Sam Moe

What If I Want What I Want

You arrive late, turning on the lamps one by one like
ceremony means more to you than the days we worshipped
the old gods, on our knees in front of fires and photographs
you told me you liked when I was sad for you, captivated
by my tears which you keep in bright blue vials, being

on the outskirts of town, you lurk in your New Yorker
coat, buttons falling off, you’re tall when the sun sets,
crumpled cigarette between chapped lips, a wad of cash
in your breast pocket, you try to pick up our friend after
the wake, asking baby-baby why are you mad, telling me

to watch my mouth, we’re in a sacred place, the kitchen
where so many of my mothers have risen from their beds
in the middle of the night, when the city is only just shaking
things up, spreading dozens of different jams on apple toast,
heating tea on the stove, hear their ghosts whispering, stuck

in tin pipes, see my love reappear for you in soap bubbles
my arms are half in warm water, scrubbing the blood out
of your dress shirt, my hands are mad for you, want to
toss you out of the apartment, want you to be by my side
before midnight but you’re lying on the dining room

table with an apple in your mouth, your arm dangling
between someone’s shoulders, you twists to look at me
my little haunted thing, you call me a dream, tell me if I
wake at witching hour I’ll be able to see your faded shape
in the bathroom mirror but have I tried summoning our

past with gold coins and yellow ribbons, no, you’ve got your
fingers beneath her bra strap, she’s got her moss-hued eyes
laughing as if I don’t know you all wish I was dead, but no
one else compares to the way you treat wolves and dogs
the same, do you remember the days we crouched in ice

and Central Park was a distant memory, we were lost in
pines and sticky honey cones, frost flowers began to bloom
around my feet, you called me the name of another goddess,
told me you would never leave my head or my soul, all yours,
your past lovers live deeply, sleepily, tucked away inside your

heart, this isn’t a ghost thing, you’re the hunter and the trap,
you’re getting your dress pants dirty on Heaven Mountain
letting wolves with navy-blue muzzles eat out of the palm
of your hand, laughing as their tongues tickle your flesh
I don’t feel relief, and the mourners stay overnight, telling

me it’s better this way, to have a sleepover as the deceased
are passing the threshold, wouldn’t want to leave you alone
when my heart is so easily devoured, when my journals
and letters are filled with blood and love, where the poison
cabinet hangs open and you hangs in the archway between

life and death, your eyes so bright and grey like a monster
or a sun, and no one comes to find me when I hide in the tub
my knees pulled up to my chest, I toss my mind back there
with the peeling paint and my mother’s voice, a weapon, her
oil paintings hanging sharp and bronze in the hall, tell me

to get over myself, once I screamed so loud I threw my soul
told you to never come back, I tried to borrow wings to escape
but you’re always here, the woman of my past, quickly dragging
me down with your red lacquered nails and perfectly arched
eyebrows, your squeeze my cheeks, tell me I’m beautiful

please don’t get me wrong, I’m obsessed with the medicine
that comes with falling in love slowly, you and I don’t get along
but we’ve stitched our souls together with the last of the string
and I’ve hushed the buttons, tossed my awful body against amber
walls, begged the angels to open the pathway to everlasting, that

sweet please, the way the trees fall on their own bodies’ leaves,
adoration that tastes similar to old fruit, is this what I really want
or am I lost again in the memory of your protection, would you
wrap your wing around me darling-darling or should I duck and
cover, would you help me do my makeup or am I stuck in this

life alone, you once told me I could eat my heart if I wanted to,
did you mean it, do you truly believe that after all this time I’m
saved, that I’m safe now the crown is gone, but what if you come
for me in my sleep, but what if II don’t want you to leave again
and God, you know I’m selfish but you don’t mind when I shine.

Sam Moe is the first-place winner of Invisible City’s Blurred Genres contest in 2022, and the 2021 recipient of an Author Fellowship from Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Her first chapbook, “Heart Weeds,” is out from Alien Buddha Press and her second chapbook, “Grief Birds,” is forthcoming from Bullshit Lit in April 2023. You can find them on Twitter and Instagram as @SamAnneMoe.