I’ll build a castle

so that none of you can find me

I walked the snowy roads

of dusty towns

passed by deadbeat drunkards

lizard prostitutes

with tongues so sticky they leave a mark on your soul

I walked barefoot

or wore Chanel boots

took the Louboutins to work

only to realize

I needed a spare key

to the bathroom

I told my lover as we lie in bed

feeling distracted

from the world outside

my fingers tracing his spikes

his spinal cord a mess of broken college sport dreams

and nights spent hugging his dead mother

I'll build a castle

I said

it will be tall

icy

cold

mine

shaped like a busy intern

a horn

not like yours

but something out of a cavernous dream

in the heart of the night

I'll contact J.M. Coetzee

He'll whisper profanity in my ears

I'll laugh and choke on my guitar

spitting beer through the nose

and empty vodka glasses through the thorax

I built a castle

like Elsa

all those Disney girls whose lives were marked by nature

unlike me

I seek nature

but it defies me

resists my charms

I lie in bed at night

alone

or with you

and dream of a boat

where nobody understands the destination

but a ballroom dance

going round and round

like the girl with the broken neck

in the house of Usher

If you spell it backwards

you cast a spell

on your dead lover

to screw him in his sleep

baptism and all