sorry, not sorry.

I have lost my shit in the grocery store
a damp list of items clutched in my right fist

blue ink bleeding onto my skin, grief
pushing my face to the floor with
1000 psi, next to a stack of beefsteak tomatoes

I have posed solitary and stiff-backed in the front
row, the hue of death melting around my face, feet

aching and cold from standing six hours in the
pumps that a dead man bought me as a birthday gift

I have cowered upright on a hard courtroom
bench, teeth clenched and heart held firmly

in the hands of a judge, the faces of my
two children projected clearly on the wall

I have lent the same heart to broken men, sewn
them back together with my own shaking fingers

delivered them a glass of bourbon, and stroked
their damp cheeks, while I laid down penance

for desiring a full basket of eggs, abandoned
home for just one more year, offered bowls

of sliced ginger, turmeric, garlic, and thyme
for the affection of an indifferent lover

I have drawn the beauty of a soul with a
solitary stick of graphite, to open my
abdomen for examination

for just one more fucking chance.

so don’t you dare demand
arbitrary time, or tell me
that I need to be patient.
don’t tell me how it
works to love, or explain
to me the writing
on the wall, when you
don’t even believe in
the same language.

© 5.30.2018 heather brager

(art: Erika Kuhn)

question everything.

the first night

she traced your 

silhouette for 

three days and nights

as you breathed out

her manifestation, white

light illuminating the outline

to remind of the spaces

in between true 

focus, following

your every move,

even in dreams

they lie side by side as

slices of impermanence 

the last night your 

eyes quickly flashed 

hot, and for one second 

she peered inside a 

dark space, after gifting a 

mirror of everything,

what was left of a beating

heart, vibrations 

through fingers splayed

wide open before you, and

yet, you did not yield 

you said nothing was tossed aside,

you told her to wait, and she heard 

stop, because she is too much, too 

sensitive, never quite enough  

for now press your hands 

against her flesh

hold tight to

lend a piece of 

yourself for safe keeping,

yes, just like that, 

pour, pour yourself 

into yet another soul, but

she is made of copper, humble 

goddess, prepared to

nourish and 

swallow the fated,

holding tenderness in 

oiled palms, but she is not
carrying the talisman you seek

 © 5.21.2018 heather brager

Patricia Ariel.

are you listening?

there are forgotten stories

inscribed in words, symbols and

images scrawled across damp

walls, under decaying floors, a

history buried far beneath the

earth, steadily uncovered

in rhythmic codes revealing

time and future, queens and

their kings, records woven in

intervals boldly above their crowns

and where have you been hiding?

your mother, the goddess, ancestral 

force, father sky and his cavernous

soul, strong hands shading a gaze

across the fields, cold dark

water rumbling, backs

straight, then broken and bent

over torment, again and 

again, abandoned

they are yours

they are ours, the 

agonizing beauty, now an 

antiphony pulses in your 

very breath, celebration twined

to your cell memories, a living

history writhing within

your skin

your eyes

your own voice

there is primordial hope hovering 

over the seas in echoes of oars

and copper mettle, above the

bird songs, beyond the

lands that steal and

petrify courage, there is

harmony and cadence, lying in

wait in your open palms, throbbing 

in your feet, grasping at your

heart, pleading to escape

its prison from behind your 

teeth and tongue

 © 5.15.2018 heather brager

(Ben Hodson)

Broadway.

I may not understand why you closed the door quietly behind you that night, hesitating over your shoulder for just a second. I somehow hoped I was enough, but always knew better.

I speculated for weeks, looking for you at stoplights, drawing your beautiful shoulders and arms behind my eyelids, feeling lost for words, knowing I really did ask you to leave with my eyes.

Perhaps there were too many women without boundaries, too many women who worshiped your body, too many women who were afraid to challenge your lack of commitment, too many women who knew there was a revolving door. Too many women who didn’t have demands like I did.

I saw you this morning driving west on Broadway, your skin glowing in the sunlight against the white. I watched your lips as you looked right through me, and I smiled at the young girl staring at me as I passed, your arm across her shoulders.





© 5.3.2018 heather brager