Month: July 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

rusty nails in the dirt i pluck them
out one by one to push rough heels
into soft soil and pat them dry
 
there there

upright lipstick peeps through snow
crust flat against the wind until
frost bursts open a path for

roots among the rocks and tall stems
escape unbending leathery tongues
in arcs to count brown under

the weight of the sun as earth
turns over to yield up whole palm
heavy knobs one by one in yellow

dust

in winding braid
in warm kitchen
in steel pot
in ceramic bowl
in curled fingers

i split rusty nails to push smooth
hooves into soft soil

July 9, 2021

i may only be a nine out of a hundred
to the world, but i'm a nine out of
nine to me.

it may never be enough, but it's
everything i have.

i won't keep my head down anymore.
i won't do half the work of the bullies.
i get knocked down, laid low, flattened,
but

i can still look them in the eyes.
i can be afraid, but only of what's
in front of me and not of the end-
less reel in my head.

it's you, you know, who's changed me.
my buddy boy.

you're worth matching, you who walks
that clear stream where i can see
all the way to the bottom.

when i meet you where you are, i am
my best self.

that's where i want to be.
that's who i want to be.

it's never enough
for the world. but

it's enough
for me.

July 7, 2021

we're giving you ten percent.
that's a lot.
you should be grateful.
you need fifty to survive but,
well,
where's your family?
doesn't your mother love you?
who claims you?
you aren't our responsibility.
we're your friends,
but ten percent is all we're going to give.
the rest is up to you.
if you fall through,
well,
we'll say,
what a shame.
but we have responsibilities.
we have families.
we have mothers who love us.
you aren't our responsibility.
you aren't our family.
who do you belong to?
we can't give you more.
we can't do more.
we'll look away.
we'll say,
what a shame.
where did you go?
we care,
but we won't check in on you,
we won't call,
we won't text.
you're too much for us.
don't you have people?
don't you have a family that claims you?
doesn't your mother love you?

July 2, 2021

i
thought it was a mechanical problem. i
thought it was my dialog. i was ob-
sessed with beats for a while. it
never felt right. it never had
the right rhythm. maybe i
was looking for poetry
where there was no
poetry, poetry
where there
was only
prose.

bad prose.

because a life without stories
makes for stories without life.

i
wrote them to keep me company, one
dimensional backfill for a four
dimensional emptiness. rain
on dry soil makes only
mud. handprints
bake into ridges.
i can't read.
fossiliz-
ed youth
under-
go-
ing
geo-
logical
surveillance.
layers melting
one into another.

i remember this.
the sad thing is,

i
couldn't have done any better. i
could trace a line from New
York to Pennsylvania but
it wouldn't mean any-
thing. mud pies from
Pennsylvania to
North Carolina
to New Jersey.

two women
screech-
ing out-
side

an
apartment
door.

cops shining
flashlights into
a basement window. and
i traded his sentiment for
my excuse, but you can't opt out.

because

it all comes around in the end. he sang

in the shower. he said love isn't
enough, and you know, he was right.

i
had a sister once. i don't think i ever
had a brother. there was one more, but
she told me i was a burden to live
with. i had reached
the end.

i
thought about doing it in the woods, but
i couldn't give away my cat. i still
have the bookmarks on my old
phone, accidentally filed
under 'things
to do.'

i
could draw a line from New York to Oregon,
but there's no line back. i was pulled
like a thread through a needle, like
water curling down a drain. i re-
cognize none of it now.

pictures of emptiness.

there's a terrain of being unwanted. it
carves out the back of your skull. my
skull. there's meat clinging to the
bone, thin shell of bone. you walk,
i walked with that rounded spine,
carrying with me vertebra dis-
articulated. recombined into
the low belly snake sliding
under doors, leaving the
family undisturbed.
milk. white.
tooth.

less.

silent.

'you're a burden to live with' she said. but
that was someone else.

i
held onto the tightrope with both hands. i
thought my phone was broken. my first
week. she didn't call. some thing broke
in me. broke open. broke loose. live
wire.  i held onto it with both
hands. it didn't matter any-
more. it didn't matter
that i was unstable.
i got on the bus.
i went to work.
i paid my bills.

no one cared. no one needed to care.

i
fell free. snake skin. emptied out pickup
truck. industrious camouflage. people
make assumptions because they don't
care, because they don't have to
care. and i slid on by. i could
sit on the curb and cry be-
cause it didn't matter.

the illusion was good enough.

it was the confirmation i couldn't face
all those years ago, the confirmation
that i didn't matter to anyone. i
faced it. i don't know how i
kept going but i did. and
somewhere beyond
that, in a landscape
with color and
light, i felt
eyes on
me that
didn't
let
me

go, that didn't let me fade into the
monochrome.

i
was okay because they were okay. they,
all but one, had a background they
were woven into but they still
saw me. my loose threads
didn't matter

to them.
i belonged.

and that
one,

well.

we followed each other's threads, i think.
so even when other friendships unravel-
ed, faded, cut short, we kept each
other. the tranquil reflection
became the deep and
tranquil pool.
that's why

none of the rest of it matters.

i swapped bad prose for bad poetry.
but so what? i'm whole. i laid
down all that weight. i rest

here. i thought it was a
mechanical problem. i
thought it was my
dialog.

i was wrong.

it was the difference between having
no strength and having no one
believe in your strength.

my strength.

but i'm starting to believe. i can
look them in the eyes

now.

July 2, 2021