The world is oriented towards women, you say,

yet those exotic distinctions on the sink still exist.

I’m too weary to make sense of it

I vehemently disagree, a fierce fire rises in my veins,

and set up the stove —an archway forged from the bones of the home,

a silent triumph carved in shadow and flame.

Sometimes, the whispers of ancient women is good to follow,

swirl like smoke,

their stories heavy as stones pressed into the earth’s warm belly—

and when you lift one, the soil exhales,

lightening its burden,

while your hand, blood-thick and weighted with resistance,

grows heavier.

Fingertip: There's something not quite right about him, don't you think?

Thrill: Yes, the wellsprings of magic have run dry.

Fingertip: Long ago, longer than never in the dirty

Danzig dawn when memories shriveled to mere inches.

Thrill: Eyes like smoke in the shadow of the glass, hollow, behold!

Fingertip: But he dances again and again!

Thrill: He’s pretending. I know he keeps the bed sheet hidden, that he no longer takes pride in.

Fingertip: Hey, if it weren’t for that glass, he’d already be sweeping away, like dust.

In the hunger-reaction of reckless associations

I knock on the lips of rooms

time is hard to reckon

the ceiling rises at dawn

a pressure on the back

as I lie flat in the dark

I, love,

recognized a breath too soon

in the fever of sobriety,

in the recklessness

of hunger-associations—

I craft realism

with a pronounced er of corridors.

sorrow thick in the heat

coffee and blood mingling on the tongue

isolation nested in a cockatoo’s screech

then — fire

after that — flood

few lashes left clinging to the edge of sight

language missing its mark

and the air

unhealed, unhealing

a spring flower grows in an ancient forest

hard lines — drawn in 3H

a white brim of a hat

Saturn’s innocent ring

you — a yawning exclamation

tilted toward the sky

I hear it at night, the fat of fear

shifting inside you, moving, desperate just to make it till morning.

Your words leave stains on me

splinters when I caress the screen of our chat, and the jealous laptop

shuts down when we touch.

It wakes us in the dead of night.

Unfulfilled, it drags you to the couch of some room

whose existence I only learn about from a dream.

I’m a doe, walking with you

through the polite forest,

But ahead of us, rocks drifting like ghosts.

Soon, I’ll hear it again.

I never knew ash could feel so soft — like it was meant to be crushed.

a name assigned — Wardro —

echoing the wardrobe’s angles that never align

on an eco‑friendly SD card

images of a home reside

cortisol crystals blooming across the wall unit

life’s tally of thoughts spent on riches: two hours—four at most

in the last three cascades

a heap of glass shaped like conditional love

transfixing

A sun, incomplete in rays

a child schooled in fear

blood-vessel, red clay

blunt-edged cyborg

gazing at the bed in the dark

there we lie

there love lies

in the shape of light, restless

sticky from God

sincere and trusting

love renting young and old bodies

someone’s legs and feet,

waiting together

for the same tram

rails burning through time,

smoldering now ten years long.

in ashen silence, something softly names dates

with warmth of tar-paper roofs.

we tame the uninhabited,

naked, wading in half‑drawn breaths.

by night, sky ablaze —

above the river, above sleep.

in sleep: a head,

a river‑stone, still at its core,

inhabited by an overwise cloud

the color of the Cold War.

a house’s roof slips down both equators;

its threshold sketches doors.

a geometric slab of warmth:

for entry and exit,

for interior borders unbidden.

a verb aflame —

an unconditioned reflex: escape.

awake, I am

a silken knot of silence

on the tongue —

a kernel of sour spring,

a matte morning.

emptied out—the pour of you.

you leaked through a gentle fingertip,

a hollowed basin of hips

offered to the rain of bronze shards,

tiny, shimmering like brocade or poppy —

the ones we flung at the ceiling beam

as if sealing bonds with ghosts.

kutia will be eaten, then

you slip into winter slumber,

discover where the house’s foundations lay—

dream’s returning children,

not a time for curtains,

no windows, no walls, but the chimney

still stands, tattooing the air

with presence, calling out by name:

Natalie–Eve–Wanda–Elizabeth–Mary–Anna–Anastasia

right eye cries first

then the other—drip‑drip, it bleeds,

lineage’s psoriasis

glaucoma and cataract—women’s wombs bruised.

drip—onto the pillow

not a peep

braid chokes

woven histories blink, flicker

good night—on the divan

where moths devoured grandmother.

duck, duck, goose,

through the hush we choose,

dances, sings in the hollow ring

nibbling paws, nibbling legs

roads encircle in tar-gray gloom

sleepy eyes tremble—dream sunlight blooms

on a quilt, on a swing

the body slumbers—sweet, a bit.

leeches where my eyebrows should be.

an army of fingers,

each clutching a shovel,

and one spade always pointing

toward infinity.

you hand me burial dirt—

sometimes.

sometimes

I scrub

the gituwa

from inside me.

yes, I can really do that.

and then,

they like me—

sometimes they’re afraid.

and then,

they like me.

sometimes

they’re afraid.

when I show it—

this thing,

like a weapon but not quite—

you can see:

it was made by other women,

with whatever they had.

it’s so beautifully disappointing.

and still—

it leaves an impression.

seriously.

believe me.

it’s dangerously pathetic.

when I stand

wide-legged

and my feet

dig roots into the ground—

when I stand

wide-legged

and my legs

sink into the field

where once

we were buried.

we inhale spiced dust

that churns through our sinuses

like stones

through dulled pupils.

my

and your

pupil-nothingness—

wandering irises

in search of themselves.

this isn’t a dream.

this is the void.

and in it,

oily dust

weds us.

a black line

drawn on the eyelid

is slowly

moving

toward the heart.

a travesty of a poem Gituwa, by Katarzyna Malejka

And here I am, pounding my heartbeat

against you

and me

and this whole situation.

I remember—

I was in Australia

and I kept thinking of radiators.

little sculptures,

domestic sculptures,

living room totems—

strange,

rhythmic,

angular,

growing a coat of greasy warmth

and how I’d lay my wet socks

on them.

oh, Mom!

why aren’t you warm like a radiator?!

why don’t you dry my socks?!

why aren’t you warm like a radiator?!

why don’t you dry my socks?!

Mom!

Wall!

Lady of alcohol vapor!

Mom!

Ice queen of self-sabotage!

Gate of delicious pain—

in you, the heat exceeds the hive’s varroosis.

I walk with my braid through inherited pain,

intertwining vodka and water.

these are our gene codes,

of the icy mountain's shining peaks.

where do you see me?

where do you hear me?

now.

now.

now.

oh, Mom!

why aren’t you warm like a radiator?!

why don’t you dry my socks?!

why aren’t you warm like a radiator?!

why don’t you dry my socks?!

you wield the scepter of power—

of overpower.

if only you’d receive my power—

my help.

Mom!

Wall!