Self expression, however flawed, is a relief.
November 26, 2021
Category: Poetry
that 6:30 emptiness appeals to me most on autumn days when the aluminum light of dawn is no longer hoisted high by busy bird song, but hasn't yet been blacked out by cloudy catatonia, when my city becomes, for so brief a time, an empty church where i can walk quietly because no one is there, when every brake light and traffic signal is picked out in isolation and the wind blows no trash and the crows can't commit to east or west, but remain wise and unhindered as broken clouds drift in broken bands in slow procession toward the high rises, their destination past the horizon, but i'm gone by then, on a quiet bus, with the windows open, separating seeds from banal contentment, knowing only how fleeting this moment is, in autumn, on my way to work, to hear a lone crow's call.
October 8, 2021
laugh if you want to call me produce lady call me man call me virgin call me Ripley call me lesbo go ahead feel good feel superior laugh that self-satisfied laugh at my expense cause i can afford it now cause your words don't matter anymore to me cause i don't got to compromise anymore cause i don't got to sacrifice myself anymore when i walk out that door at 6am when i talk to myself to keep myself on track when i have a bad day when i got to recite my recitation on the bus to keep myself to myself i can still walk with my head held high burdened only by my warm coat and my lunch bag and my groceries and not anymore by self-hate and shame i'm not ashamed of who i am i'm not ashamed of how i live i don't need anything from you you stranger you unknown don't speak to me don't look at me don't stand near me i don't owe you anything i don't need your permission your understanding your good graces your charity your blessing and you don't need my fake smile my fake laugh my retail face cause that's all i got for you cause i don't need to forgive cause i can't forget it's somewhere in my bones down below the shower drain and the sticky carpet fibers and the warm plastic linoleum i couldn't find it if i wanted to and i don't i just want to keep on walking until i can't walk anymore and when i can't well somewhere inside i know the deal i know her name i'll take it with me i've got five minutes here i am this is all i'll ever be this is more than i've ever been i got what i need i fade it's leaf fall it's rain you feel you can't hear it's winter silence it's time o'clock it's all alone good morning
October 8, 2021
remember, you're meat. you're adipose tissue. you're organs. you're glands. you can be replaced by a machine by a plastic mouth by a whore by a neighbor by a child by an animal by a warm wet hole penned in light draws the eyes to your tits your ass your crotch draws the bull's eye to you, meat. dick plow. human toilet. emptied into. dripping. brains or inhuman smear. fertile abandonment. subject. abject. nothing you do matters. nothing you think matters. nothing matters over meat. not your goals, not your ambitions. not your thoughts. not your art. not your future. you are lobotomized. you are nothing but meat. remember. you aren't a person. you aren't an individual. you aren't autonomous. you aren't free. you aren't powerful. you are meat. remember. with every word, with every look, with every motion. you are nothing. you are meat. you are prey. you are subject, object. internalized meat. remember. there is no beauty. there is no love. whatever you were thinking, whatever you were doing, whatever you were feeling, this is your reminder, meat. none of it matters. you don't matter. you are nothing. you are meat.
October 8, 2021
"You look tired."
Are you saying I can't do my job?
Are you saying I shouldn't be here?
Are you saying I'm old, ugly, worn out?
Useless?
("I can't," she said.)
Why do you persist? Insist? I hold up
my head by way of meat and bone.
Isn't that enough?
What else am I supposed to do? To be?
("I can't do this.")
You whose name I know
only from the plastic
rectangle pinned to
your uniform like
mine: "At your
service
since"
it's
not a
prison, a
school, I'm not
here for an interview,
an audition, a loan, a raise,
do I have to smile to assuage
your false concern? ("I can't do
this anymore,") you nobody to
a nobody who just wants to
get through one more
shift, one more bus
ride, one more
alarm, one
more
look
at
a
face
I only
recognize through
long acquaintance
with plum eyes
and bird beak
and slash
mouth
and
(she said, I was told,
she walked away,
no two weeks,
no notice)
I wonder sometimes do I look
different, to them, to their
animal gazes skipping
over me like ruminant
tongues I don't
need "You
look,"
do
you?
("I can't,"
she said,
and
she walked away.
"I can't do this anymore."
Two decades my senior, we bonded
over suicidal ideation and cats and
men we shouldn't have let do what
they did and a mutual revulsion
for our own sex. "I can't do this,"
she said. "I can't do this
anymore."
and
she
gave me a gift, a definition of love.
"It makes me happy,"
she said, "to see you happy."
she
gave me a number, to the suicide
hotline she'd dialed the year be-
fore, torn from a magazine,
with a pretty picture on
the other side, a sea-
shell among bright
berries, so I wove
it into a collage,
and so poetry
is collage,
and so
I was
inspired
by
her,
by
my
first
work
friend,
before I
understood
the difference,
before I understood
the difference, I loved her.
she
didn't
waste words
on bitterness or
despair, she got out
of bed every day to show
up, to lift up, without complaint,
to let dark humor and sacrifice
roll us through concrete mornings.
That's why I didn't waste words,
that's why I got out of bed,
every day, to show up,
to lift up, my wonder-
ful young people,
to meet them
where
they
were,
and
so
I
was
loved
in return.
She will never
know how much she
meant to me, to my future.
I met my friends, my son, I met
the only life I ever want, head
on, straight through, be-
cause of her,
because
I met
her.)
I am so grateful.
I have a home.
I have a job.
I have a family.
("I can't" she said.
I miss her.
"I can't do this anymore.")
and
she walked away,
to where, and how,
I will never
know.
September 17, 2021
how do you know when it's raining? do you see do you feel the drops the contrast the atmosphere hear the impact pat pat pat does your tongue taste the trans- formation of water hot earth concrete damp grass prickle underfoot or is it the quiet- ing of bird song sizzle of rubber sheer- ing arc of water does your knee ache do you draw the curtains or do you open the door turn off the fan close your eyes does it matter to you or are you deep in artificial light and cool commercial cave how do you know when it's raining?
September 1, 2021
kitties think they belong everywhere doing everything with everyone and they're not wrong
August 28, 2021
my roommate says i'm autistic but i can't tell if he's joking
August 28, 2021
last strains of freedom from a car stereo at the stop light, Spanish auto-tune Springsteen, a collaborative anthem to the last fifteen minutes before the parking lot and the time clock and the last shuddering sigh through tired limbs on the darkening street as i stand at attention for an approaching bus, drained and dull as the wheels roll by and leave me behind with the last fading thump of free- dom rising up from the asphalt into worn out rubber soles
August 28, 2021
withering unwooded widowed man hidden hood disrupted by contact poison peeled back banana like Joanna Russ in reverse a male woman in heels and swayed hips and strong cheekbones turned coyly aside stubble waxed laser depilation in the mirror eyes shadowed by ancestral rituals of suffering like bulls pierced through muscle before heart to bleed out onto trampled sand to the roar of a crowd slinging vicarious phalluses eclipsed by phantom womb pain a grotesque parody of the first origin a circus fixed by a knife dangling vocal cords disposing of wombs as medical waste i grew in there! is it toxic? words spilling acid creased electric knees bending into nylons until Susan Faludi backs the lash and hairy knuckles pepper plums fresh across spans of winter white is that what half the population wants? disembodied castrated undermined manhood pivots violated disempowered cow corralled womanhood repulsive human race! all of us animals licking spoiled wounds for the taste
July 13, 2021
