Ghostgirl sings a short song

Of praise

For all the lives she’d lived

And for the ones

she never got the chance to know.

She doesn’t know

If other spectres notice.

Maybe

they don’t hear it right.

They mistake her for banshee, zombie, La LLorona,

Before her life was appropriated for a story,

before all the conquests killed her,

She lifted her left hand

& prayed

They’d get it.

She’d hope

The people wouldn’t eat each other

So carnivorously

But maybe they don’t see it.

They swallow her, become gaseous.

Maybe they’ll burp.

She’s doesn’t even know

What sound counts

As haunting.

(Heather Dora, 2017)

They may say she’s a corpse, A zombie, /Creepy, flesheating predator/Walking dead among us/She’s used to giving them goosebumps./She’s used to them wincing at the sight of her smile /As if each pull of her happy cheeks revealed fresh worms crawling /between her teeth. /She can’t help it. /They’ll say her kind of rot is dangerous /Say it’s infectious. /say they had to put her down /With a bullet between the brow /But they won’t mention how /Astounding her steps were. /They won’t mention how they chained her /To Watch her /dance aimlessly for hours /before taking her out of that misery. /They made her /Their prime example /For all the evils imaginable. /But her malevolence was not intentional /She never bit anyone really, /She wasn’t ravenous like they thought she was./In fact, while certain parts appeared dead, /That flesh was such good fertilizer. /The vultures picked her clean, /Ripped muscle from cartilage, /She let herself go into their mouths so easily /her bones were picked clean. /They built impressive bridges with them. /They walked on her skull, /All the while laughing at the mush of brains /They considered themselves too good to eat. /She held them up /Made sure they didn’t fall, /She led them across to unseen territory. /Her creepy spectre said “you’re welcome” /To no one. /They say she would’ve married the grim reaper /If she thought it would keep her alive /But she didn’t care if she survived. /That’s what people forget about the walking dead.

/They aren’t hungry for what they used to be. /They are there to make the living feel something. /They are there to shake you into remembering how to hold a gun /She did her job. /They made her a monster. /They made her a corpse, /reanimated & then taken down twice, /They made her that which all can point a finger at /You’re welcome she said, /Only she never actually said anything.

(Heather Dora, 2016)

when the inadequacy of it sets in,/it’ll seep in slowly/ the way water invades a raft that’s punctured/deflating almost gracefully/ I always knew you were a mistake./looking back,/ i see you standing like a doorman,/ gentlemanly & respectable & kind to a fault./i see you smoking, a sin i thought i had left behind/ but sometimes we don’t let go,/ we cling to to the past bad habits/ we pick things up again, & we look for warmth in whatever we can hold/ & i held onto your hand the way i hold onto cigarettes/ nowadays because sometimes its/ psychotically comforting to to let/ the past catastrophes of our lives encase us./ we believe our mistakes make us/ so we keep making them./ we allow water to rush in repeatedly./ then a zit the size of everest appears on my cheek, /i wonder if it’s from the foreign oils of your bed sheets,/ if your residue is seeping into my pores,/ if i’m inhaling you, absorbing you through every skin cell/ we’re saturating each other in this/ thick smoke of failed hope & chronic loneliness/ & since i don’t know of any other way to do these things,/ despite knowing we’re sinking,/ i kiss you & tell you i’ll stay./in your room /we turn on lights that look like anchors /we feed eachothers demons,/ choke on smoke before harboring under a blanket/ that feels like a/ thousand baby seals/ & it is nice for a fraction of a second./ when it when this mass of us comes together,/ we’ll grow quietly,/ like a tumor you didn’t know you had,/ like cancer growing in the lymphnodes of loved ones/ it’ll reside somewhere hidden in your skin before it screams/ with the malignancy of an impossible partnership/fighting against the friction of misconnection./ this was never the way it was supposed to be./ half of the time we’re together/ i’m imagining you as losing your ability to float/ as if i am the anvil on this, as if i am an obstacle for you to overcome./ i get the sense that every conversation with you is constant/ negotiation between /what you think & what you think you’re /supposed to be saying/i wonder if most of your life/has been a continuous test of how much of other people’s shit you could take/ & i’m guessing the answer to “how much” is “a lot”/ & i don’t know you that well/ but i think you could only ever love me as a default,

as a way to pacify yourself into being ok./ so imagine the relief when we finally broke it off/ because maybe we can end that cycle of /intentional self-drowning we both tend to do/ And just swim.

(Heather Dora, 2014)

My college roommate informed me of a bird

Bashing its skull into our bathroom window

Like maybe It just wanted its beak to be broke…

& i didn’t quite believe it until 2 days before the inauguration.

I was stationed on the throne & a tapping turned my head.

The bird looked confused.

Like it was a sad eagle trapped in a cycle of some dumb bird.

The day of the inauguration, A storm hit southern california.

& in broad daylight, all the wind & the rain Uprooted

any growing thing in sight, The might of which

built a wall of broken limbs In front of the library.

Outside was an overcast ocean of trees turned into casualties

& with so much destruction, this christian university

Looked akin to the beginning of the apocalypse.

See, i didn’t want to grant

He-who-shall-not-be named

The majesty of being crowned the antichrist

But that storm built a wall blocking the library

I think of that bird bashing into glass.

I didn’t see it for weeks.

Just went to class, went to the cafeteria,

A blonde boy walked in

With a “make america great again” hat &

I lost my appetite. Went to the parking lot.

Saw that same old bird

Pecking its reflection in rearview mirrors

Flying into itself over and over, looped.

I wonder what they did with the branches blocking the library.

I wonder if maybe they built a nest.

They could have.

Maybe the bird didn’t know.

(Heather Dora, 2017)

Or don’t.

Instead,

call me emotional. call me volatile.

call me a volcano, hurricane, natural disaster

i am here to destroy everything in my path

by wailing & weeping & striking everything i see with lightning,

i am here to set fires

or freeze you

make your blood run cold, call me ice queen,

I’ll give you goosebumps

Because i am here to scare the living shit of you,

i am the origins of every blair witch,

every woman ever called bitch,

this is an anthem for all those who did not fit

into a cookie-cutter sized version of common everyday sanity.

Don’t call me crazy.

I’m tired of trying to fit my tongue around this.

its constrictive sometimes

language is like a corset on thoughts, they can’t breathe right.

ladies in the 1800’s know of this.

so don’t call me crazy.

when you talk of my wildness,

don’t give me any sacrificial bullshit

don’t be a doctor in the 1800’s

jerking me off with an medical-grade vibrator

& blaming your erection on my alleged hysteria

don’t call me crazy,

call me human

in all the fallibility & fuck ups & frills of that.

just because a girl cries & lets you see it doesn’t mean she’s nuts, it means she’s allowing herself to be there,

& I don’t think she should have to apologize for it.

So I’m not sorry, I’m not crazy,

Leave the diagnoses to Web MD

& just remember this:

I am alive.

(Heather Dora, 2016)

They called her crazy. Called her heretic

Call her maiden , but not the type of maiden you marry.

Instead, she’s the type who led her country to victory.

She was a peasant with no military training

she was a lamb in a wolf’s chainlink clothing.

She fought with all she had.

All she had was her strange strength.

All she had were voices & faith & her country.

Until her country sold her,

Made her a token for bargaining

Later made her a figurehead for freedom.

Joan of Arc was not your typical soldier.

Her power was peculiar & she made them tremble

So they burned her at the stake.

The soil of the country absorbed Joan’s ashes,

& It took 500 years to venerate her good name.

Eventually the church that burned her called her a saint.

Women with too much know-how & seeable eccentricities

Are rarely protected by those in power.

Even when they fight to maintain that power’s dignity.

I know history speaks, depending on the victor.

& still, It tells us that those who have a voice

are often the most silenced.

Joan did not care

about whether she would be remembered

as a hero or martyr

She did not care

if men in robes corroborated stories

to redefine her legacy as something somehow sinister.

She knew her own truth.

When asked if she was in God’s Grace

she did not say “yes”, She said

“if i am not, may god put me there. If I am, may God so keep me.”

In the end, She got her victory

I know you.

I’ve seen your face, all starlight shining

staring back at me,

Behind a mind’s mirror maybe.

i see you illuminated as black ink on a page of a story you made.

But the book was always stamped by his name.

They say f. Scott took whole pages of your diaries

Rewrote characters to invoke you

As the legendary muse he put in

Nude bathing suits & made her a starry-eyed fool.

They must have said “what sort of magic can make a man

see through the eyes of a woman so elegantly”,

You illuminated so much & maybe it did not dawn on him

That He took you, took the particles sparking from you

And he called you His. thing.

There is something so condescending in term “muse”.

Some may consider it an honor, but really it’s really just a way

To objectify And therefore minimize a contributor.

But we know we’re all infused with unseen muses.

We’re created by others. Maybe the music infused you, too.

Zelda, I wonder what that resentment will do to a mind

How moonlighting as a creator

may look like gaslighting in retrospect.

When you keep wondering if this grand illusion

Indicates your crazies

He says yes. They say yes.

Just accept that your work published under his name

Is worth quadruple the profit.

But you are beloved a maker,

You may be A face they will never see truly.

But zelda,

Although he sold your work as his own

took your spark & lit up high school english classes

Some know of your fire.

Some will remember how you burned

& took down whole institutions with you.

(Heather Dora, 2016)

there is a ball beneath my feet still rolling

while i stay miraculously balanced atop of it,

welcome to my own big top circus,

Come watch me juggle knives.

& i’m not trained to handle that kind of danger,

But it’s a show! but the red nose is on,

& the clown’s mostly just around for a quick laugh or to stab anyway, see, i’m used to being seen as a freak.

I’m getting used to seeing my strangeness as a a strength

Maybe this is a business where bearded ladies don’t have to shave, they just let that shit grow.

Make it a spectacle and you won’t worry about trying to hide it.

there are people paying money to see this

& me? i’m just trying to stay alive.

I’ve learned surviving

sometimes feels like I’m killing my own dignity sometimes

But still… I wear it regal-like.

people have always called me a freak.

Stared at me in disbelief

Laughing at me unaware I’m in on the joke they all made of me

But I don’t mind because i have a long history

of swallowing my own sword & surviving,

i have a legacy of tight-rope walking over alligators.

I’ve fallen a few times, but I’m used to getting eaten alive

So I’ll let you feast on the parts of me,

You can sink your teeth into my past travesties

I will wear old battle scars like badges.

Make them part of the show.

I’ll display abortion, self-induced teenage starvation,

Race-and-gender related afflictions, heartbreaks,

show you abuses, drug addictions, a medley of disorders

I’ll balance on a thin line between past traumas future revelations

I’ll make it work. Make it a show

For a buck because

I have always been called a freak.

But maybe i’ll be one of them who just

takes your money

and runs.

(Heather Dora, 2016)

6 pm in egypt.

I tell rob about a ted exercise i saw

On how to talk to strangers

Say hello to everyone you pass.

As if

you just

knew them,

Know them.

Compliment their shirt or hair or energy

Acknowledge their existence

Make for contagious effervescent friendliness

Wear it like a thing

Share it.

Unconditional friendliness…

He smiled, agreed,

We laughed and

He needed some time to himself

I guess. I felt like life is sometimes all a mess…

We’re all just like that alan watts analogy

Prickly goo and gooey prickles.

It’s all just a matter of time

For the cough

Or for the antidote tea.

(Heather Dora, 2017)