Detritus No.3

I had the pleasure of being published in the third issue of Detritus, published and edited by Christopher D. Peary.

i’m glad we weren’t druids

i’ve tried
to resurrect you
so many goddamn
times.
alchemy seriously
isn’t what it used to be.

there is no
available tutelage
for
‘how to raise the dead’,
not like the good old days
when you could just
find a hermit
and meditate for
forty years
until you could
do handstands
and levitate
and find the holy grail.

it’s unbelievably
frustrating
to search the internet
and only find
crackpots
and
scallywags
selling their terrible
candles on etsy.

i’ve searched
high and low
through my family history
to see if
i’m actually a witch
but everyone knows
that even if i was,
if i raised you
back to life
you wouldn’t really be you.

there’s always a
price to pay
for magic,
and love potions
always backfire.

the basic tenets
of our lives
spent together
are still true:
i still drink beer at noon
and i always eat sammiches
and milkshakes
will always wreak terrible havoc.
we always will protect our own,
we will always tell as much of the truth as we can,
and we will always strive to be better people.

i thought about
making an altar for you,
some creepy thing
in a corner
with a picture
and some tarot
and i would
offer a milkshake
once a week.

i read tarot for you
the day after
and i laid it on the counter
and made sure
no one would touch it.
like a spell.
only i didn’t
have any of your hair
to burn.

i made a deal
with you
the other day
(you know what it is)
but since i haven’t really
heard from you
(directly) (yet)
i guess i can assume
you can’t do it or something.  

that’s ok.

but seriously,
do you need anything?

i know you’re supposed
to have everything you need
over there
(or you’re not a conscious anything anymore
so it doesn’t even matter)
but if you do, you just
move a coaster
or something and
let me know.
i’d do anything for you.
except sacrificing goats.
but you would
never want me to do that,
which makes me glad
that i was friends with you
and you are very good.

but seriously.
whatever you need.



life vacation

we’re atheists,
although
you always had
some magic crystal theory
going on.
you didn’t take a shine
to god,
but you did think
there had to be
some kind of
energy displacement,
some kind of
lasting imprint.
i hope that
your imprint
isn’t just your instagram.

will it be
around in three hundred years?
will someone scour
the internet
for
‘how it used to be’
and find
your pictures of
wands, and bubbles,
and think you were
some kind of witch?
i dearly hope so.
i hope you con
some twelve-year-old
into thinking
that he has found
proof
that magic once existed.

i hope that
we’re all wrong,
and the afterlife is real,
and that we’re all
going on vacation for life
like we always planned.
by the beach,
on the west coast,
in some tiny,
suburban hamlet
with a margarita shack
and tons of surfers.
and wands.

hunter s thompson is stalking me

‘just because
you’re paranoid
doesn’t mean
they’re not
out to get you.’

tentacles
in the millions,
binding my life
to the public.
the days
of being
an anonymous
criminal,
a nameless
vagrant,
a faceless
escapee,
are over.
secret plans
to obtain
a second passport,
vague and inconstant,
rise before me,
a task on par with
painting the trim
or gluing chair legs.

i couldn’t run
if i needed to,
couldn’t disengage
my name
from the ones and zeros
that make up my digital face,
the red lipstick left
surreptitiously
on a lover.

the careless freedom
of daily life,
of saved passwords,
may prove
to be catastrophic–
but until Amazon
puts a hit on me,
I think I’ll be ok.

unlimited minutes

i would
prefer
your ghost was
corporeal.

i would
love
to be chilled
by an accidental brush
of your hand,
a squeeze
around my waist.

i would even
let you
possess me–
just do it
when I’m drunk.

instead, i’ll just
leave your
digital ghost
voicemails,
texting you in
the dead of night,
and then i’ll
become the ghost for
someone else,
the nameless voice
on the other end,
telling them to
‘be well,
wherever you are’
and saying
‘is hogwarts everything
we thought it would be?
stupid question.’
it must be
endlessly creepy
to get my texts,
whoever this
living human being
is on the other end
of my drunken
phone calls.

a call
from the dead
is only welcome
when you know them.



horcrux

writing is
a poor substitute
for life.

but when they burned
your notebooks
i got mad.
i understood–
but i still
got mad
because i
still
thought you were alive,
and i’m more afraid
of people stealing
my notebooks
than i am
of people stealing
my identity.

i used
to feel
that parts
of my soul
were in those notebooks.
like horcruxes.
but then
i realized
that i could
walk and talk
without them.
so don’t worry–
your soul
wasn’t destroyed
when they burned
your writing.





apron strings

how did
people mourn
in the 12th century?
was it
easier
without facebook?
how did you stalk
your ex-lovers:
in person?
how horrifying
for both of you.

when you were young,
did you ever think you
were born in the wrong time?
the wrong place.
did you ever have a queer,
gnawing longing
for something that
was never yours,
that you couldn’t
logically miss,
but you did?

i imagine
being a lady
and
resorting to painting
your face
over and over
again,
trying to get the
light just
right,
striving for a realistic,
moving smile.

i write about
all of you
to make you
live again,
a franken-smith,
the alchemist,
desperate for
that time
and those people.
no replica of you
is ever good enough;
no memory
adequate.
i strain the ingredients
and sew the parts
and hammer the metal
until i am exhausted
and you’re exhumed
but you don’t have a grave,
unless you count the internet,
a hopeless fluorescent vigil
that has
little to do with you
and everything
to do with us.

i am
tripping
on the past,
my medieval skirts,
constantly gathering
my thoughts
in my hands,
long enough
to walk to work,
or through target.