a house is built where it wasn't before

I was told about this in my dreams
and with a word that hung in the air
I was warned about the coming destruction
I misunderstood a warning as a sign that change was possible
the deepest truth about what is
about what was
about what always will be

change was not possible not because I did not choose it
but because she did not





the dreams:

I am in the front yard of the acreage house and there is a big black bull
loose in the yard
my mother is throwing the little kids up in the trees to keep them safe
she is yelling at me to take them inside
I can not open the door.



It is a winter night
so cold there is no sound
so dark only the white snow is visible
I am trying to get from the shop to the house
there is polar bear somewhere in the darkness
Dale runs out of the house with a gun and a dog
but runs into the dark with no direction, the wrong way
I am attacked by the bear
I hold open his jaws with my bare hands
they will not shut.


It is a cold winter night
so cold there is no sound
so dark only the white snow is visible
I am trying to get from the shop to the house
only this time there is a wolf somewhere in the darkness
Dale runs out of the house, the wrong way again
the wolf attacks.


the word:


I wake up in the morning
and hear this sentence in my head

'the memories of the family you have now will have to sustain you for the rest of your life'










all this is told to me years before now.
and yet now the dreams are reality
the destruction has come.

gratuitous ninja moves

how do you begin to explain a life
that has never been spoken of
only whispered of in the darkest places of fear
never realized
the conclusions and final destinations blocked by everything you don't want to ever let cross your mind, become concrete in the space of reality.
how do you articulate what has happed
after the world has come to an end.






Long Black Limousine, Shiniest Car I've Ever Seen

Heavy sun
Heavy lashes and a beat up car door
Breaks scraping and the choking sound of a bird’s death
Throwing up on a strange and familiar highway
Without words or voices or windy tires
This was never my fault
This was your victory

Crashing through the crowds until you were satisfied
Leaving your children in a bloody fermenting pool behind you
On to the next
On to the roping in and the churning out
I want to make you hurt so badly

I want you to be alone and abandoned and aching
For you have set me on fire in your doorway so many times
You have taken and taken and taken again
Any hope that I held like a burning rope in my hands threaded through my gut
Your sword of diseases
You are the cold
You are the homeless winter
You have stricken me with grief
And forced me to walk with shame

I am your daughter but you
You were never mine
I wish I could rip the poetry from your heart and turn it to dust
You have lost me
You have beaten me
and finally I have had enough
your ragged life is no fault of mine

All of your children have gone missing

-Elise Fleury









the reality of my mother, of myself, of my family.






I have lost.