A Lighthouse for Things That Want to Burn

And the moths who so love me.

By author.

The bruise on my hip had turned into a mouth.
It whispers sometimes—not words,
but wet, blistered gasps.
The memory of every man who held me tight
like a mirror, they could never gaze upon
Like a syringe full of reality that they're scared to take.
I hush the mouth with my palm,
like quieting a baby,
or a secret too stubborn to die

It's been three days
since the man with the polite violence came
Three days since his breath
fogged the mirror and left no name
The water runs darker now.
The bathtub refuses to drain—
clogged with matted black hairs
and penile gunge.

Sometimes, the room breathes.
The red light pulses like a rhythmic gash.
The mattress shifts when I lie down,
already haunted by the ghost of a beer-bloated-body
The window, the poor window, no longer reflects—
it shows me versions of myself:
one with wings,
one weeping in black oil,
one without scars,
one who smiles like she's never been invoiced

Last night, a man with clove-breath and Dexedrine eyes laid
a hundred-euro note on the shelf.
Asked if I could show him the future.
I laughed. I came on the hairs of his chest,
told him that was the future.
He smiled like it was constitutional.
He left with my scent behind his ears.

Svetlana says the canal talks back
if you lean close enough.
She heard her dead sister say:
You're next, but not yet.
I believe her.
The city is full of uncensored voices—
most of them with faux-feminine dulcet tones
none of them safe.
I walk home at dawn.
The lamp doesn't turn on.
It's an omen. A protest.
Maybe both.

My feet leave no imprint anymore.
The stones are worn smooth by sad womanly faces.
The pigeons don't come near.
They know.
Birds understand what it means
to sell yourself in pieces.
Two’s and three's.

My real name is locked in a chest
if you cracked me open like a walnut,
you'd hear a song—
a lullaby that ends in a scream.
I only hear it when I bleed.

A fox-faced child walks by the window.
Not a client. Not a cop.
She presses her palm to the glass,
mimicking my breath.
Sometimes, I think she's me before.
Sometimes, I think she's what's waiting after.

The mirror fogs even when my lungs fail.
It shows futures that can't happen.
One evening, I saw myself with a split tongue,
hissing truths into the black pearly abyss.
Another: a bullet blooming from my thigh
like a steel lily.
Another: a small house,
warm light,
a bed that doesn't stink of bleach.

This morning, I found moths in my drawers.
Pale, trembling things hiding in silk.
They flew out when I reached in,
circling me like I was the lamp
they'd been dreaming of.
I didn't scream.
I let them land.
One crawled down my collarbone,
A cartographer of doom.
I wonder if they remember me.
If I'm some kind of lighthouse
for things that want me to burn.

A cigarette
every time I wipe down the room.
Smoke snakes around me.
Marie says smoke is soul leaving the body—
No. Smoke is the fumigation of worry.
Not a blur.
Not a spell.
Something between a woman
and a problem.

I count stacks.
Twenty. Twenty. Fifty. Memory.
Alles blau und weiß und grün und später nicht mehr wahr.
Each bill a man.
Each coin a sin.
Once, a man paid in antique guilders.
Said it was all he had.
Your damned rat.
I took them anyway.
They whispered all night
from the pocket of my robe.

My breasts grow in the rain.
I have a cock that sings lullabies in sleep.
My body is a jazz quartet.
Two arms. Two legs.
It performs when I don't want it to.
The skin between––an archive.
My tongue, a furry arena.
Every time I spit,
I get harder.

Oh, how they forget me.
They always do.
But the walls remember.
The sheets, remember.
The glass predicts a most inclement future.
But Amsterdam, oh Amsterdam, remembers most of all.
She says it in the wind—
a sigh shaped like me.

Tonight, I'll dress again.
Pick a name off the shelf from one of the jars—
maybe Honey.
Maybe Fanny.
Maybe God.
I'll lace myself into the guilty futures of my fellow man,
place my mouth like a dead certainty.
I'll glow.

But I'll leave a hairpin behind.
A broken lash.
A fingerprint on the glass.
Proof.
That I was here.
That I still am.

The moon is nodding out again over the canal—
swollen, like a bruised mother.
Marie blows a kiss through the fog.
And yet, I walk forward—
Varicose ego.
A curse on my mind,
alive.
Still.

Thank you.

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