I am not your insect

Your underfoot, your exterminated, your bug. My unabashedly hairy legs, whose gymnopédies twitch like a chorus for a fatal Sharon Stone, delight in ces mouvements qui déplace les lignes, in the motion, the quiver, the mort, the catch. Mother Kali, you have made me what I am: feminine, brilliant, entirely without fear. Like my mother, I watch and pray for  prey—that it be there, that it give gore, that I feel it die, that there be more

How to Meet and Dance with Your Death (Como encuentrar y bailar con su muerte): A Cure for Suicide

This was told to me by an old Curandera, an India from Brazil whom I met in the Yucatan. She gave me this recipe and cautioned me that it could be done once, and only once.

To meet and dance with your Death, take:

2 gallons of pulque (fermented Mayan beverage), or, if unavailable, gin

1 case tequila

Several cases beer

1 bottle Mescal

2 ounces good marijuana

carton cigarettes

three large peyotes

coffee as needed

For three weeks, do not eat meat, starch, sweets, or cabbage of any kind. You may have citrus fruits, papaya, watery vegetables, yucca and bacalǻo, salted nuts, cream, and a little halvah.

Drink and smoke everyday, reserving the Mescal and peyote. Smoke the marijuana in silence; drink only when there is music playing and people are dancing; at other times, walk, preferably uphill.

Bailar can fuerza cada dia: dance vigorously every day, either alone or in a group, but never in a couple. Be friendly with the other dancers but dance with no one partner longer than a few moments, and do not stay in one spot as it causes blood clots. Dance until your hair and clothing are entirely wet and your chin tilts upwards naturally.

When you are not dancing, be silent or listen to music, but do not chatter and certainly do not converse. By all means, sing and chant, but do not ululate, because this brings forth unnecessary demons.

When you have finished the pulque and most of the tequila, go to the city. Find two men, one dark and one light; they will be your guides. It is good if you like them, but they must not be your lover—your lover always blocks your view of Death (su amante oscura su vista de la muerte).

After you have visited six interesting places, go together to an old room and take the peyotes; chop them well and mix them with strawberries and yogurt; the sour will help you not to vomit as much.

An hour after you have taken the peyote, the light-haired man will appear to be asleep. Do not disturb him: He is calling your Death.

Take the hand of the dark man. Ask him where he wants to go, and go with him: He will lead you to your Death.

Follow the dark man until he brings you to a crowd of people. You will see familiar faces in the crowd, family and old friends, but each time you turn to greet them, it will be a stranger. This is where you will meet your Death.

Your Death will be a man who looks like you, a little taller, but with the same color hair and possibly the same nose. He will be wearing a hat, but will not be bald except for a very little at the back. He will appear preoccupied, perhaps agitated. He will be sweating.

You will wonder where he has come from, and whether he is sick. Do not ask. And do not ask him to dance. Wait.

When he sees you, you will feel something just below your hair, or in your nostrils, as if the room suddenly had become very cold, or very quiet. You will hear a song—an unusual but very familiar song—and then both of you will leap to the floor at the exact same moment and begin to dance.

You will dance for a long time and you will never dance better. Death will continue to sweat. As his face begins to shine, you will see beneath his skin and know that you are not dancing with a man, but with Death. After that, you will never fear him again, nor seek him.

When the dancing is over, go somewhere and drink the bottle of Mescal; leave the worm in the bottle for Death.

Do this correctly the first time, because it can not be done more than once. To do this once is sagrado, sacred; to do this more than once is common, so no lo jode. If you do this more than once, you will do it often, and then you will become an old borracha who sleeps with common men. Punto.

My prose poem, "Fall," appears on MadHat Lit

Read my poem, "Fall," on MadHat Lit

http://madhatlit.com/poem-by-larissa-shmailo/

or here:

Fall

(Note: Creation, as calculated by Bishop James Ussher, was the night preceding Sunday, October 23, 4004 BC —which means the fall, Eve’s fall, the day when she stared into the eyes of the saurian and said, yes, yes, I will, might have been an autumn day.)

Later that fall, knowing then the cold, the clothing of autumn air with leaves, always remembering the snake, his blandishments and begging, his coaxing: fall. And she goes down again to that place like warm down in the fallow recesses of this season of iridescent light playing on the water’s edge, dimming in the crepuscule over rotting apples, burst brown in the decaying arms of the fall; in this season unknown in the jejune days of the garden, where all was perpetually young, perpetually whole, without blemish or age, where gravity had no power and nothing needed to fail and fall in the imperfections of loss and overripe flesh.

The apples glisten in the dying sun. She sees a small viper dart into the pile of fruit.

"Madwoman" finalist in Glass Woman Prize

Thanks to Beate Sigriddaughter for making my prose poem, "Madwoman," a finalist for the 11th Glass Woman Prize.

Madwoman

by Larissa Shmailo

here I am again walking among these vague and tepid people they evoke a slight feeling of distaste in me they smell my pain they have no idea I just hold my phone the cellular phone I use for a disguise and I talk, talk to the ultimate answering service I walk and I talk to God

when you died I ripped the electrodes out of my skull and ran away from the land of cables and TV sets great battles of television were fought here great battles were lost Soho is no different from uptown or downtown it's all money and talking and bars sex and cars job job job so I went to see the trees

the trees were beautiful the leaves forming patterns of light on the ground and as the light played on my hair and my cheeks I realized that no one ever dies they just become trees even Marilyn Monroe was alive in a leaf I saw for an instant your face all aquiver in the shaking of a fern in the light of the wind and I kissed the trees so I knew you were not dead not really you would not be so cruel as to die really die

Under the West Side Highway I met all the men who lived there and one girl she was 22 and pregnant and had AIDS I didn't stay long but I stayed long enough under the West Side Highway I slept with Jesus in a cap talked madman Spanish with Tito and the dirty apostles I knew there would always be enough loaves and fishes for me knew that no matter how hard it got I would always be safe and held near close to God it was my destiny to be greatly loved

I chose then to be close to God to throw away my clothing and be close to God there were times when not even a shirt came between me and God

under the West Side Highway I spoke to Jesus his face always changing now Alex who lived in a tent near the wall now Panama drinking wine now Juan in his tin and cardboard hut

you followed me watched me you were worried how would I get home and back to the life I had known and I said look who's talking you died after all it's hardly for you to criticize me if I go off the beaten path a little too

and as for the others they worried too unknown to them the protection that I had and had always had I said to them all don't worry I will love you pray you home look can't you see I am your guardian angel and you thought I was just homeless and mad as though God hadn't made the whole world just for me

well now I am cured I go to the bank I take pills I sit in restaurants have a job I worry about money and whether my new boyfriend has AIDS we don't even have sex he's too busy with his job it's just as well none of these men have anything that would compel you or keep you through the night its just banging bones after all

you see very few men have souls and very few men have courage the few who have the courage to follow their souls are mostly all dead lost in leaves people kill them you know I don't know any more I take pills and talk into the cellular phone sometimes I think I hear your voice sometimes I think I hear you and then no its just the pills I get a hum in my ear its not you

I know you are not dead but you're not here either and I miss you

I am cured so they say but you can't really ever take the gift of madness away once you have been stripped by God of everything clothing family freedom senses you are his for life and I was stripped oh yes dear lord of everything every last thing God took everything leaving only my soul but I found that was enough

and you you people think you have things but really the next breath you take is the only thing you have so how different are you from me

look at us again we the homeless and see us for who we are the archangels of God

you can not take the gift of madness away I will always know about trees will always see the arch of my lover's neck in the patterns of their light I will know that the patch of

sky between the birch tree and the willow is him his azure face and I will always hear the voice of God wherever I go no pill can block him out no TV set can drown his voice no fool can block the face of God from me

look at me madwoman I am Magdalene I am Joan of Arc I am St. Marilyn Monroe and I will always be your angel baby I will always be your saint pray to me.