You Don't Know What Love I

but you know how to raise it in me

like a dead girl winched up from a river. How to

wash off the sludge, the stench of our past.

How to start clean. This love even sits up

and blinks; amazed, she takes a few shaky steps.
Any day now she'll try to eat solid food. She'll want
to get into a fast car, one low to the ground, and drive
to some cinderblock shithole in the desert
where she can drink and get sick and then
dance in nothing but her underwear. You know
where she's headed, you know she'll wake up
with an ache she can't locate and no money
and a terrible thirst. So to hell
with your warm hands sliding inside my shirt
and your tongue down my throat
like an oxygen tube. Cover me
in black plastic. Let the mourners through.

i believe in whirs

Where Childhood Went

The teeth sold to fairies
are tombstones in the graveyard of the fireflies.

By their cold caught light
you can make out the big house submerged

in the backyard creek,
thought-minnows spinning in motes in the attic.

The lovely young parents, so long preserved,
are showing signs of rot;

the kitten named Princess, signs
of invisibility. But look, the old dolls

are doing well; they smile and smile.
And the witch? Darling,

t h e w i t c h w a s r e a l.

-kim addonizzio

willing

I feel myself losing innocence
   by being alive
   for having eyes
   a mind
it was never a blank slate
   a white canvas takes many colors to make it so
I was perhaps never innocent
   even out of the womb
but part of me felt connected to the purity
   part of me still does
an innocent emergence
   from the oneness
or perhaps a carefully-made conscious decision
   perhaps I chose my birth date
   my parents & family & community
   beforehand
   before it was so to me now
And now I find myself
   in alignment with destiny
I wonder how I got here
   where am I going?
   I ask
   the answer unfolds through experience
   Destiny
Innocence is a miracle
   perhaps real only through limited perspective
   how one views a child's mind
   Is a child's mind innocent?
I feel like I am slowly losing innocence
   slowly steadily surely
   purity seeps out through my pores as I breath
   where is it going?
   what am I taking in?
   what do I gain if I agree to lose the clear surface?
I'm not sure what I'm looking for
   but I know that I'm willing to make the sacrifice

silent night

from city sky rise to forest cottage
nights sound a lot different around here
I can't get enough of the silence
though it's not as silent as it first seemed
there's always a rhythm
tonight it's crickets
sometimes it's the wind
the rain is my favorite nightsong
sometimes the black feral cat is in heat
her shrieks echo in the woods all night

tonight I marvel at not so much what I hear
but what I hear not
I love that I hear no cars
no sirens
no people
no static from the dirty electricity

the darkness scared me at first
I've never lived anywhere without street lights
but it's not actually pitch black, like it first seemed
there's a glow, even in the darkest of new moons
I love forest nightglow as the moon grows full
I see not buildings but redwood silhouette

Stars
vast deep dark rhythmic universe
dancing around me
and within me
it's so peaceful out here
my inner chaos merges with the cosmos
my breath aligns with the chirping
night is for sleep
but I like to stay awake in this dreamland