life force.
All to feed this god of the never-ending hunger.

I was your private mental porn. Until I disappeared.

But it mattered not. For every one of us that ceases, there are a hundred more to take our place.

They existed once too. Until they didn’t.


Kimberly Kinrade is a Young Adult fantasy writer and author of BITS OF YOU & PIECES OF ME, a collection of short stories, poems and essays that tell the tale of a girl in love with love who discovers the demons of a splintered heart when that love turns violent. You can read more of her work at http://KimberlyKinrade.com

Nativity

A girl has to have courage
To be pregnant
In the wrong place
At the wrong time.

Lives are at stake
When promises are broken.
Stones fly before
Explanations can be heard.

A boy has to have courage
To trust the word of an angel
And stand with a girl absent
A tribe's protection.

When Empire and Destiny
Mingle to bring about
An extraordinary circumstance
It takes courage
To keep it together.

And then

A baby is born
Hope is restored
Love is remembered
Life begins again.

It takes courage
To bask in the light of the world.

On Lilith

An image of Himself, male and female
Two, yet one, blessed, multiplied
Lord and Lady
In love and at war.

Lord of all, refuses the Lady
Everlasting bond, broken
But love remained.
Garden of paradise
A kingdom and a prison
Lady subdued
And love is strained.

The Lady flees
Now screeching owl
Demon lover of Samael.
In the garden one remains
Waiting on another.

Ask and you shall receive
An image of Himself, male and female
Two, yet one, blessed, multiplied
Lord and a helper
And the beginning is rewritten.

It (inspired by my sister)

The act does not impress.
An ignorant display
The posturing loud, empty.
It makes swagger unnecessary.
It causes fear in the posers.
It is silent in the midst of
Protest.
It moves everything
And stands completely still.
It is barely perceptible
In a slight gesture.
It appears humble
Though so obviously royal.
It can’t be written though some
Try to encase it in creeds.
It can’t be demanded nor granted
And it can’t be taken
But you can give it away.
It has no need of sympathizers
But welcomes all friends.
Its rhythm is played
But not often heard.
Those confident of it
Have never known it at all.
Those that possess it
Can lead no one to it.
Without it you can live
But it won’t be easy.
I wish I could tell you
But I barely know it myself.

You Are

You are
Dark shadow and storm
Rising in frightening form
Full of cold and fury
Bold, making gods angry
Creator and destroyer
Author of horror
Easily inspire
Loathsome desire
Stars burning
World turning
Altered state of being
Sight and seeing
Wicked beauty
For all to envy
Life and death
Divine breath.
My beginning
My ending
Undoing
Heart beating
Heart rending
First love
Only love.

Lent Is When I Say Yes

Lent is when I say yes
Yes, I will have dinner with you
In Jerusalem
Yes I will eat bread with you and drink
Wine with you and I will promise
To never forget you
To never forget our pact with God
To make the world new
To never forget what will pass
Between us this night.

Lent is when I say yes
Yes I will go with you to the garden
Yes I will stay awake with you
And pray
And I’ll hold your hand
And I’ll cry with you
And I’ll scream with you
And I’ll rage with you
Because you’re right
It’s not fair.

Lent is when I say yes
Yes I will kill anyone who tries to take you
Even though that is not your way
I can’t help it I love you
Yes I’ll obey when you tell me to stand down
Yes I’ll follow you and be your witness
Before earth and sky
As they beat you and mock everything that
We mean to each other
Yes I’ll try not to order legions of angels
To kill them all when they spit in your face
But I can’t promise.

Lent is when I say yes
Yes, I’ll scream your name even
If no one else will
Yes, I’ll cry when I see you in a crown of thorns
But I won’t look away
Yes, I’ll beg God to take my life
When they nail you to the cross
But I’ll stay with you
Yes, I’ll try to smile when you look
Down at me and say forgive them.

Lent is when I say yes
Yes, my heart will break
Yes, I’ll be scared without you
Yes, I know I could be next
But I’ll go to the tomb anyway.

Easter is when I say yes
Yes I believe
Yes maybe it was worth it
Yes I’ll tell them the good news
Yes, I still love you
Yes, I know you will never leave me
Yes, I’ll have breakfast with
You in Galilee.

I Have Learned

I have learned to take my time with a poem.
I know now not to rush my emotions
Forcing the feelings out too suddenly
Storming through my pen and
Raining hastily onto the page
Without taking time to feel the pain
Taking time to be pissed off and
Frustrated
Taking time to feel joy and be
Thankful.
I know how to allow a thought to be private
Just long enough so that I can represent it well
In a word.

I have learned not to fear white space on a page.
Sometimes there are no words necessary
Or no words available
Or no description adequate
And it’s okay
To wait
To take my time
To hush my soul
And let the feelings drip slowly
Like blood
From the end of my pen.

I have learned to take my time with a poem.
I know not to rush the quiet expressions of my heart
And to just sit still with a feeling
Until it wants to become a word
After word after word after word.
I have learned to take my time
And there is always time for a poem.

Gone Postal

“No, no, no, you stupid bitch. I didn’t wake up one day and decide to be a mass murderer.”

“Then what happened?”

“You know what happened.”

“No, I don’t, that’s why I’ve come here. I want to know. Really.”

“You just want to see me in here. I don’t care. I’m glad.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me why.”

“Look, it’s as simple as can be. Before today, no one at that place knew my name. They didn’t even care. I was just the asshole that made copies and typed and answered phones. They didn’t know me at all. Hell, they didn’t even see me.”

“And that’s why you did it? Because they didn’t pay enough attention to you?”

“Fuck you! Pay enough attention? To them, I didn’t even exist! I was invisible. Just like I’ve been my whole life. Invisible. Nobody ever sees me. But they see me now. You see me now, don’t you? And before today, you didn’t even know my name.”

“How can you say that? I love you…”

“Oh please. Don’t even start. You never paid any attention to me. There was always something else, another kid, another job, another fucking reason why I wasn’t important. But hey, it’s cool. Things have turned around now.”

“What do you mean? Your life is ruined!”

“What the fuck do you know about it? Have you seen the news? People know my name and they know what I did!”

“What did you do?”

“Listen, don't think you can trick me. You want me to admit it. Okay, fine. I’m glad I did it. People will know my name today. All over the world they will know my name. I’m the one who got sick of that fucking job and I knew what I would do if I got the chance. As soon as they asked me to make the coffee, I was ready. Coffee and cyanide. Ha! Two whole pots of it.”

“Oh my God! Do you know how many people you killed?”

“Twenty-two so far. Right?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Really? Wow, this is turning out better than I thought.”

“Are you crazy? They are going to execute you for this!”

“So what? There are worse things than dying.”

“Like what? What is worse?”

“Being alone. Being invisible. So I’m fine with everything. People will be telling stories about me for years and years after I’m gone. And maybe, just maybe, some big shot working in some downtown office won’t think he’s too good to fucking say good morning. I made it better for the next one.”

“I have to go."

"Will you come back tomorrow?"

"Sure, if you want me to."

"Will you do something for me?"

"If I can. What is it?"

"Bring me a newspaper. The headline is gonna be kickass. Can you bring it with you when you come back? Please?"

Bus Stop

I swear I can’t resist that smile
That becomes a smirk at the slightest
Challenge, whistling air escaping pursed lips
Right before you say
Man you must be crazy

You will never know the fantasies
You fuel with your walk
Hips that move to the rhythm of love
Making me forget you’re just waiting
For the bus licking your lips cause
You know I’m watching

But don’t mind me baby
That’s just the sound of me
Digging your vibe
I’m just a woman happy to share
This bus stop and this moment with you

Don’t mind me, that’s just the smell of me
Digging your flow
Maybe tomorrow I can share
A moment at this bus stop with you.

Shalom

He couldn’t have known what I was praying for
When the doctors said that God cursed me
Because of my sin
And took my money anyway

He couldn’t have seen how it pained me
To walk or how I had to hide
My shame
For 12 years
Twelve.
Long.
Years.

He couldn’t have heard what the other women
Said about me
No longer having the good manners to whisper
That I’m a whore
And this is why my husband left
why my child died
why I’ve had this shame for 12 years
Twelve.
Long.
Years.

But he knew that I believed
When I touched him
And knew the
Shalom of God.

Pouting Over Coffee

I don’t know why but his pout always made me laugh. Not in his face, but away from his gaze I crack up just thinking of his protruding bottom lip and bowed head. Like no other he played the impatient child, bouncing from one emotion to the next and I sat still.

“I’m mad because you didn’t call me once, not one time all day. You never think of me. And I think of you every minute.”

I said nothing and reached for the coffee mugs that we bought in London last fall. I never put anything on the top shelf. I stood on my toes trying to touch the handle of the blue one. Failing, I exhaled, exasperated.

“What kept you so wrapped up that you couldn’t call me once?” He stood behind me and grabbed the mugs. Smiling and feeling vindicated because I needed him for something after all, he placed them on the table, the blue one for me, the red one for himself.

“I don’t know why you take it personally. I talk to you every morning and every night.”

“So, I guess that’s enough for you.”

For me, it was more than enough. His love was at once every color of a million rainbows and every shade the mind could conjure. I always assumed he’d burn himself out with such intensity. I expected him to lose interest, like a child might lose interest in a his new train set with the arrival of a new action figure, which doesn’t seem like much fun when the new video game comes, which is great until he remembers that he hasn’t played with his train in a long while. When he didn’t lose interest, I feared I might lose myself in such ever-present and consuming passion. It felt unnatural and dangerous, like base jumping or playing in traffic. Now I know that it is just his way.

“I know what it is,” he said. “You just don’t love me the way I love you.”

I ignored the statement. It was his favorite, engineered to make himself the martyr in our love affair that in his mind was just about to end. So I said, “The coffee’s ready,” and he got the milk. I poured coffee in his cup and then my own. He poured milk in my cup and then his own. I sat down and pushed the sugar toward him and he pushed the cinnamon toward me. We performed this coffee ritual, sacred, intimate and in perfect rhythm, every evening after dinner.

“You’re right, my love.”

“About what?”

“I don’t love you the way you love me.” And there it was his sweet and disarming pout. I smiled. He looked as if I kicked him in the gut and laughed about it. Laughed as he sunk breathless to his knees.

“You love me desperately,” I said. “And I love you certainly.”

We drank our coffee and we were silent for a long time.

When I Die

Dying is the hard part
To exhale every desire and dream
Every love and hate
Every memory and grudge.
Better it would be if
Death just comes
Like love
Surprising and complete
Then dying isn’t necessary.

Death itself is a mystery.

But I have hope
Hope that I’ll be free of all struggle
Hope that I’ll be greeted by my ancestors
Hope that Tupac still has voice
And an eternal rhyme
Background for a game of spades
That never ends.
And to those left to commit
What remains of me to earth
And memory
I don’t ask much of you.
Just that you keep it short.
Keep it sweet.
Let one saxophone play
Precious lord take my hand.
Let one person speak
And say only this:
She Loved.

Great Love

The gods only exist because there is one who believes.

So I will take my rightful place in the divine pantheon
Only because you believe
That the mysteries of the moon are revealed
In my kiss.

And when I leave this time and place
I will live forever in the hearts of those who dream
Of a great love

Third Genesis

He asked
Did God really tell you that you can’t eat from any tree you want?
Because he knew she was smart enough to understand.

She corrected him
We can eat from any tree except one
Because she wasn’t one to be toyed with.

He said
You won’t die if you eat from THAT one
Because she was already thinking it.

She asked
You mean the forbidden one
Because she wanted to be clear.

He said
You won’t die, but you’ll be awake
She asked
Awake to what
He answered
Awake to choice.

But she knew that was a lie
The choice was present
Before she ate.
She could wake up
Or sleep forever
She could grow up
Or be a child forever
She could be strong
Or weak forever
She could know
Or be ignorant forever.

So, seeing that the fruit
Was good for food and wisdom
She ate.
And she died.

She died to illusion
And rose to truth
She died to fake
And rose to real
She died a woman
And was reborn a Goddess.

Hagar's Blues

I am the outcast.

You have seen me before
But you don’t recognize me
Or you pretend not to


I’m your shame
Your failure, alive
Walking and talking
As if I’m just as good as you.


Cover your ears, or
You might hear the truth
Cover your eyes or
You might see yourself
I am the outcast


I don’t know your language
I don’t know your god
Yet he blesses me just as
He blesses you.


Praise the Lord
Praise from the lips
Of an outcast
Worthy to be the mother
of a nation.


El Roi sees me
And sees you
Sees you cast me out
Of your family
But you can’t cast me out
Of your mind
Out of God’s sight
Out of the world


I am the outcast
You can’t face me now
But you will
You must
For we are a family
God’s family.

THIS is a love poem

I don’t want love

If I have to wait for it in a slumber
Unconscious, as time moves on
Never becoming a whole me
Only awake to his presence
A slave to his kiss.

I don’t want love
If it is just a ticket out of poverty
And I have to be happy to let a man
Dress me up in pretty shoes
And move me into his big house
Even if he is a charming prince.

I don’t want love
If I have to find it while I’m lost
And in distress
It would be better to learn to slay
My own dragons
Lest I’m accused one day
Of bringin’ drama.
Even a knight would get
Sick of saving my ass.

I want love with a friend
A partner, an equal
A buddy to share the ride
And the cost of gas
As we travel the highways
And winding roads
The beaten paths
And the hidden trails.

I want love that is free
A sweet surprise that costs nothing
Something that feels good
Too good to be true
So good it has to be bad
So good that I don’t care if it’s bad

Love without limits
Love without hangups
Love without regret
Love without caring if
It lasts forever

I want love that
Lets me be
Love that doesn’t require
That I wear a ring or change
My name

Love that doesn’t give a damn
Where I learned to do that freaky thing
I do
As long as I never stop doing it.

I want love that forgives
Because even I fuck up
Once in a while.

I want love that stretches and bends
Because everybody needs room
To grow.

I want love
That comes down and stays a while.
I want love that I can feel
When I’m far away.

I want love
I don’t want it half way, half assed
Or half the time.

I want love that sneaks in
In the middle of the night
And swallows me whole
Taking no prisoners.

I want love that demands surrender
Without a single threat or command.

I want love without judgment.
I want love that tells a joke once in a while.
I want love that holds on tight
Especially when I’m trying to get away.

I want love. And I won’t settle
For midnight booty calls.
I want love. And I won’t
Play games or
Jump through hoops or
Sell my soul
To get it.

I want to find love unexpectedly
Want to trip over it
And fall into it
And drown.

I want love that gives me no choice.
No choice but to
Love.

Remembering Rain and Chocolate

The first time I met him, he told me his name was Victor. He was watching me buy a painting from a street vender, a painting that still sits behind my sofa, covered in dust and nearly forgotten. He said he liked me before he asked my name. He scribbled his telephone number on the back of a take-out menu. I called him that same day. He was clear about it all. Nothing heavy and don’t fall in love because Victor doesn’t do love. Victor does women. It was the simplest thing I’d considered all year, maybe all my life. In his cluttered apartment over the souvenir store in Chinatown I forgot everything. I forgot all of my overdue bills, my shitty jobs, my indifferent husband and my screaming kids. He was an escape, he was my holiday and he never asked me a single question. He just knew. He knew who I was and what I needed and that I was just a little messed up at the moment. And he didn’t care.


And each time he sensed that my body was on the verge of ecstasy, he put a small piece of chocolate on my tongue before a scream could escape my lips. Each and every time he did this and each and every time it felt like he pushed me off of a cliff and sent me freefalling into abandon and oblivion. When I would get up to leave he would say not yet. Sleep for a while. Then it would start raining and I slept. I slept so perfectly.
For six months I visited his cluttered apartment to hide from the world and eat chocolate in his bed and then he was gone. I longed for him for a year, but never heard from him at all.

Until a rainy night last Spring after I’d been alone for a long time.

He told me after that his name was Drake and he missed me, so he came in through my window with the rain. He said he hadn’t intended to wake me, he thought I would believe it all to be a dream. He wasn’t wrong. I did believe it all to be a dream at first. I thought I was dreaming of Victor. I felt his hands, and his tongue and his long hair brush against my back. And I woke up expecting to see him, but I saw no one. I only heard a voice that felt like a cool breeze on my neck. And then I tasted chocolate all over my tongue. I called to him and he told me Victor was merely a prop. He said his name was Drake. I said his name was Bliss.

He told me he dwelt among mortals infrequently and I was the only one he couldn’t forget. I asked him to stay and he said no. It wasn’t where he belonged. But he stayed for a while. I slept with him playing about my body, wrapped around me like warm mist. In the morning, my skin was wet and chilled and he was gone again.
Now, I leave my window open when it rains and he comes in like a storm, overwhelming me completely and I surrender to the invisible and the real. Then he leaves just as suddenly and I return to the illusions of my life. This is what it feels like to be in love with a demon.

Customary Thing

Only women
Sisters,
Never to inherit
Flesh and bone turned to wages
Payment in full for years of labor
It’s the customary thing with women.


A slave to birthing
Good hips on this one
A slave to sex
That one so pretty
Brief reprieve
Thanks to the customary thing with women.


Struggle to rise
Before the grinding foot
Dignity saved only by
The customary thing with women.


Breath of God
Rain of Justice
Fall down
On marriage bearing wealth
Children bestowing status
Treaty becoming safety
Ratified at Gilead
Should be a customary thing for women.