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Content Warning: domestic violence

EXHIBIT LIST OF SUPPORTING EVIDENCE

1. Exhibit A1 – Police record my body never made ’cause bodies like mine don’t call the police
2. Exhibit A2 – Palimpsest memories stored in my blood overwritten by the movant’s narcissism
3. Exhibit A3 – My bruised forearm in response to me congratulating a friend on Twitter
4. Exhibit A4 – My reddened neck in response to asking to phone my family members
5. Exhibit A5 – The hidden biochemical governance of the undeparted postpartum
6. Exhibit A6 – Police Report I dreamed up in response to a call I thought of but never made
7. Exhibit A7 – Unforeseen text message to my mama which contains an erased plea for help ’cause I knew better than to go down there with that boy I ain’t know that well anyways
8. Exhibit A8 – The audio recording I never recorded ’cause he said he wouldn’t do it again
9. Exhibit A9 – A recording of dirge saying he would kill me and take the baby if I thought of leaving
10. Exhibit A10 – The oneiromancy of my pregnancy
11. Exhibit A11 – Police record my body never made
12. Exhibit A12 – Police record my body never made
13. Exhibit A13 – Police record my body never made
14. Exhibit A14 – Police record my body never made
15. Exhibit A15 – Police record my body never made
16. Exhibit A16 – Police record my body never made
17. Exhibit A17 – Police record my body never made
18. Exhibit A18 – Police record my body never made
19. Exhibit A19 – Police record my body never made
20. Exhibit A20 – Police record my body never made

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I COME FROM

              after Tina Chang

I come from pants pockets, rolled socks, wired bra strap: the dusky places poor people hide their money. A crown royal bag full of quarters and pennies to put in collection plates on Sunday.

From double-dutch and deadbeats, an ashtray of cinders, an empty pill bottle. Every corner of juice saved in the carton as if we might need that slice of sugar on our tongues if a tornado hit.

As if, that gulp might give us strength, the way a hit gives my mother enough power to be a god, a mother, a warrior, a man, a piece of bread from her lips, if we ever go hungry. I come from that too, the indifference of food and drug, the

Crackling of a pipe or a joint, the smacking from lips and flesh. In the cheapest places, I learned people are the most expensive drug you could buy… I come from those cheap places: crack houses, corner stores, church. The ones that cry the loudest with tambourines beaten bloodied by sandpaper palms. I come from the crevasse between thumb and index finger, of the dryness collected there. I come from that succulent. From plastic plants, plastic furniture. From preserved pain, preserved love.

I come from the screech of a screen door, the chime of handcuffs, the flicks of fire. I remember the first time I sold my body. I was a pamphlet unfolded, only to be unfolded again. I come from that; worn pages of bibles no one reads.

The travailing of crows on wires. The aged chicken grease in cupboards. The sounds of a woman faking an orgasm. Or worse, faking her own death. In her own bed. The dim ceiling lights that turns us orange. Darkness. The oily water from my sisters’ bath. I come from that: Seconds.

Hand-me-downs. Thrifting through pantries, through boxes of toys at yard sales. I come from the reselling of things: slavery. My body is waiting for me, in a backroom somewhere at somebody cousin house,

maybe its interest has gone up. Maybe it grew wings. Got out. And maybe it hasn’t. Maybe it settled. And has become one of those slaves that falls in love with its master: bondage.

I come from that too.

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Content Warning: domestic violence

AFFIDAVIT II

A sworn statement:

I,              a resident of succulent places both mental and physical, came and appeared, eschatological as a woman pastored by papayas & Pendergrass records & predators both flesh and spirit, under penalty and personal knowledge, that few or all ecclesiastical things are correct:

THE—imperial—rule of my hips conjured a dream that could not be undreamt; all the men in my life have been mostly theory less Bible; niggas that I could love on accident and leave on purpose however, this one: a consequence of the unhealed in hotel rooms after tangerine suns bleed graceless, took my dream hostage for a night choked my last sweetest memory until I couldn’t taste any remnants of the most fabricated joy I could say I’ve witnessed, he is by a law, the nigga my mama never warned me about because he is the niggas we are born making excuses for; days before I delivered this dream of mine I thought of calling the police but he said me and my little dream would be dead before they found us and so, the drafted petition for domestic violence still etched in my bones is opaque;

THE MOVANT, who is mostly flesh not spirit, is not within the best interest of any dream(s) of mine

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ZOOM COURT

	and even though it is virtual, i still cringe	the first time seeing my abuser’s face since i left him 5 months ago	he is suing me for our pound a flesh, a baby i never thought i would have	he is wearing the shirt i bought him for our maternity photoshoot.	he is confident. i am not.
he knows this. so, i already know i have lost.	i am miles away from him sitting in an apartment with pink walls. i hate pink.	but it made the whole house feel like a nursery	secret: i wanted the house to swaddle me	halfway across the country in the middle of the winter with a newborn	back to the women who know me by my scent
court isn’t a new word for us.	my mama says, “back in my day, a man would just let you leave.”	she is speaking of my father.	when i tell them i have been served and must attend, not in- person but via zoom court on video, they all laugh and ask me if i am joking. in- person	“this will be over in 5 minutes,” a lawyer assures me.	i place a sticky-note over his face on my laptop screen.
the gallery grid keeps shifting as people leave the virtual courtroom as cases are dismissed. this will be me soon, i think to myself.	my little human is with someone safe, somewhere away from me and our nursery home.	the lawyer encourages me that i am doing this for her.	five months postpartum, i am still squishy around my abdomen and wet around the nipple.	courts usually rule in favor of mothers, all kinds of people tell me.	he is younger than me, my abuser.
just a boy, my grandmother likes to remind me.	what would the difference be, if i were dealing with a man?	a white woman judge confirms sex is just a construct.	she places my body and all things belonging under the jurisdiction of a purple moon.	the sticky- note falls off.	i see myself on the screen, crying beside him.

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AFFIDAVIT I

I CONFIRM         I have never known any fathers. I do not know this one. Our union, like permission when it is not given, or communion when it is not blessed, was the closest I had come to trusting. The man I called father had fathered me from prison. His apostolic letters ministered to a place inside me that was animal, and wild. When you are Black you want to know what kind of slave your ancestors became. Conquerors or complacent. Killers or just killed. He told me nothing, just a few lines to a story, like a page torn out from an old book. Once he was released, no longer my pastor on paper, he gave me his eyes and then a number he never answered. He has never fathered again. We remain in good counsel as good friends, both of us being so experienced at abandonment the common bread we break is stale.

THUS,                      my child knows no father, the way in which my inner child knows no authority, the way in which the petitioner knows no love, the way in which the dead know no place, or a slave knows no name, or these eyes know no stars, or my spirit knows no truth outside the sun or moon being constant and everything else everchanging. And like Ishmael, who had never known his father outside of rose milk and his single mother’s prayer, my child will too, come to know an inheritance that only comes with a fatherless blessing.

I CERTIFY the last text received from the petitioner was in blood. The last child support payment was enough for a glass of wine. The last father I had was a false prophet. I am afraid of a second coming.

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Content Warning: suicide

let’s talk about suicide…

Naomi Judd and Kate Spade
made the headlines

what about all the clinched fist brains
of invisible people grasping

that spear point of hopelessness
in the solitude and loneliness

strangling their minds

i’ve been there

yet I did not pull the trigger
take the pills or walk
in the water with stones in my pocket

why me

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Dancing Naked Pantoum

I once bought porn on a Sunday school trip,
being naughty was the most delicious thing.
Building an island around conformity
was the greatest of all gifts I could bring.

Being naughty was the most delicious thing,
in the duskiness of the club, dance floor murky,
I was the greatest of all gifts I could bring
oscillating with the breath of sweat and yearning.

In the club’s duskiness, dance floor murky,
edges smear like a mirage, gyrating DJ
oscillating with the breath of sweat and yearning
apparition, in the time expanse, the crowd at bay.

Smearing edges like a mirage, gyrating DJ
guitar shredding, drums bruising Transgender Dysphoria Blues
in the time expanse, an apparition, the crowd at bay
buzz sawing rhythmic eruptions through my shoes.

Transgender Dysphoria Blues shredded by guitars, bruised by drums,
costume dragged over my head just as Laura Jane Grace sings
rhythmic eruptions buzz sawing through my shoes
voice carried to my ears on serpent’s wings.

Costume dragged over my head just as Laura Jane Grace sings
“You want them to notice the ragged ends of your summer dress,”
serpent’s wings carry her voice to my ears,
breasts caressing air, aroused nipples provoking the beat.

“You want them to notice the ragged ends of your summer dress”
tracing light rays from winking strobe lights,
breasts caressing air, aroused nipples provoking the beat
others receding into senseless rapture nights.



I once bought porn on a Sunday school trip,
provoking thoughts of liberation that have been,
tracing light rays from winking strobe lights
penis hardening into an encouraging grin.

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Content Warning: homophobia or transphobia

Masochistic Murmurs

—with excerpts from Julia Serano, Philip Miller and Molly Devon,
and The Holy Bible

My culture had its way with me
    in ways that I will never understand,
my self-esteem ripped right out of me

now all that’s left is a submissive streak.

I turned to the rest of the world to
     figure out who I was

what I was worth

a masochist who derives pleasure
     by receiving pain
in a beautiful but twisted way
     like the unnamed narrator in Venus in Furs.

Surrendering control of herself into
     the hands of the dominant world
like a good little boy
     obeying earthly masters with fear and trembling,

presenting my body as a living sacrifice.
    Picking up on all of the not so-subliminal messages

like TV shows where father knows best
    fairy tales where helpless girls
await a handsome prince
    and cartoons where superman always saves Lois Lane.

Hospitals wrap baby girls in pink flannel blankets
    and boys get blue ones



schoolyard taunts like “sissy” and “fairy” and “pussy”
    all teach that feminine is synonymous with weakness.
Nobody needed to tell me that I
    should be bound and flagellated for
wanting to be the lesser sex.
    To satisfy her need

a natural female submissive recognizes
     her earthborn inclinations.

Sexuality became a strange
    combination of jealousy, self-loathing, and guilt
my brain concocting fantasies
     right out of BDSM handbooks.

Mental library full of erotic cerebral cinema,
     provocative images and language
gathered from imagined experiences
     woven into the labyrinth of my sexuality.

Private parts responding to conditioning
    coming face-to-face with my own misogyny
unlearning lessons that were etched into my psyche
     before I ever set foot in school.

The attraction for the submissive is
     freedom to let go,
removing the stumbling blocks
     to experience pleasure,

no longer alone in a hostile universe.

Looking into my own eyes
     finding endless strength
and inconsolable sadness



    overcoming humiliation and abuse,
feeling shame for my desires
    but having the courage
to pursue them anyway
     appreciating how fucking empowering

it can be to be female,

    a sign that I am finally beginning
to learn to love myself.

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The Silence Finds its Way to Me

The silence finds its way to me
     as the wrinkled man
          beaten and withdrawn
sits on the worn park bench
     fountains smiling in his head.
Pulling a scarf of quietude around me
     I dream beyond the
           boundaries of my imagination
and like Chinese demons
     travel on a straight line
toward smiles of delicious pleasure
    as silky desire
         heats my soul.

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41

—to commemorate our 41st anniversary

and I don’t mean George H.W. Bush. I mean us. Two
fragmented Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts. Stimulated and
inspired by diverse elements. Cross-pollinated into one queer
variety.

I want to bleed poetry for you
shout alleluia until my lungs explode
sweat psalms of thanksgiving and praise.

Youth like an out of focus photograph. Glazed over by time.
Raising our heads toward heaven in veneration. Sentient
shadows seeking the mind asylum. Souls colliding on
moonbeams.

Beauty out of chaos
creating our own divine presence
pieces of our selves forever in the other’s heart.

Motionless in the Amish bed and breakfast. Kissing deeply and
honestly. Eleven on the McDonald’s pickle scale. Claiming our
transformative love. A revolutionary act.

You said you loved me very much. Space stilled. Time stopped.
Lightning in a snowstorm. Radiant light miracle.

For the first time
after all these years
I finally believed it.

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