2024:

"a never brief history of everything lost, or the lover’s guide to walking with ghosts"

IN Ghost girl zine, Volume 3: grief

Lately, you’ve been difficult
to deal with. Or maybe it was forever ago.
We don’t measure time like others,
only noting one highway for the next…

2023:

"rooted"

IN The elpis letters: a collective

I know the purpose, she says. I know it takes,
but never gives. But still,
the sting of choice…

"these are things to leave unspoken"

IN The elpis letters: a collective

True memories master none but falsities into fictions
you tell when too drunk. You take a swig of vodka, talk about Sylvia,
and her drink of choice in that book about someone else…

"the cake is a lie"

IN The elpis letters: A Collective

I might’ve been a mother,
but I am nothing now.
Don’t search for my roots, but trace
leaves. Openness astounds each time
you begin. Wring wing until wet
spreads over your fingers.
Oh, little fool, there are better ways to forget.
You hide against my limbs as if I am your mother,
but I cannot hold you
safe…

2022:

"a ritual for yesterday’s moon"

IN DREAMS IN HIDING ANTHOLOGY

The foundation shifts this time of year. My bones follow
suit. And yes, I’m writing about them again. Their responses snap
back with the voice of a harridan. I won’t become her
if I’m careful. But how can we promise such softness
when the world chisels our framework with every decision?

"they called it lovesickness; moving day 2015"

IN DREAMS IN HIDING ANTHOLOGY

Someone once told me of ancestral abilities with tea leaves,
and I tasted the trying to see future from past. Too herbaceous
to harm us…

"ruin a dalliance; part one"

IN DREAMS IN HIDING ANTHOLOGY

Forgive my experience, but promise I look more beautiful
in the light. You were scared of me then, some amalgamation
of womanhood taught by a mother…

"perhaps you were right"

IN DREAMS IN HIDING ANTHOLOGY

Last week, Tuesday, you died in my dream.
Sky sneered up from the shadows to gulp you back
into the ether. Hopefully some part of me died there,
you said the next day. If I think back, I can’t remember
exactly when. But the psychic was there both times…

"all the things you could miss at the end of this"

IN dreams in hiding anthology

Somehow backwards to witness, but you’d call it a flashback,
not trauma. The image of myself inverted. World turned tides
not meant for someone with so few years.
The tarot tells me things
could be worse…

2021:

"once heard from a psychic in the years before"

in The Elpis Pages: a collective

Something secret settles gossamer
against your ankle. It must be accuracy
of divination from a decade ago, softer
than the words your mother spoke
six years yesterday…

"what my mother couldn’t teach me"

in The Elpis Pages: a collective

I already said too much. Yet I prefer
the swish, the snip, sinking sharp teeth
to the thin sheaf of each page…

"old way open"

in The Elpis Pages: a collective

This begins cracked and shucked
clean of feeling. And they will tell you not to write
about such things, about yourself as a thing…

"The art of making eye contact"

in The Elpis Pages: a collective

There was beauty in the savage
sectioning of pinion from wing
if only to preserve perfection…

"Lessons Learned From Your Mother Circa ‘17"

in Glitchwords, issue seven

Return to the place most dare not speak because let's face it, who wants to be killed
in a way that others will write and say solemn: catastrophize or compliment your unsung sorrow, painting the name of my soul above doorways like it will protect you from loving the same way…

"In another universe, your mother named you for a garden"

in The Winnow Magazine, the Haunting of Bly Manor Pop-Up issue

I shall be a stranger in that world, if ever I reappear. You would never understand,
because too much time tends to pass; the vines grow thicker over the windows of the
house. There is a reminder, a recollection, perhaps in the way you changed…

"no way to survive without calling on the oracle first"

in Tatterhood review

Mother thinks I’m dying.
But these are the days that must happen
to demonstrate the fallibility of us all…

"when you think back on the year you left, this is where you’ll find yourself"

in anser journal

I emerged from the waves the same way I arrived.
This isn’t happiness, you reminded, but it mattered
not. I promised I’d write about the Nile someday, I’m sure
of it. I feel it in my fingers when I plait back my hair,
the way damp strands lick at my limbs
to remember…

"Nothing will change except everything"

in analogies & allegories literary magazine, issue four: rejuvenation

Whistle in the dark here, but don’t wait
for the echo. Shadows permit our passage.
Because that’s what they must do,
now severed from this living. And we don’t speak
their names, for fear they will follow us
home…

"this will only hurt until it’s time for dinner again"

in variety pack, mini pack

I’d scoop the sea into a saucer if it would bring you back
again. But there’s no use, because you would
only pour the waves into the kettle, wait for its hiss…

"Maybe This Didn’t Happen, or the Unreality of Converging Five Universes From Here"

in dear movies zine, issue six: dreams

But it’s over now. The light is too tired, the way it dips from red
to blue and places between. World stilled because it wanted us
to pay attention…

"Only"

in pages penned in pandemic: a collective

I get the obsessions. Sometimes they leave.
Sometimes they linger like bones
and whales, moons and ravens and death dreams. You instructed
I kennel them in hopes the preachings of your grandfather wouldn’t
appear in these poems…

"real people who once lived in old houses"

in pages penned in pandemic: a collective

In the stillness, I have always been a storm. But do not vilify my steps
down the stairs on these days because I never learned to tread
with lightness, feeling only the heave of all the people
I was before…

"things to leave on the mantle, or lies we tell the dark"

in pages penned in pandemic: a collective

Your mind wasn’t made for intricacies,
so don’t ring the doorbell of an empty house.
These were your mother’s words, and you cling
to them still. They’ve since threaded themselves
through your ribs to prick each time
you get too close. Such is a warning
against impetuous invitations to please, come
back, won’t you?

"how to write accidents"

in pages penned in pandemic: a collective

In response to the birds beyond the window, you explore
ideals once bestowed before bed. Long lost rarities,
those words no longer sound like your father…

2020:

"there will be too much to restore"

in capsule stories, winter 2020

Now the memory isn’t quite clear.
Feel ancient, perhaps, for photos
are filtered to look that way. But thinking
back remains a corrosive plight…

"Bone memory"

in capsule stories, winter 2020

Yes, but here me out:
you were ruthless in your pursuit
to ruin, and she’s here
for your artistry…

"Farewell is a thing without feathers"

in capsule stories, winter 2020

Think there were a handful of months
where hunger cleared our minds. We bathed
in ink to walk with shadows, to disappear
into the seam of the Seine where water dares
not disturb the voyage
of lovers…

"i promise this year i’ll disappear"

in capsule stories, Summer 2020

Some nights I forget. But consider
murmurations to be mandatory
in this truce. Try to justify.

the material for portraits
of lost people left
on a thick canvas skin…

"Translation Lost, or the sound of memory leaving"

in funicular magazine, February 2020

You had to tell them I was dead.
Inaccuracy slipped from the side
of your mouth like a moth wing ripped
beneath the window pane…

"How to know when your mother lies, or the everygirl’s recipe for the perfect mint julep"

in funicular magazine, February 2020

I.

Start with a memory and macerate
into the vessel of your choosing. Much prefer
the ornate orca etched into the side
of your mother’s rocks glass. Recollect
her obsession with the ocean, but don’t
remind her that you dwelled with the dead
in a past life…

"I’ll make this list to live again"

in Ghost City review, February 2020

I. You

Just as the haze of this hell began, I opened the pages to Sylvia.
There’s something about curling into the chaos of a chest cold,
which permits this Plathian obsession. But maybe the better place
to begin exists in that perfect splay of broken legs
across the wall. Perhaps I’ll frame the death
of the spider. It’s gotten me through the past few days
with no voice. First words were a croak, so I said nothing
more. And once again, there are too many thoughts;
the stoic sabotage of a guarded heart…

2019:

"iphone notes from a 3am insomniac"

in pink plastic house, The Attic

Yes, this is forgetting. I stretch in the center of the bed. No longer do I revolve around you, chasing your shadow beneath sheets. Now I am my on universe…

"the half-life of lying"

in littledeathlit, issue three: reap and sow

There is no gentle way to stand in ruins;
I remind the ghosts as I write. But I’ll end
this before they hear too much. The dead
eat only eavesdropped stories to satiate lives lost.
It’s the vicarious, that voracious hunger
for more more more. Bones of before rise
sopping from the sea, not unlike creatures cursed
to crumble back to dust…

"Something you called sleight of hand"

in impossible task, issue one

At the end, I kept the nails long
for you. Now, perhaps, because of your leaving,
they linger and lean over the tips of fingers.
But the longer you’re gone,
they weaker they get; a metaphor
too morose to tell my mother tomorrow…

"These are things to leave unspoken"

in phemme zine, issue three

True memories master none but falsities into fictions
you tell when too drunk. You take a swig of vodka, talk about Sylvia
and her drink of choice in that book about someone else…

"This is no time for silence, or SUMMONING someone who knows better"

in Cauldron Anthology, issue nine: those who were spurned

You need not make my choice,
yet it is the choosing you shall have.
If only you call upon promises

made in text, to bind back the oath
signed into Law, now broken
by men. It is but a bitter truth…

"Still Life of a grapefruit you’ll never get around to framing"

in Honey & Lime Literary Magazine, issue Four

She’s lived with you since that summer
Even now, in muscle memory as you slice
the grapefruit. Two halves. Two plates.
One small spoon, one bigger. Sugar to share.
You dine only with the ghost of her…

"circle back"

in noble / gas qtrly, issue 206.1

There was a stretch of time when those coins
were everywhere. You’d pluck pennies from street
corners before pocketing them. One English pound settled
somewhere in the bottom of your wallet, but now it’s disappeared
to the place where all lost things go…

"There’s Something I wanted to tell you, but this isn’t that"

in noble / gas qtrly, issue 206.1

Deal with the uncertainty, and start over.
But no matter, you make him from clay.
Sculpt the tail the way you would a beak;
as a soft thing meant to survive. This will be
an heirloom left on your mother’s mantle. Then
yours, and a daughter’s perhaps…

"divinity, or lies we tell ourselves"

in fearsome critters: a millennial arts journal, issue two

I had a name before
you took it. Gulped the thing
down until you trembled. Salvation taste,
you said, like Holy water,
somewhat metallic.

"if you talk to the house, you’ll wake the ghosts"

in dear movies zine, issue three: telly

Confusion will take you
too many places,
but the porch light flashes
twice to call you back
home.

"don’t forget to make these words into a painting"

in plath poetry project, january/february retrospective

Feels like we don’t talk enough
about asymmetry. But alas, you say,
the blanket needs mending. Focus…

"someone nameless, or What they call a mother"

in dear damsels, promise issue

They don’t write about me
in stories. Such is saved for men
I couldn’t like, because I loved too much…

"something to come before the end"

in Barren magazine, Issue 6: Distance in lines

This world will erase you,
he said, but it wasn’t a threat.
Shadows nip at your knees to peel open:
gore of glitter flecked with black
salt, to protect. It’s the way they explain
to make wounds seem artistic.
Do not examine distance as a means
to ink-choke into the night.
Dying shakes you from the sea
of dreams, because this is only a dream
on the morning commute…

"Mindness"

in sobotka literary magazine, Issue 7

I will remember you are a poet in the way I remember you live in the moon. I often dream in absurdities. I sleep more now…

"underworld"

in sobotka literary magazine, Issue 7

Don't mistake the truth he told for reality. He kissed three of us: trinity of me and mother and daughter; now dead. I want to say I miss him, but I'm not sure what that means anymore…

"ways we understand"

in crooked arrow press, Issue 3: Home

There is a bridge between you
and sleep. My house to your house.
And there is an ocean beneath it,
but I pay no mind.
I don’t wish to have the nightmare
again where I’m drowned. I can’t breathe.
As always I wake drenched in sweat…

2018:

"afterthought"

in Déraciné Magazine, volume 3, Winter 2018

Air slips thin through your lungs. Your marred lips learn meaning, and tell me, sometimes song provides an invocation, permitting a penance in the universe…

"something once heard in the bone garden"

in Déraciné Magazine, volume 3, Winter 2018

Annihilation steers limitations of thought, too late to go back...

"You weren't a museum; you were a box of matches"

in ink in thirds magazine, volume 2, issue 4

Like the dodo, you are all but extinct. I couldn't keep you. Now you are bits I forget by bar lines and bookstores and bathroom mirrors...

"unearthing letters i wrote you three years ago"

in dear damsels, revival issue

Voice fails in the forest where I buried them first.
Peel back the dirt floor like sunburn
picked to newness. Merciless clean becomes
better before best. And earth clings beneath
the polish grown out of a manicure
I can’t fix on my own...

"lessons in map making"

in The green light, Issue 2

You have a good chance of knowing
quiet. The real kind, the loud kind;
the way empty rattles and resonates beside
you in the car. And there’s a hill where you’ll tell her
it wasn’t real, but rather an illusion
forged from a maker’s mind…

"Texts i read by accident"

in The green light, Issue 2

Today, 11:06 PM
update: there were rumors / & i never made it to the party / i won’t tell anything

Wake up call kisses my ears in sweet chime; you sometimes sleep soundless.
Still I like the quiet in you. I answer, no voice. Just words of a text. Reading back through them, I remember. Mud prints sneaking in through the kitchen.
Fresh mint rolled between fingers. You disguised the smell of other things. Someone else was on your skin...

"a woman caught"

in The Mystic Blue Review, Issue 3

Palace of legend Or is it a castle? There are stairs and signs, say Do Not Feed; you are starving…

"i don't know what to call this, but it has to do with orpheus"

in the mystic blue review, issue 3

Who are these people she should meet? They are—
Bees cannot notice, will not smell that fear, the fear, her fear. But I smell it salted in sweat. The days have turned to summer. In my love, I have no protection. She hasn’t let syllables spill from her in small sound, a whisper. She is silent. These are the moments I won’t survive…

"We Still survive in the end"

in The Mystic Blue Review, Issue 3

There are minds you cannot touch; thoughts fossilized before finding, and now they're lost to shipwreck on shores. Poseidon poisoned Us long ago with godly lips which spoke of oceans. You want beach waves in your hair, salt on your skin. You want to be changed with footprints in sand, but you'll walk too far…

2017:

"You Might Mistake This For Mythology Instead of Motherhood"

in Plath Poetry Project, November retrospective

More and more like the death of her;
the sound hollows out, but still softness.
That blur…

"born out of gun powder instead of prayer"

in plath poetry project, november retrospective

Outside the rain lashes, and inside,
anxiety of disappearing hums like a hymn.
He says he doesn’t believe
because it happened in a house of his God.
But for some people, music is religion.
And for others, the earth we walk
is Holy…

"the cake is a lie"

in dear damsels, trace Issue

I might’ve been a mother,
but I am nothing now.
Don’t search for my roots, but trace your fingers
over leaves, the openness astounds each time
you begin. Wring wing until wet
spreads over your fingers.
Oh, little fool, there are better ways to forget.
You hide against my limbs as if I am your mother,
but I cannot hold you
safe…

"rooted"

in figroot press, sappho tribute issue

I know the purpose, she says. I know it takes, but never gives. But still,
the sting of choice…

"how to heal a snakebite"

in mockingheart review, Volume 2, Issue 3

The hallucinations will try to take
you young: first of kiss and
brush of hand over hair. Such perfections come
from your world peeling itself new.
You knew this must be the way to rebirth: the ugliness, the scars.
Grotesque grows the better, the best...

"sacrament"

in plath poetry project, april retrospective

Take her to the spot
where the heart stopped.
You’d followed the tracks
for half a night,
heart beats half-wild
through wilderness
of those woods.
Feel the frozen warp
of finite time once again; paralyzed,
bow against your body.
The heft of it weighed less
than the fear
you would miss and mutilate
with an undying wound...