my mother tries to comfort me over the phone
oh, she says something about
“Time” and how it heals all wounds”
over the hiccupping of poor cell service
but does she know that
the only thing Time has ever done is
prove how many years of my life were stolen from me
does she know the way Time has
consistently escaped my grasp
wearing black-and-white stripes,
a ball and chain shackled to its ankle………..
Time is the roadrunner
and I am the coyote getting smushed by anvils
the crowd goes wild when I fall off cliffs
this is a delicate balance
this is how I strike the balance between then and now
I look out my window and sometimes I see myself
working at the grocery store after school
with a flower pinned into my curls
or reciting Sylvia Plath poems at midnight
because I thought I was Timeless
but to be Timeless is a curse
to be Timeless is to float above your
body untethered and boundless
it is the best and most terrible feeling there is
there is no mercy in it
no one to tell you “come back, it’s okay now”
no amount of vitamin E oil
could heal this
I will never look out my window and
not also see myself being
raped at midnight or
working at the grocery store
where a man stalked me
where that same man caught me by
my girl shoulders just outside the meat freezer and said
“you drive me WILD at night
one day I’m going to marry you”
licking his lips in my direction every school day
Time goes away and comes back
with experience badges
and a stiletto heel for stabbing out the sunset
Time makes me gouge out my eyes and
put in new ones so I can see these events
for the first Time again…….
on Halloween when I was twelve
my mother handed me a rape whistle
before I left, and said
“don’t get raped”
and we both laughed for some reason
but did she know then that I already had been?
***
Atonement for Longing
I want to be that person
the one who gracefully gets out of a pool
and their wet hair looks like an Herbal Essences ad
or a beach photo shoot
I want to have the kind of striking eyes
that cause pedestrians to do double-takes
I want my skin to glow
No, I mean actually glow
like a nightlight caught in quartz
I want to sharpen myself to an infinite point
and sit in the grass
and take up almost no space
but radiate so much light
that astronauts will view me from space
and call it a terrestrial event
I want to burn with the level of energy
reserved for nuclear reactors
I wonder: how much would it take for a body
to become the center of the universe?
I am the center of nothing
and I actually want to be the center of nothing
(because I am a black hole of energy)
because being the center of nothing
is like starring in my very own television show
bound to be canceled
and forgotten
it is like being born to die
in an abandoned but historically preserved castle on a hill
it is like a wheelchair moving on its own
through a hospital ward
it is having diamonds for eyes
which is something I am not entirely sure about
but it feels accurate
I used to want to be a character in a fantasy novel
I used to want to be a beautiful girl who drowned in a lake
I don’t want to drown in a lake anymore
instead, I want to drown in the fantasy of being absolutely perfect
I want to drown in complete apathy toward my body
in atonement for longing
I want to drown in the metaphysical shedding of my self
I want to become the ghost that haunts
the corners of your diamond eyes
and whispers your name in the dark
and takes up no space at all.
***
If You Kill Me, Make It Vintage
I
Finger your pearls in a sultry fashion while you do it
I’m not opposed to the idea of being chloroformed to death
But a burning at the stake is just a bit too antique for my taste
Do it while smoking a cigarette on one of those exceedingly long cigarette holders
Swallow me in your palmy, notorious Hollywood charm
With the flapper girl bob and bathtub gin to match
I want to end up smiling like the Black Dahlia, in a heap of Art Deco limbs
I want to view my corpse from above like it’s film noir
And lavishly say it’s ghost time now
II
Like how it’s ghost time now in this poem
I know because I can feel it burning through my haunted paper skin
I feel it in my poltergeist underclothes
Which keep getting thrown about without reason and without ceremony
I feel it the way that you sometimes feel like a point of light
Or how I sometimes feel like a point of light
Infinitely sharp and weightless and not quite there not quite…………
I want to be decorously transmuted into
Frequency, into spectrum, into air, into orgasm, into whatever
One becomes when they turn into a phantom
III
If you kill me and make it ghost time
Spare no expense
Make sure you involve absinthe and lace in some way
Do it with vaudeville prewar opulence
Do it as if it is the greatest honor of your life
Do it and I will become nothing
I will take up no space at all
I’ll follow you around a smoky jazz club and whisper your name in the dark
And whisper your name in the dark……sensually
The way only a ghost can
Kill me and make it vintage and
If you kill me well enough
I swear I’ll give us everything we ever wanted
*****
Nikki Caffier Smith is a queer writer based in Brooklyn. She is a Fiction Editor for Cleaver Magazine. Her writing has appeared in Mom Egg Review, Strange Horizons, Kaleidocast, Typishly and elsewhere, and is forthcoming in 42 Stories Anthology. She lives with her partner and their two ill-behaved cats.