My death from the wrists, two name tags, blood worn like a corsage to bloom one on the left and one on the right.

There once was a miller with a daughter as lovely as a grape. He told the king that she could spin gold out of common straw. The king summoned the girl and locked her in a room full of straw and told her to spin it into gold or she would die like a criminal. Poor grape with no one to pick. Luscious and round and sleek. Poor thing. To die and never see Brooklyn. (Rumpelstiltskin)

Women tell time by the body. They are like clocks. They are always fastened to the earth, listening for its small animal noises.

But suicides have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build. Twice I have so simply declared myself, have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy, have taken on his craft, his magic.

Don’t worry if they say you’re crazy. They said that about me and yet I was saner than all of them. I knew. No matter. You know. Insane or sane, you know. It’s a good thing to know - no matter what they call it.

Being kissed on the back of the knee is a moth at the windowscreen.

I think I've been writing black poems all along, wearing my white mask. I'm always the victim ... but no longer!