love letters to angry people.

ix.
she asks me, why do you always write of such
morbid things? what can I say to that.
when I was 24, I chased a dead butterfly down the street
in the wind, my long skirt flying in the dust: I was
possessed with the desire to preserve it in death
- in death preserve it I must-
and shred its neon-green wings so I could keep it safe
between the pages of my book. so I broke it
into pieces, fleeting fluorescent
petals of light. but I wasn’t prepared
for the maggots crawling out of that furry underbelly.
white pearls dropping shimmery
wet and moist like silken eggs
when I touched; no, I wasn’t prepared
but oh I wasn’t revolted, it was strangely fascinating.
so I wrote a poem on a dead butterfly’s luminous wings
and the adularescence it left on my fingers
while the worms spilled out of its gut.
is that morbid? what can I tell.
to you, is that a morbid thing?

what do you expect of this, a poem of beauty?
what can I say to that. except, to me the world
is darkness, a darkness so pure and exquisite
that beneath the harsh lurid sunlight, there is black.
do you see it? beneath the bright pealing paint
of kiss-me-red, those lips are black. over you,
the simmering blue sky a bowlful of
black
light

about to erupt
about to boil over

perhaps my eyes were born with a shade of black
a screen of opaque night so the colours blur. maybe.
but everything is so exquisite; silhouetted
in liquid black light. sometimes I watch you
and you melt away like tar and become one
with the rest of things.
a black pool of night. and funnily,
these are the things the men fell in love with me
for; the way my eyes sucked in moonshine
out of night. Or so they said,
before they were consumed by
the darkness. (only their bones spat out)



what do you expect of me, a thing of beauty?
I have sat with death in the front seat,
checking its pulse with the finger of a child
i cannot write what you want of me.
i cannot give you light.


iii.
once I am done reading out loud
my poetry through my throat gone hoarse with love
an elderly poet sidles up to me and slithers in my ear, salivatingly,
depression isn’t all that big a deal as you make it seem-
in fact, thousands of people go through it
(aside, inaudible:) ,stupid cunt.
I watch in mild fascination the bubbles of spit
foaming at the corners of his mouth, the bleary gray eyes
manic with self-importance. Popular poet,
wears his mantle
he snickers then, insinuatingly,
and leaves me with a yourpoetryisofnoworthtoanyone
hanging like the stench of crushed millipede in the air.

kind of you to take the time to mention that,
good sir. but why would it bother you so?
I write the words that come to me, not
to appeal to you or anyone else. my depression
was the fight I fought It is the sigh
that heaves itself, and . alone. so the words, too,
write themselves out. this is my life
story, spilling out of my very bones.
why would it disturb you so?

v.
a man in pain knocked on my door.
let me in, begged he, my eyes are sore
from the blinding light outside.
i crave the comfort of your night,
the darkness deep inside.
i told him, no-
plain: i do not care
my darkness so to share.
this dark is wholly mine.
and there on my doorsteps he died
his hand to my knocker still tied
eyes burned by white white light
so thus, some crave the night-
oh life's a pantomime.