edith blackwell

“She has a mouth like unswept glass—-when you least expect it she cuts you.”

I am troubled and harsh and hopeless. Though I have love inside me. But I don’t know how to use love. Sometimes it scratches like barbs.

I put on some music, Billie Holiday. Her voice flooded the room, climbed up the walls, spilled over the carpet, caressed me.  I smoked. I fixed a Bloody Mary and took it with me into the bathroom. I poured bath oil into the tub and let the hot water run. I painted my nails a dark red.

Her ancient gestures, her perfume, the infinite intimacy of her rage,