Tag: poetry

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

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

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