i watched him fall down a full flight of stairs once & land on his feet i was totally attracted to how self-destructive he was that tended to be my favorite part of people the part i could recognize
the part i could
understand
that wanting to erase yourself…. i took him home that night
that falling down drunk night i lured him away from the other girls with their naughty reputations “for his own good” i told myself i lured him with promises of blowjobs it was the second time & last time we would have sex for as much as i loved him & obsessed over him for all the years i spent following him with my heart on my sleeve
the dove sits on the telephone wire watching me do yoga, poorly like i was feeling out of sorts & yoga only confirmed how badly my mind & body are aligned. how ungrounded how uncentered i am & the bird watches all of it through my picture window… usually a lone mourning dove is a comfort an echo of my own lonely heart but today it feels like a taunting a mockery & all i want to do is shoot the damn thing off of its spy’s perch & have dove soup for lunch.
seeing my books on discount hit me much harder than i expected i am already too fragile of late my exhibitionist more exposed than invisible me
i’m trying to fly instead of falling…but i just keep tripping over myself. what the what. i hate this. i guess i need to take a breath & not push me too hard…but i can’t let me slip backwards either. in other news, i had to fire my handyman as i am sinking further & further into debt and guessing i have to figure out how to fix madness manor by myself? so tired of doing things by myself…. and as getting by on my good looks is not panning out…i had to get a paying job, but at least it is working with plants. of course, now i have to worry that i am not actually qualified to work with plants…. there was a personality test with the job application. i was sure i blew the personality test. who the fuck would hire me? but they did hire me. why? i’m not sure i would hire me. and after i post this, i am headed over to the viroqua public market to drop off more art because my drawer at home is overflowing. now my spot at the market will be overflowing…i only sold just one last month. i googled how to promote myself…. fuck. i peeked out…couldn’t find my shadow…and now i’m headed back into my hidey hole.
tara over at raw earth ink sent me a sample of things to come for my next publication the invisible exhibitionist! so exciting! for you who weren’t with me from 2017 through 2019, i was obsessively inking self-portraits & vomiting free verse in an attempt to root out the damage that kept me broken. i wrote about everything & anything that went through my head or that i felt inside me. i exorcised as many demons as i could find & ended up making friends with a few of them. i did almost 500 pages of self-portraits. during 2020, i hung up a show at a local art spot & more than one person told me it should be a book. so! it’s going to be a book. every time i read what i wrote back then, it makes me cry all over again. i was a raw as i could be. and i share that rawness in hopes that someone who needs to see it will. in hopes that i can help at least one person not feel alone. i am looking forward to seeing it all together in one book.
i have signed a contract with tara caribou for the publication of the invisible exhibitionist!!! so it is totally happening.
if you need to prep yourself for my collection of self-portraits, be sure to check out my collection of comics & my collection of short stories available over on my “love for sale” page. i also still have copies available to autograph if you are into that kind of thing. just email me.
teeth & gums & nakedness nothing new a series of dreams that never come true but can i really say i never get what i want when wants change & needs are undecipherable? needs i would like to get what i need teeth & gums & nakedness men following men through my room moonlight sunlight lamplight condom wrappers & nothing fulfilled but i got what i wanted for 30 seconds teeth & gums & nakedness
yes. my name is “mary jo” & yes. i was a pretty promiscuous 24 year old once. this is my favorite poem that i have ever written. it was written after a busy summer in ’94 that began with my breaking up with the love of my life and ended with my reuniting with the love of my life after a bunch of indiscretions. then i went away (with him) to an all girl school in roanoke, va (hollins university) where i workshopped my poem as well as classics such as “bukowski’s undertow” & “tiny tortures in this hyperactive ghost town” which can be seen in comic form in my newly published book confusion perfume & other neurotic comics.
in other news–i made so many valentine’s this year, y’all! i like to reclaim valentine’s day as a day of love & not necessarily romance. and i am so full of love. ink covered love.