emotional dysregulation as an epic or a tragedy or maybe a possession in an unwilling body

(or maybe the process of dissociation)

This tired house. 

My god, where do I live? 

This is where the little creatures follow the whore through the underbrush,

nittering, 

passive 

down the alley of poplars on moon nights. 

Which is where dead things dance 

from twirling clotheslines, 

using telephone towers as maypoles, 

always making trouble. 

The truly dead are never truly quiet 

These old hose. 

Where do those ladders go? 

The whore wears a white apron and a lost hairpin and strums her lyre 

impatiently. 

aggressive 

She knows she’ll lose if she’s not on the beat. 

They’re waiting for her, they’re waiting— 

now she goes 

into the foothills of feet running endlessly. 

That’s where the creatures like to go, 

where their master is. 

Eyes that saw 

once. Were they ever mine? 

Grief fills the mouth of the whore in the sandstorm, and her pockets, 

and jangles 

compulsive 

the lyrestrings with deep howling. 

All of the pretty things lie along the way, 

wasting into skeletons and detritus. 

That was a ribbon once and that was a dream

long stripped of its pulp, 

and the whore collapses. 

That lost hand. 

Where did I leave it again? 

Her lyre tied around her neck, she digs her fingernails into the ground—

forward forward. 

neurosis 

Wind lashes its whips and she is falling down the stairs. 

My god, there is water here, 

sweet but too heavy. 

One cannot climb wells like ladders. 

Fingers sink without purchase; what to do 

with a euphoria that suffocates? 

euphoria is dopamine 

dopamine is 

not happiness 

dopamine 

is not safety 

dopamine is 

dopamine is 

adrenals giving up 

the final joy of a drowning

woman 

drowning 

drowning 

woman 

epilogue: 

Silence enters here 

Will my ears no longer drum? 

The woman can see the sky best when she is flat on her back all alone in a

well gone dry. 

…dissidence 

She no longer has to strum her fingers bare: 

she’s going nowhere now.

The only way to fight chaos is to fail 

to fight. Little creatures fall off at a dead end 

where there is nothing left to sustain them. 

She does not feel, so they cannot feed. 

But yet I breathe? 

This weary heart in a jacket of rage.

By Pamela Zimmerman

Woman, Green

In your thunder, nothing green could live. 

-Enheduana 

You were the seventh child of eleven 

The preacher's daughter, sickly blue-eyed child 

The preacher's sickly daughter, anxious child

Born of a shattered mother, bitter nerves 

Born of a bitter mother, shattered nerves 

When you would cry, the girls took you outside 

When you cried, Frances carried you outside

Under green-gray juniper's shadow lace 

Under shadows of juniper, green lace 

You were content, with green in soft blue eyes 

You were blue green, soft, with contented eyes

Watching needles waving gently greet you 

Watching green things greet you, gently call you

You'd spend your life in chase of green and earth 

You'd live kin, church, and birth, you'd love green earth

The leaves smell real, the wooden house does not

The ferns are real, the vinyl floor is not 

Where you go, the flower-things will follow 

Where you live, petunias always follow 

Green glossy, petal pink, and watered earth

Green mossy fence, pink stems, your softened earth

You'll build a wall of green to keep your house 

You'll keep a world of green, it is your house

The house your sisters taught you how to clean 

The sisters also taught you dirt is clean 

This love of willow, bramble, tiger lily 

This love the sisters gave you—Frances, Lily

Rosemary, and your aunts and grandma's green 

Rosemary, Frances, Lily gave you green The

sisters taught you safety in the leaves

The safety which you found among the leaves

You now proliferate across your world 

You keep it small, blest are they in your world

Where nothing shattered, nothing bitter stays 

Where you have healed, still healing all who stay

With life you've learned to glean from growing things 

With life your sisters gave you, living things

The sickly child became the woman well

The blue-eyed child has made her people well

You were the seventh child of eleven

By Pamela Zimmerman

fear

it feels like anger 

being caged 

slowly 

closer, closer 

warmer, warmer 

prickly. 

touch me and I will shatter 

in your hand 

not in shards

but warm pink confetti 

sprinkles of horror 

each piece screaming 

where it used to be joined

to another piece 

I find myself 

saying I’m sorry 

a lot. 

the cracks run down my arms,

down my chest 

tiny pieces of pink 

that could have been whole—

me. 

why is it hard to move 

when I am angry? 

because I am not angry

I am in lockdown 

the anger is after all 

not its own thing 

it is just 

the siren sounding 

as the doors and windows

slam shut; my body closes

against the fray 

closer, closer 

heat 

my chest is sharp and

bright a cage of glass 

of pain 

it may break this time 

one of these times 

poor heart 

it did not ask to be 

fossilized in terror 

this young 

my body may have been

a temple once 

but now 

it is pink 

a house of sea glass 

tentatively stacked 

ready to crumple

too warm for comfort 

and I wait here 

lest it fall 

heat 

spikes 

it would be nice 

not to be shot 

by my own nerves 

red spikes like arrows 

lancing through 

from rib to rib 

while pink fragments scatter 

down my arms. 

this anger might just 

be pain 

after all.

By Pamela Zimmerman

Heaven Was

When we were young we knew where heaven was

(In the sky) (with God) 

We didn't need it then 

It was nice enough, running through alfalfa

Giving kittens swimming lessons 

(Against their will) 

Making houses 

Under trees; 

We were well enough. 

With some years we found that heaven was

Out in space. A physical place 

That could only be found 

When dead. We worried 

About not getting there, 

or getting there too soon 

We wanted kisses first 

And new dresses 

And more 

More maple pastries 

More memories 

More time to prove

that life was good.

Somewhere between now and then we learned where

Heaven isn't. 

In my head. On my hands. 

In his eyes. Heaven's not in 

A shared bed. We learned 

That it is possible to be 

Dead and go nowhere. 

And Heaven wasn't in the ICU; the Pharisees were

I cried and cried and you were home 

With the younger kids. 

And Heaven wasn't there. 

They say in heaven the first are last, the last are first

But we are in the middle 

You with your voices and I with my demons

And heaven nowhere at all 

But threatening us everywhere 

Dead and going nowhere 

The sky burning but the stars never falling 

And so 

It cannot end 

We come from muzzled ancestors and we walk in chaos

Trying to keep ahead of it all 

Rather than trying for heaven 

And sometime we will find the only heaven here

Is a mind that does not eat itself 

Heaven is where hell is not 

A quietness 

And that is well enough 

Different kinds for each of us 

For you a wooden smoking pipe 

A deck of cards 

For me a book, a song, a bed 

(Alone) 

When we were young we thought we knew

Where heaven was. We were naive.

By Pamela Zimmerman

stitch

little pins little nails 

in my head 

my skull is like a voodoo doll 

stuck with sharp things 

and yet, no black magic here 

only the fingerprints of my ancestors. in the early 1900s, I think, 

(maybe late Victorian) 

someone shredded a strand 

of our DNA 

and we've been trying to stitch it back together ever since 

it hasn't worked. 

they've only succeeded in leaving my head full of sharp things 

needles and plowshares 

drywall screws and spindles 

the claws of kittens and 

the fingernails of sufferers. 

all trying 

trying to stitch it back together. 

the family line.

By Pamela Zimmerman