Poetry & Non-fiction by Holly Spencer

      Carolina Tarré CC



​Blood in the Water
 
You shake, flick, tear,
the bag, then pour the bitter powder. It falls
into the spoon, cap, lid. Your stomach clenches,
your throat constricts, and you dry-heave,
but you don’t spill a flake.
 
This is the payoff, the lick, the score,
the light that blinds the pupils and turns
the weakened gait into a run, causing you to overlook
the sweating, shivering, and shitting as you mix.
Yes, you shit as you mix.
 
Still, if your hand shakes, trembles, quavers,
use your teeth to steady and guide
the tip of your needle, rig, spike,
into the torn piece of cotton swab or cigarette filter.
Or, if you don’t have those choices,
use lint, if you must.
Then draw up the juice.
 
Later, if there’s an abscess on one forearm,
burning, tender, sore
you can drive the point
into that thin piece of skin on your knuckle.
You will cry out when the vein collapses,
swollen, numb, and bleeding. This will prepare
you. You will have to use your other hand,
and learn to be dexterous, deft, and nimble;
an expert.
 
There may come a time when you nod
with the barb still in your arm, relaxed, un-sick,
breathing slow and steady, and you wake up to rough fingers
on your breast, searching for your hidden stash. When this happens,
grab the random wrist, before opening your eyes,
and shove. He will be looking for a scrape, an empty, a hope
that you have something left. He thinks he smells
blood in the water. He doesn’t know you’re just as much of a shark.
 
 


Inevitable, Mythical
 
Mark’s chiseled jaw would have clenched
when Adonis, uncomfortable with envy,
flipped him the bird because he caught
Aphrodite’s attention. Now he lays
on soft pillows and I touch his cold hand.
The formaldehyde lingers in this place, hinting
of pickles, not hinting of anemone,
and I crinkle my nose as I kneel on the bench
to talk to my God, my God, my God.
My God, he was handsome.
The salty incense of other people’s tears
taste better than my own. They found Mark mauled
by a wild boar in Sandusky Court. No,
they found him in his bathroom, on the
floor, a needle hanging out of
his arm, his blood blooming with fentanyl,
his body, fertile soil now.
People talk, their words short-lived and dry, turning to dust.
He could charm women out of their clothes, like Orpheus coaxing
rocks to dance. His crimson blood congealed in the plastic
neck of his syringe, and marked his end.
That thought keeps leading me, like Orpheus would,
and on the wall, a picture of green meadows hangs.
I look back, I just look back once, tears on my tongue,
but it’s enough. He disappears.
 
*Dedicated to Mark Dailey, a most handsome friend
 


 
Finding Pepper

          I was ten years old when my Black Labrador Retriever went missing. I heard my mom and our neighbor, Bob, whispering about it in the hallway between the stairs and our front door. So, I went looking for him. I found the spot they were whispering about, and I stood in the middle of the street, looking down at a huge bloodstain on the pavement where a bus had hit my dog.
          I felt queasy looking at all of that blood. Even though it was nearly dried around the edges, it still pooled in the center, where it started to congeal. I looked away from the wide, maroon stain and took a deep breath. I knew what this much blood loss meant but it wasn’t real to me yet. I made up my mind. I would follow the trail of blood. I would find Pepper. I would save him.
         As I followed the splatters, I kept expecting to see my hyper, jet-black lab run around the bend, wag his tail in quick circles when he saw me, and lick my face in happiness. I left my yard through the front entrance, which was surrounded by tall, even hedges that marked the limits of our property. I turned left onto California Avenue and headed toward the Loop, the big, asphalt turn-around for the 16B buses traveling through Avalon, Ben Avon, and Emsworth. I fantasized about finding Pepper. In one fantasy, I imagined seeing a stranger holding a leash with Pepper on the end of it. The adults were wrong; it was a squirrel or a raccoon that got hit by the bus. In another hopeful fantasy, I’d find him curled up under a porch, whimpering, but savable, and I would nurture him back to health. He would be my puppy again and I’d be happy and not yell at him when I saw him chewing my Flowers for Algernon in the living room.
        Following the droplets along Avalon’s Orchard and Florence Avenues, I checked under porches and inside open sheds, and when the spatters faded away, I imagined it was because he had run up into someone’s grass. I went out every day, always starting at the big stain near the Loop. I don’t remember when I stopped looking; maybe I stopped after the stains dried completely or when we had a big rain. Eventually, I could no longer trace my steps. Pepper was lost to me—I imagine he died alone.
                                                                                                                                        *
         Thirty-two years later I stand in front of a mirror in a cheap hotel room, high on cocaine, and lost on the North Side of my city without an escape route. I wrap a shoelace tourniquet around my forearm and pull it tight. I see nothing in my eyes but loss. This makes me think of Pepper, and how I never found him. I look down and see what I did find staring back at me from the edge of the porcelain sink: a charred spoon from adding heat to the bottom, an empty bag with white flakes stuck to the sides, and a syringe with blood in it, blood that no longer makes me queasy. I found a man with a nice car, a nice suit, and a nice bank account; and when he opened his wallet, I peeled back the layers of my conscience like I was peeling an onion. I found a habit and when I did, I found another way to forget about everything else I couldn’t find.
         “Come out of that bathroom,” the man says through the door.
         I linger. I look down at the cocaine residue caked on the sides of the spoon on the sink and I wonder if there’s enough there for another shot. When I open the door to the naked businessman sprawled on the bed, I have one last thought of Pepper: no one is coming to save me. I imagine I’m dying alone.

Bio: Holly Spencer is a recovering addict who lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her four dogs and two cats. She is a recent graduate of Point Park University where she obtained two Bachelor Degrees: Creative Writing and Behavioral Sciences. During her "real" job, she works with women in drug and alcohol recovery, as well as pregnant, homeless women. Her piece, “Stuck,” has been published in Jet Fuel Review, an online literary magazine, in the creative nonfiction genre. Recently, “Stuck,” has been nominated for The Best of the Net, 2016. Her poem, “The Cost,” has been featured on Rise Up Review, an online forum for protest poetry, June 2017.

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