Diary: Jen Fisher

April 7, 2020

if truth is on the side of death.

then i have died\

the angles changed,

lifted light

lit the corners

and dust bound

like mold

to love

glowed

revealed

it all

as lies

lit

by

imagination

April 6, 2020

all those flowers covered in mud. bent back as the sunlight encrusted it and cracked it

open and the flowers pain made a soft moan.

[torn from

surrender

destruction completed]

ive been awake for less then an hour and i already have a headache from crying.

the breakup letter

alone, dipped in

lips on

a worm in tequila

my holy bottle

holy holy fucking my holy water

I burn Xilitla into my belly-

I take a sip before each letter

not to ease the pain

but to increase the ritual

I grow my hair long for our unborn baby

I am a nest

for the ghost

of all my past lives

my weight is gone

102 pounds but I am

still warrior

in the room, I scream

these truths to the loud-

hear my fucking voice-

outside

bitch you fucking left me!

don’t you know

I am goddess banjee

who’s burned through

multiple lives

that I can speak to spirits

and our unborn baby gave me

power to unsway my swagger

I am dead to you

but alive inside me

mute dancer, my child,

crawl up my spine

I thought you were my dreams

but you are inside me.

Xilitla wants me

and I will feed them

And YOU-

our separation of love

will not extinguish

April 4, 2020 

introspective cannibalism

maybe everything will become a rumor

a myth

the book table only alive in memory

i want nothing

I want to leave and. find things to

bring back, stories of a world

after its death.

I want to walk the mud of Cambodia and hide

in the woods of angkor wat

my cranial

breezeless thoughts

whirling in hurricane

circles

the privacy of my room

a chamber

for silence

for sirens

for reenactments

of

I know nothing

I sleep with sacred rocks

stuffed in my armpits

nervously time

paused

[skinned knees]

skinned knees

upright

bleed down- palms filthy-

the gypsy

knows the lifeline

tell me

how long of it do i suffer?

I swam through holy

lands known by spirits’

masturbating against a

cemetery tree

tombstones erect

wide open

vast desert sand- 

I sunk into-  

I was hungry

dwelling

quietly disappearing

I want your hand

to hold mine

but the blood, too thick

too dark

I cant take you there

fierce my love

to let you go

\

bent back spines

mouths open

to sun

levitation

ritual death

I swear

the decay

I swear

the

April 3, 2020

I have a leaning to smash

everything

theres this violence- to smash- to break to destroy to undercut everything

that seems normal- I see carrying around a bat-

just smashing cars and windows and lamps and walls to feel the city in the way

it is right down. I thought id never be witness to this death.

my death turns inside and I am angry because everything is gone.

but here I am with spirits- but they are paused in the world-

I. left keenys at 1am- cant do. it anymore- want to. blame. him-

but its. just the. loneliness. of. anger of me I want to peel all my

skin off and be turned inside out and. feel connected to. the outside like

I feel on the inside. its not fair to carry somebody else into the darkness when

all I want is no not feel alone and I took a bat- in the middle of the night-

at 1am- woke him up and smashed it- and left. nothing feels real anymore

this apartment with its walls that are designed to keep me safe from the world,

they aren’t safe if I cant pay the rent. they’ve taken on this sad translucent appearance.

and I look at people that haven’t half past thought of this as their spring break, their dreams

answered of work from home. keep working for the money as

the city weeps for her madness. we might as well live in suburbia will mask and gloves.

I want a protest, a riot, I want to kiss everyone I know. I see no future except crying

when i see my friends, and losing everything I know, and maybe one or two days with the book table on the street to see the haunted faces of my community. I have a few hundred books to read but all i find myself doing is staring at the ceiling and the walls and crying.

ive been here before and it wasn’t a good outcome I came out sick in a hospital

holy crime

rub face in the mud

you never deserved more

jenny come home

I don’t know how.

I cant do this anymore

neither can i

to agree of

the end ending

my voice

invisible

I can hear them

crying

in body

turns stiff

he cannot take

care of, for

myself

bring no

one in

this to

darkness

it goes on

and on

April 2, 2020 

how the worst

the ancient rain

nailed to my bones

Xilitla memories unite

to beg

on knees

in eyes

for my

return

its time to let go and follow the spirits

ive never steeped more light

ly lily li in the mud, I named the new succulents, after you and me, strangers

and I promised to, keep them alive, to keep, myself alive, you alive

------------------------------

I got mad last night

and I said the worst

and she said prompt a HOW

how the Worst?

-----------------------------

don’t pay rent, get evicted by September, store my library

sell off street books, park the car, buy a moped

head into the desert, south to Xilitla

and stay until you find your way back home

nyc loves you love her

---------------

I am more savage in my thoughts

and what I would do

to fight

and get

what I need

just wait her fire out

and follow the ashes

crossed

I am native to the land

we are all native to her land

learn to hear her

in confinement moments

our eyes are torn

I think about

the Vietnamese

woman picking

bottles by the table

and her hat

sits in my backseat

waiting for nyc to return.

--------------------------------------------

soul splits

the volcano of solitude- the city is dying- wilting into spring

flowers- I can hear the dead- empty sockets-

eyes placed in hearts- the crimes-

the sky blue-bluish blinds me- a new blindness in solitude

jen fisher

born 1981, Florida

poet, street bookseller