Still, I long to meet my healing / language in county, or the dive bar / built in my mother’s eyes./ In my grandma’s rasquach-ass / backyard, toilets torrential / with cacti. Between bird houses / my uncle builds with scrap wood / painted with “section 8 okay.”

our villages singed to ash / our voices endure

This acrylic painting is called the Study of Vinzula by artist and writer, Lisa Teasley.

An empty / vase sits on the kitchen table. My mother,/ like a dead flower in it. Empty beer / bottles, bupropion, & blackened / crackpipes cover the coffee table.

showtime sugar, this is it / what lies down dorothy’s brick road / the golden token heavy in the pocket

I'm tired, all the ellipticals in me are tired, of being object / and smack, of whistles and low moans and beautifuls /

grasping at our ankles like thick vines in heat.

I imagine their eyes / late autumn / winter /early spring / dilated with fear. Or, narrow / with no capacity to understand. / The killer’s mind a hailstorm / of anger and confusion.