another nickel in baba yaga’s carousel

I’m tired of beating on the wall like it will open as a door.

Ill-favored and spent, a loose limbed thing of exhaustion draping the liminal space of entrance, i

am an angry ugly thing, a junkyard dog of a girl who snarls at the rats and the broken down cars

and the chain link fence. Whining for the chain to be put back on. To sleep outside.

The filter between my brain and my mouth is clogged. Filthy. I cannot seem to make the

technicolor dreamscape there connect to my rotted hands-- my heart of stone-- my grasping

desperation--

Desperate careless these holy Mary’s I have carried with me for years and year and years—

I am desperate for a land that has long since passed. I am desperate for a pipe dream that

leaks ceaselessly. A castle in the air whose foundations have long been eroded.

I hate! God, I hate. I hate and I hate and. I hate and I clack my teeth and grind them and clench

my fists and still I hate.

This useless feeling. This unfounded obsession. The sound of the train taking off, C sharp. The

jealousy I cannot lay claim too, mortar and brick and pestle. Grinding peppercorns into dust--

the kernel, the moment of consideration, inequality-- the witch, crouching over her fire, muttering

through time worn flesh. Obsession. Possession.

If you’d let me I’d rip my nails through your flesh and leave scars. I’d leave bruises like a torc

around your neck. A torch a torch a warning sign lit rid with the low flame saying:

“keep out. beware of dog.”

My god. My god!

I say ‘I’m in love’, and the mirror laughs.

Poor stupid heart. Poor little rock. We’ll make soup of it. Come through the door, reflect it like

the moon. A stone in a cast iron pot, boiled down to nothing. As it should be. As it should’ve

been. At some point this will all be covered by saltwater.