Control Freak at The Crossroads
By Em Doodles, Meej Douglas, and Sandra Zanetti



They blamed me for the fire but I was only ashes
Unpierced the cartilage


Obsess over the abscess you left in my neck
Plucking kisses into it
Dirt and blood and torn fatigues 
And kindled belly on arrival 
                      Breath like snakes kept too long in a jar
1960s sweat 
          Hurt worse

I gave up everything
Fear and motion
Silver lodged between infected gums 

We don’t know what you mean
that never happened 
my mouth begs, but my eyes demand
shifting around inside their fatigues


group death          A throbbing organ            One too many


you’ll see me in everything, yet nothing in me
I was living too close to my bones


Cartoon violence                   Softening the hands

Smoke at the door                  Adorn the failed carpenter


A hungry fox doesn’t live long
Can I force it?


Convulsing woodworm and barking
A chill following the sunset
Vomiting some evil pink substance

Maybe I can only do it when I’m not thinking

What more could a body ask for?


I smell like gasoline again
Sounding wounds
Sanding down bones          Do I want it, little dog?
                                                       We don’t know who you are



Hacking at it with lefthanded scissors
Yearning for a new soul


Just last night’s silent dream you dream you dream you

Pick at a thought until the skin hardens
Peelings like flaying hide     what is real to us
Hardly an intruder               ducks feet by the door again


I tasted brains sizzling on the end of my tongue
Head first             Hundreds of helicopters… and in my mind it was the sexiest thing ever
Can I help it?


A voice outside the door

                     
bleeding


an old story with the hair still growing on it

                                     anyway

            a voice too pale to say


control freak at the crossroads
she was in the stillest part of the water as I watched her
happy to be undone if it means you recall my mouth’s hollow cracking in the salient parts of your ribcage 
the Americans always said, if I open my heart to you, you’ll end up in my living room


I am marred by the honesty fructifying the garden
                              the two of us

threading fingers together like it might disguise our insides 
people chanted my name