You woke up this morning
And even though your body
Felt like it had suffered a small death
In the dark, sleeping hours
You got out of bed.*
*(Bed:
A location to sleep or relax. A resting place that is no longer a
resting place, but a battle ground. No truce or treaty tethers the
ghosts that pace around the perimeter of its frame. Just the suggestion
of a threat straining for closure and resolution to a too-long siege on
memory.)
You took a shower
And even though the pounding water
Echoed panic, panic, panic
Can't you see the world is flooding*
Go back to bed
You stepped out, shook yourself dry
And were clean.
*(Flooding: Present participle of flood where present particles of water surge in a seeking wave. A wave searching for the presence of landmines left behind as reminders that your land will never be mine and my land will never be yours. No common ground. No soil to foster a peace.)
You got dressed
And even though your reading hands
Said there was too much here
Or too little here
Or this stretch of skin just won't do*
You put your clothes on with
A mundane pride.
*(Do: Past tense: Do not give in. Present tense: Do not give out. Future tense: Do not give up)
You made breakfast
And even though your appetite
Felt like a loss of control*
You ate.
You felt your food hit the bottom of your stomach
And took comfort in the solid sound of the reverberation.
You are not the dark center of the universe
You think you are.
(Control: Synonym: Denial)
You went to work
And even though
The frantic sound of typing fingers
Sounded like the lurid language
Of frenzied dragonflies whose
Vocabulary consisted only of the words
Not good enough*
You made it through.
You were good enough.
Even if it was just for today.
*(Not good enough - direct translation: Giving up all hope for a better future)
You went home.
Undeservingly exhausted
You crawled back into bed
Pulled the covers over your head
Made no promises for tomorrow.
You measure your lifetime in days now
And there are still hours* left in this one.
There are still minutes left in this one.
There are still seconds left in this one.
And every tick of the clock is a step forward
On the lifelong road to recovery.*
*(Hour: How I measure the moments when your stretch of presence doesn't stalk my memory)
*(Recovery:
A mundane pride in re-establishing a routine to increase the amount of
hours that I feel good enough; in redefining control; in doing more
than saying; in not becoming overwhelmed by the flood; in brokering a
ceasefire with the ghosts in my bed -- ending the too-long siege on
memory)
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
This Black Body Pt. II
Black body an assumption
Black body an expectation
Black body a projection
Black body in the media
Black body violent
Black body a problem before it walks through
the door.
80% of black bodies graduate high school.
Record breaking
Still can't break stereotypes.
Black body collateral.
Black body disturbed the peace.
Black body gunned down in the street.
Black body a weapon.
Black body brokers peace treaty with blood.
Black body scapegoat sacrificed on the altar of racial pedagogy.
One black body killed every 28 hours
by people sworn to protect all bodies.
Black body unknown.
Black body featureless.
Black body homogeneous.
Black body blasphemous.
Black body never nuanced.
Black body seen in its entirety in one glance.
Black body doesn't measure up to Eurocentric standards of beauty.
Black body feels worthless.
Unnoticed black bodies develop eating disorders.
Black body can never starve itself of its color.
Black body alone.
Black body afraid.
Black body looking, looking.
Black body never found.
Black body lost.
Black body drowning in pools of shadow.
Black body absorber of light
Solar panel - Unpredictable, inconsistent, an unstable energy source at best
Black body absorber of light
Black hole - Collapsing, unescapable, kept at a cosmic distance
Black body absorber of light
Weeded out - Photosynthetic, artificial, fibrous, invasive species.
Black body blood-borne.
Black body tainted.
Black body carrier of biracial bug.
Black body transmits shame.
Black body inherits blame.
Black body a legacy of chains.
This black body trying to break free.
This black body a destroyer.
This black body trying to destroy assumptions.
This black body trying to defy expectations.
This black body trying to demystify projections.
This black body is trying.
This black body is trying.
Black body an expectation
Black body a projection
Black body in the media
Black body violent
Black body a problem before it walks through
the door.
80% of black bodies graduate high school.
Record breaking
Still can't break stereotypes.
Black body collateral.
Black body disturbed the peace.
Black body gunned down in the street.
Black body a weapon.
Black body brokers peace treaty with blood.
Black body scapegoat sacrificed on the altar of racial pedagogy.
One black body killed every 28 hours
by people sworn to protect all bodies.
Black body unknown.
Black body featureless.
Black body homogeneous.
Black body blasphemous.
Black body never nuanced.
Black body seen in its entirety in one glance.
Black body doesn't measure up to Eurocentric standards of beauty.
Black body feels worthless.
Unnoticed black bodies develop eating disorders.
Black body can never starve itself of its color.
Black body alone.
Black body afraid.
Black body looking, looking.
Black body never found.
Black body lost.
Black body drowning in pools of shadow.
Black body absorber of light
Solar panel - Unpredictable, inconsistent, an unstable energy source at best
Black body absorber of light
Black hole - Collapsing, unescapable, kept at a cosmic distance
Black body absorber of light
Weeded out - Photosynthetic, artificial, fibrous, invasive species.
Black body blood-borne.
Black body tainted.
Black body carrier of biracial bug.
Black body transmits shame.
Black body inherits blame.
Black body a legacy of chains.
This black body trying to break free.
This black body a destroyer.
This black body trying to destroy assumptions.
This black body trying to defy expectations.
This black body trying to demystify projections.
This black body is trying.
This black body is trying.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
3 Ways to Use School as a Coping Mechanism (draft)
1. Establish a routine
Get back into the swing of things
Wake up Brush your teeth Take a shower Skip breakfast
Get in your car
Drive to campus
Go to class
Go to class
GO TO CLASS
Be late to class and hope your professor
is only looking at you weird because
you are late and not because
she can smell the scent of
undeserved tragedy wafting from you
like a failed attempt at aromatherapy.
2. Read your textbooks out loud
Practice drowning out the lo-fi
Buzz of your self-deprecating self-talk
By reading in a clear, even tone even
While panic is pressing against the back
Of your throat like a detonator
Take pride in the fact that you can read
About survivors of abuse and trauma
As clinically as a doctor reading an MRI
And preparing to relay a terminal prognosis of disease.
3. Go to lunch with your friends.
Even if you're not actually going to eat lunch.
Even if they're not actually friends.
Even if they're just long-term acquaintances you've met
From having so many classes with them
Go to lunch.
Listen to the things they talk about.
Pay attention to the way they eat their food.
Think about how there are seven billion people in the world
All eating differently
Talking differently
Having lunch
And realize how ridiculous it is for you to rationalize qualitatively
That one person is greater than seven billion.
Get back into the swing of things
Wake up Brush your teeth Take a shower Skip breakfast
Get in your car
Drive to campus
Go to class
Go to class
GO TO CLASS
Be late to class and hope your professor
is only looking at you weird because
you are late and not because
she can smell the scent of
undeserved tragedy wafting from you
like a failed attempt at aromatherapy.
2. Read your textbooks out loud
Practice drowning out the lo-fi
Buzz of your self-deprecating self-talk
By reading in a clear, even tone even
While panic is pressing against the back
Of your throat like a detonator
Take pride in the fact that you can read
About survivors of abuse and trauma
As clinically as a doctor reading an MRI
And preparing to relay a terminal prognosis of disease.
3. Go to lunch with your friends.
Even if you're not actually going to eat lunch.
Even if they're not actually friends.
Even if they're just long-term acquaintances you've met
From having so many classes with them
Go to lunch.
Listen to the things they talk about.
Pay attention to the way they eat their food.
Think about how there are seven billion people in the world
All eating differently
Talking differently
Having lunch
And realize how ridiculous it is for you to rationalize qualitatively
That one person is greater than seven billion.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Themes of Fire - Model #2 - Cycles of Abuse
There are many themes of fire
That refine the bond that trauma builds
In the beginning, he will tell you
That you are the only one that matters
You make his world brighter
Like the only candle that can fend off the
darkness
He is the warmth and you are the light
In this theme of fire
The flames are passion, love, and hope
But above all they are false
They are tongues of flame probing you for weakness
Probing you for vulnerability
Did someone break your heart before him
Did your parents not love you enough
Does your mind ever become your enemy
He will blame you
Tell you that your misfortune is your fault
That if you loved him as much as you said you did
Your life would be in line
He will raise his voice
So that you will lower your head in shame
He will try to kick you out of his car
In the middle of the bypass
Saying no one has ever pushed him so far
He will threaten to beat the shit out of you
And give you bruises to match the ones on your heart
In this theme of fire, he shows his true colors
You will see them as works of art
And forget one of the basic rules of nature
The more brightly colored an organism is
The more toxic it tends to be
In this theme of fire, he will rake
You over the coals
Dangle you over the flames
And claim that his not dropping you into them
Is a sign of love
Eventually he will calm down
And you will think that this tranquility
Is the result of your ability to soothe
The beast within him
No, it is only lying dormant
Like an inactive volcano
Waiting to erupt
When strategy calls for it
What you have to understand
Is that his love and anger are tools
To use whenever the time is right
When the circumstance calls for it
You will be so grateful for this moment of inactivity
For this reconciliation
He will tell you
If you just stop making me mad
If you just stop talking to your friends
If you just give me money
If you just hate yourself
Then I will be happy
And by definition
You will be happy
In this theme of fire
You will soak yourself in gasoline
And beg for his spark
As you will learn
Nothing keeps him happy for long
He will drain the life out of you
Until you are nothing but a shell of your
Former self
His instability
Will manifest in you as anxiety
Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder
Anything he can convince you will be cured
By you appeasing him
Your friends will call
You will tell them everything is fine
It is easier than saying that you are ashamed
For staying
That you are embarrassed for everyone
To see how small you've become
How close you are to breaking
You will go through this cycle
Until something gives
And something will give
Something always does
Hopefully
You remember your own flame
The candle that existed before the thought of him
You will fuel it with the hope that there
Is something better out there
Even if you don't know what it is
You will gather up courage
In a last ditch effort
And say, I can't take it anymore
I'm leaving
He will react predictably
With volcanic rage
And blazing anger
He will tell you that you are worthless
And shady
He will tell you that no one else
Will ever love you the way he did
He will ask you
Who is going to love you now?
Who is going to love you now?
And with a voice that for the first time
Recalls its strength
You will say me
I am going to love me now
I am going to love me now.
That refine the bond that trauma builds
In the beginning, he will tell you
That you are the only one that matters
You make his world brighter
Like the only candle that can fend off the
darkness
He is the warmth and you are the light
In this theme of fire
The flames are passion, love, and hope
But above all they are false
They are tongues of flame probing you for weakness
Probing you for vulnerability
Did someone break your heart before him
Did your parents not love you enough
Does your mind ever become your enemy
He will blame you
Tell you that your misfortune is your fault
That if you loved him as much as you said you did
Your life would be in line
He will raise his voice
So that you will lower your head in shame
He will try to kick you out of his car
In the middle of the bypass
Saying no one has ever pushed him so far
He will threaten to beat the shit out of you
And give you bruises to match the ones on your heart
In this theme of fire, he shows his true colors
You will see them as works of art
And forget one of the basic rules of nature
The more brightly colored an organism is
The more toxic it tends to be
In this theme of fire, he will rake
You over the coals
Dangle you over the flames
And claim that his not dropping you into them
Is a sign of love
Eventually he will calm down
And you will think that this tranquility
Is the result of your ability to soothe
The beast within him
No, it is only lying dormant
Like an inactive volcano
Waiting to erupt
When strategy calls for it
What you have to understand
Is that his love and anger are tools
To use whenever the time is right
When the circumstance calls for it
You will be so grateful for this moment of inactivity
For this reconciliation
He will tell you
If you just stop making me mad
If you just stop talking to your friends
If you just give me money
If you just hate yourself
Then I will be happy
And by definition
You will be happy
In this theme of fire
You will soak yourself in gasoline
And beg for his spark
As you will learn
Nothing keeps him happy for long
He will drain the life out of you
Until you are nothing but a shell of your
Former self
His instability
Will manifest in you as anxiety
Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder
Anything he can convince you will be cured
By you appeasing him
Your friends will call
You will tell them everything is fine
It is easier than saying that you are ashamed
For staying
That you are embarrassed for everyone
To see how small you've become
How close you are to breaking
You will go through this cycle
Until something gives
And something will give
Something always does
Hopefully
You remember your own flame
The candle that existed before the thought of him
You will fuel it with the hope that there
Is something better out there
Even if you don't know what it is
You will gather up courage
In a last ditch effort
And say, I can't take it anymore
I'm leaving
He will react predictably
With volcanic rage
And blazing anger
He will tell you that you are worthless
And shady
He will tell you that no one else
Will ever love you the way he did
He will ask you
Who is going to love you now?
Who is going to love you now?
And with a voice that for the first time
Recalls its strength
You will say me
I am going to love me now
I am going to love me now.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Stifling Someone's Essence Is a Form of Violence - Model #1 - Intersectionality
I am not simply one
I say to myself in the mirror
Contemplating the different layers
That form the whole of my being
The different intersecting identities
Borne from struggle and discovery
Invisible to the outside world
Yet so integral to the world inside
A friend of a friend told me that his
friend's roommate came out to him the other
day
Gathered up the courage needed to tell him he was
gay
His roommate said - Can't you just not be that way
Can't you just ace the gay away?
Better asexual than homosexual
Better me feel comfortable
And you feel marginalized
Adjusting yourself to my heterosexist tendency
The problem with intersectionality is that people
Always want to censor some part of you
Turn you into a shifting microcosm
of adjustable identities
They always want to change you
Part Two - A girl from my hometown
Has an aunt who used to be her uncle
Aunt Lily used to be Uncle Hawthorne
And like all flowers, bloomed when the time
Was right and the bud was too tight
She tried to explain this to a friend
But the girl wasn't all that good at botany
Didn't understand the struggle of transit
The struggle of a woman beating her face up
With make up so people will stop calling her a boy
The struggle of slipping into heels sharp
as daggers arrayed against the slurs of people
who would call her a man to stifle her essence
The problem with intersectionality is that
people will always try to stifle your essence
and keep you from radiating it.
Stifling someone's essence is a form of violence.
Part 3 -
I know this girl from Lambda Alliance
that everyone keeps calling greedy
She's bisexual
Apparently she can't pick a team
Apparently she can't pick a side
She can't just be bi
She's always only "bi for now"
Always bisected by people with
No concept of spectrum
No concept of fluidity
No concept of the damage that's done
When you force a person into two closets
The problem with intersectionality is that
You often find yourself running in and out of closets
Trying to justify the permutations of self
That make up who you are
That people fail to understand
That intertwine so delicately
Like a piece of art
A carefully crafted figure
Forging self into reality.
I say to myself in the mirror
Contemplating the different layers
That form the whole of my being
The different intersecting identities
Borne from struggle and discovery
Invisible to the outside world
Yet so integral to the world inside
A friend of a friend told me that his
friend's roommate came out to him the other
day
Gathered up the courage needed to tell him he was
gay
His roommate said - Can't you just not be that way
Can't you just ace the gay away?
Better asexual than homosexual
Better me feel comfortable
And you feel marginalized
Adjusting yourself to my heterosexist tendency
The problem with intersectionality is that people
Always want to censor some part of you
Turn you into a shifting microcosm
of adjustable identities
They always want to change you
Part Two - A girl from my hometown
Has an aunt who used to be her uncle
Aunt Lily used to be Uncle Hawthorne
And like all flowers, bloomed when the time
Was right and the bud was too tight
She tried to explain this to a friend
But the girl wasn't all that good at botany
Didn't understand the struggle of transit
The struggle of a woman beating her face up
With make up so people will stop calling her a boy
The struggle of slipping into heels sharp
as daggers arrayed against the slurs of people
who would call her a man to stifle her essence
The problem with intersectionality is that
people will always try to stifle your essence
and keep you from radiating it.
Stifling someone's essence is a form of violence.
Part 3 -
I know this girl from Lambda Alliance
that everyone keeps calling greedy
She's bisexual
Apparently she can't pick a team
Apparently she can't pick a side
She can't just be bi
She's always only "bi for now"
Always bisected by people with
No concept of spectrum
No concept of fluidity
No concept of the damage that's done
When you force a person into two closets
The problem with intersectionality is that
You often find yourself running in and out of closets
Trying to justify the permutations of self
That make up who you are
That people fail to understand
That intertwine so delicately
Like a piece of art
A carefully crafted figure
Forging self into reality.
Monday, August 11, 2014
A Mundane Pride
You woke up this morning
And even though your body
Felt like it had suffered a small death
In the dark, sleeping hours
You got out of bed.
You took a shower
And even though the pounding water
Echoed panic, panic, panic
Can't you see the world is flooding
Go back to bed
You stepped out, shook yourself dry
And were clean.
You got dressed
And even though your reading hands
Said there was too much here
Or too little here
Or this stretch of skin just won't do
You put your clothes on with
A mundane pride.
You made breakfast
And even though your appetite
Felt like a loss of control
You ate.
You felt your food hit the bottom of your stomach
And took comfort in the solid sound of the reverberation.
You are not the dark center of the universe
You think you are.
You went to work
And even though
The frantic sound of typing fingers
Sounded like the lurid language
Of frenzied dragonflies whose
Vocabulary consisted only of the words
Not good enough
You made it through.
You were good enough.
Even if it was just for today.
You went home.
Undeservingly exhausted
You crawled back into bed
Pulled the covers over your head
Made no promises for tomorrow.
You measure your lifetime in days now
And there are still hours left in this one.
There are still minutes left in this one.
There are still seconds left in this one.
And every tick of the clock is a step forward
On the lifelong road to recovery.
And even though your body
Felt like it had suffered a small death
In the dark, sleeping hours
You got out of bed.
You took a shower
And even though the pounding water
Echoed panic, panic, panic
Can't you see the world is flooding
Go back to bed
You stepped out, shook yourself dry
And were clean.
You got dressed
And even though your reading hands
Said there was too much here
Or too little here
Or this stretch of skin just won't do
You put your clothes on with
A mundane pride.
You made breakfast
And even though your appetite
Felt like a loss of control
You ate.
You felt your food hit the bottom of your stomach
And took comfort in the solid sound of the reverberation.
You are not the dark center of the universe
You think you are.
You went to work
And even though
The frantic sound of typing fingers
Sounded like the lurid language
Of frenzied dragonflies whose
Vocabulary consisted only of the words
Not good enough
You made it through.
You were good enough.
Even if it was just for today.
You went home.
Undeservingly exhausted
You crawled back into bed
Pulled the covers over your head
Made no promises for tomorrow.
You measure your lifetime in days now
And there are still hours left in this one.
There are still minutes left in this one.
There are still seconds left in this one.
And every tick of the clock is a step forward
On the lifelong road to recovery.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Always Pretending
I think about writing a poem
To bridge the gap between your pain
And my own
I burn the bridge as soon as I build it
Aware aware of the futility of the task
I could never hurt badly enough to arouse your compassion
So I put my pen down
I click "yes" when Netflix ask if I'm still watching the movie
I forgot I was watching because I was too busy trying to write a poem
To get an emotional response from anyone
Preferably you, or someone like you
I think about how stupid it is to include Netflix in a poem
As a literary device
I agree with myself that I shouldn't worry about it
And should save my energy for things that should be worried about
Like
When is the money going to run out?
Will I ever get married?
Should I eat today, or have I had too much?
I have had too much.
There's a point when you become so self-critical with yourself
That your life starts to straddle the fine line
between perspective and parody
And you realize you're just parroting the perspectives
Of people who died long before you thought
It was edgy to have a suicidal thought
And yet, the generation I come from
Has developed a morbid curiosity
For visceral authenticity
Hidden in inner realms
With layers and layers of psychic fabrics
To protect our fabricated sense of selves
Be real with me
Show me where your stitches are
So I can pull them at the seams and
Make you spill your guts to me
Tell me how they simplified your identity
Made you eat even though you didn't want to
Talk me through the moment when you realized
That making love doesn't mean letting someone
Fuck you as hard as you hate yourself
Don't pretend in front of me
We are always pretending
Aren't you tired?
To bridge the gap between your pain
And my own
I burn the bridge as soon as I build it
Aware aware of the futility of the task
I could never hurt badly enough to arouse your compassion
So I put my pen down
I click "yes" when Netflix ask if I'm still watching the movie
I forgot I was watching because I was too busy trying to write a poem
To get an emotional response from anyone
Preferably you, or someone like you
I think about how stupid it is to include Netflix in a poem
As a literary device
I agree with myself that I shouldn't worry about it
And should save my energy for things that should be worried about
Like
When is the money going to run out?
Will I ever get married?
Should I eat today, or have I had too much?
I have had too much.
There's a point when you become so self-critical with yourself
That your life starts to straddle the fine line
between perspective and parody
And you realize you're just parroting the perspectives
Of people who died long before you thought
It was edgy to have a suicidal thought
And yet, the generation I come from
Has developed a morbid curiosity
For visceral authenticity
Hidden in inner realms
With layers and layers of psychic fabrics
To protect our fabricated sense of selves
Be real with me
Show me where your stitches are
So I can pull them at the seams and
Make you spill your guts to me
Tell me how they simplified your identity
Made you eat even though you didn't want to
Talk me through the moment when you realized
That making love doesn't mean letting someone
Fuck you as hard as you hate yourself
Don't pretend in front of me
We are always pretending
Aren't you tired?
Monday, June 16, 2014
The Mother We Share
As you breathe and crackle
With the fires of creation
Spontaneously combusting
Into greater circles of life
Walking in your orbit
Like you own the sky
A crown of brilliant light
Circled around your head
Waves of air bending hazy and obedient
To the authority of your solar sovereignty
And I, the lesser twin
Born form the cosmic trauma
Of celestial violence
Waxing and waning
Manic and depressive
Stumbling heavy and strange in my orbit
You own the sky, but I visit it
As the extradited thief of a greater light
I use to spin my halo of a lesser gold
Waves of water bending tidal and taunting
To the wavering rule of a lost and lunar king
And if we come from the same womb,
Why do you see life so free, and I see it as a tomb?
If we do indeed have a mother that we share,
Why do I see life as a chore, and you see it as a dare?
Do you love me, brother?
With the fires of creation
Spontaneously combusting
Into greater circles of life
Walking in your orbit
Like you own the sky
A crown of brilliant light
Circled around your head
Waves of air bending hazy and obedient
To the authority of your solar sovereignty
And I, the lesser twin
Born form the cosmic trauma
Of celestial violence
Waxing and waning
Manic and depressive
Stumbling heavy and strange in my orbit
You own the sky, but I visit it
As the extradited thief of a greater light
I use to spin my halo of a lesser gold
Waves of water bending tidal and taunting
To the wavering rule of a lost and lunar king
And if we come from the same womb,
Why do you see life so free, and I see it as a tomb?
If we do indeed have a mother that we share,
Why do I see life as a chore, and you see it as a dare?
Do you love me, brother?
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Basilisk Boy
The nurse told me I had a great smile as I walked past her
And into the clinic.
The way she smiled suggested a woman who is often
On the receiving end of bad news.
We are kindred spirits that way.
Inside the clinic I am struck with the same
anti-septic, impersonal sensation I always
get when inside of hospitals
I'm a germ
I'm defiling this place
With my hypochondriac anxiety
The needle plunges into my skin
It's almost erotic
Vampiric as it draws blood from my veins
Dark, ritualistic -- I see why demons fiend for this
I examine my blood in the vial before it's taken
For study
Searching for any suggestion of extra microscopic weight
Reconning for intruders
For viruses
For anything that could disrupt my homeostasis
She told me you will know your results in 4 days at the latest
I smile they way a person who worries about the world does
She grimaces -- tells me I have nothing to worry about
You know nothing about me -- my eyes say
My mouth transfixed in that great smile
Days go by
I am festering in my own pessimism
Counting back everyone and anyone
That could have been an exposure
The only things that eases my fears
Are shitty cartoons and starvation and the momentary mimosa
Funny -- my body turns to stupidity and anorexic
Inclination when I'm stressed out
I'll have to remember that on my death bed
In that decaying voice that whispers jokes with
Death at his door
Put on that episode of family guy
No -- I don't want to eat -- I can't eat
Eating is for people who deserve to live
On the fourth day
The latest day
The earth-shattering email
Negative -- you are negative
The sigh of relief
The aversion of crisis
The weight of death lifted off every cell of my body
If not just for now
There is no intruder
No virus
No basilisk blood running in my veins
I am not the king of serpents yet
I would never wish that crown on anyone
For it is a kingship acquired through unprotected gambles
And pharmaceutical indiscretion
From being told your whole life
You are the sum of your sexual expression
Deified in one stroke
Demonized the next
But still
This normal heart beats only against its own walls
And not yet the onslaught of a viral intruder
There is a fear in wondering if your body
Is an ambling epidemic
Death walking
Breath miasma
Blood acid
No -- no basilisk here
Just a boy who made some bad decisions
Just a boy who understands the power of negative
Thinking
Just a boy who is safe for now
My body is safe for now
My blood is safe for now
For now sounds like a threat and a promise
And into the clinic.
The way she smiled suggested a woman who is often
On the receiving end of bad news.
We are kindred spirits that way.
Inside the clinic I am struck with the same
anti-septic, impersonal sensation I always
get when inside of hospitals
I'm a germ
I'm defiling this place
With my hypochondriac anxiety
The needle plunges into my skin
It's almost erotic
Vampiric as it draws blood from my veins
Dark, ritualistic -- I see why demons fiend for this
I examine my blood in the vial before it's taken
For study
Searching for any suggestion of extra microscopic weight
Reconning for intruders
For viruses
For anything that could disrupt my homeostasis
She told me you will know your results in 4 days at the latest
I smile they way a person who worries about the world does
She grimaces -- tells me I have nothing to worry about
You know nothing about me -- my eyes say
My mouth transfixed in that great smile
Days go by
I am festering in my own pessimism
Counting back everyone and anyone
That could have been an exposure
The only things that eases my fears
Are shitty cartoons and starvation and the momentary mimosa
Funny -- my body turns to stupidity and anorexic
Inclination when I'm stressed out
I'll have to remember that on my death bed
In that decaying voice that whispers jokes with
Death at his door
Put on that episode of family guy
No -- I don't want to eat -- I can't eat
Eating is for people who deserve to live
On the fourth day
The latest day
The earth-shattering email
Negative -- you are negative
The sigh of relief
The aversion of crisis
The weight of death lifted off every cell of my body
If not just for now
There is no intruder
No virus
No basilisk blood running in my veins
I am not the king of serpents yet
I would never wish that crown on anyone
For it is a kingship acquired through unprotected gambles
And pharmaceutical indiscretion
From being told your whole life
You are the sum of your sexual expression
Deified in one stroke
Demonized the next
But still
This normal heart beats only against its own walls
And not yet the onslaught of a viral intruder
There is a fear in wondering if your body
Is an ambling epidemic
Death walking
Breath miasma
Blood acid
No -- no basilisk here
Just a boy who made some bad decisions
Just a boy who understands the power of negative
Thinking
Just a boy who is safe for now
My body is safe for now
My blood is safe for now
For now sounds like a threat and a promise
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Bomb Shelter
I'll ask you if you think it's possible to love a bomb
shelter
You'll ask me why
I'll say it's because that's what I pretend to be
When I feel like the world is closing in on me
My meditative happy space.
To meditate or medicate?
That is the question.
These hands are not my hands
These feet are not my feet
This heart is not my heart
They are the brick and mortar
I bought with my defense budget
This skin is not my skin
It is 7 inches of hard, cold obsidian
To fend off the inevitable irradiation
of an erroneous
environment
You'll laugh at me because you think I'm making a joke about
my dick
I'll tell you not to interrupt my existential crisis
It's serious
It always will be
I'll tell you how some days
Every word said over me
And not to me
Whistles like the mouth of a warhead through the air
Reaching terminal velocity until the detonation of impersonal
conversation
Explodes all around me
When other eyes register my perimeter and then quickly look
away
I feel like the landscape is splintering around me
The bombs go off in my vicinity
Razed by apathy
Barely missing me
Intentionally
Disguising this test of endurance
As a test of luck
I'll tell you how some nights
I can sit in a room full of people
And feel as desolate
As the aftermath of a nuclear fallout
The ruins of my city
Populated by the inevitable irradiation
This erroneous environment reeks
The macabre miasma
accompanying
the smell of spoiled vintage
And silver aura radiating
Around the halos of skulls long in the tooth
No longer aged and wise
Just decomposing
As our vitality pretends we won't
As our mortality portends we do
I try to ward off the vapor
With the salts and silver smelted in
The enamel of my too short teeth
But they stay rooted in their canals
Guards of show, not of action
Wanting for hands to cover my mouth with
Wanting for feet to walk away with
Wanting for a heart to pump life and color
To differentiate me from this silver haze
I have become a morbid monument
To edify this radiated ruin
Populated by you
Fluent in the language of light and reconstructive criticism
Clairvoyant future demystifying the fog
I stood in like the water
Hanging in the air of a silver mist
Draped around the sullen shoulders of Chernobyl
With all your nebulous swagger
And talks of diplomacy between mind and body
You stand at my barricade
You look me in the eye
Then down at the weeds encroaching on my perimeter
In your presence, the weeds whisper flowers
Forget-me-nots if you’re romantic
Roses if you’re not
You run your fingers gently along roughness of my rocky
walls
Spread your warmth on the coldness of my obsidian facade
Press your lips against my door
Reminding me of my mouth
And with it, newly formed I ask you
Do you think you can love a bomb shelter?
You say yes
I've even made it my home.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Heteronormativity Is __________
Heteronormativity is me having to bite my tongue
When my straight white roommate calls some kid a faggot
Over Xbox like the experience of being a queer
Can be trivialized into your momentary frustration
With a game that you're not good at
In fact, that's kind of what heteronormativity is
Being forced to play a game that your not good at
In fact, a game designed for you to fail at
Where the endgame ends up being the ended lives
Of too many people I care about
Heteronormativity is that night three years ago
When I got a text from my best friend
Saying, I love you, but I don't want to live anymore
And the grief and gash of wondering if this
Is the night that he finally follows through
And the guilt and gash of knowing that he didn't
But secretly hoping that he had
Because sometimes it's easier
To let a down dog die
Then watch it get back up to get kicked back down again.
Heteronormativity is when I was 12 years old
And my grandmother told me she was going to kill me
Because she found gay porn on her computer
And that if I didn't straighten up
She would give me to God and let him have his way with me
And by this point even then hearing the word God
Was me being reminded of every verse
Being used to beat me like a Bible belt
And the cruel irony that the black church adopted the same tactics used by slave-owners
To justify the dehumanization of black slaves
The cruel irony of the once oppressed becoming the instrument of not only their own
Oppression, but the oppression of others
Heteronormativity meant learning early on that survival meant laying low
Till I was old enough to move out and carve a life of my own
And even then going off to higher education
To become surrounded by privately educated Georgia boys
Who for all their culturally rich upbringing in Georgia soil
Still have the audacity to say to me
I like you because you don't act like those other gays
You know the ones that make being gay the only part of their personality
And throw their sexuality into everyone's faces
You're a real bro, bro
Excuse me while I go rant about how many girls I've drunkenly had sex with
Because I convinced them that I was deep and emotionally vulnerable
By giving them all the same mix-tape of sad, acoustic songs I listen to when I run out of
Budweiser.
I am tired of being silent
My silence won't save me or you
I am inviting you into a conversation
I do not care if you're uncomfortable
Your discomfort does not preclude you
From the responsibility of opening your eyes
And seeing
At the end of the day I will just be angry and sad
And hopeful and trying to be seen
Heteronormativity is you being able to walk away from this poem
just feeling uncomfortable
While this poem is the only protection I have
in this fight for a chance at a fair fight.
When my straight white roommate calls some kid a faggot
Over Xbox like the experience of being a queer
Can be trivialized into your momentary frustration
With a game that you're not good at
In fact, that's kind of what heteronormativity is
Being forced to play a game that your not good at
In fact, a game designed for you to fail at
Where the endgame ends up being the ended lives
Of too many people I care about
Heteronormativity is that night three years ago
When I got a text from my best friend
Saying, I love you, but I don't want to live anymore
And the grief and gash of wondering if this
Is the night that he finally follows through
And the guilt and gash of knowing that he didn't
But secretly hoping that he had
Because sometimes it's easier
To let a down dog die
Then watch it get back up to get kicked back down again.
Heteronormativity is when I was 12 years old
And my grandmother told me she was going to kill me
Because she found gay porn on her computer
And that if I didn't straighten up
She would give me to God and let him have his way with me
And by this point even then hearing the word God
Was me being reminded of every verse
Being used to beat me like a Bible belt
And the cruel irony that the black church adopted the same tactics used by slave-owners
To justify the dehumanization of black slaves
The cruel irony of the once oppressed becoming the instrument of not only their own
Oppression, but the oppression of others
Heteronormativity meant learning early on that survival meant laying low
Till I was old enough to move out and carve a life of my own
And even then going off to higher education
To become surrounded by privately educated Georgia boys
Who for all their culturally rich upbringing in Georgia soil
Still have the audacity to say to me
I like you because you don't act like those other gays
You know the ones that make being gay the only part of their personality
And throw their sexuality into everyone's faces
You're a real bro, bro
Excuse me while I go rant about how many girls I've drunkenly had sex with
Because I convinced them that I was deep and emotionally vulnerable
By giving them all the same mix-tape of sad, acoustic songs I listen to when I run out of
Budweiser.
I am tired of being silent
My silence won't save me or you
I am inviting you into a conversation
I do not care if you're uncomfortable
Your discomfort does not preclude you
From the responsibility of opening your eyes
And seeing
At the end of the day I will just be angry and sad
And hopeful and trying to be seen
Heteronormativity is you being able to walk away from this poem
just feeling uncomfortable
While this poem is the only protection I have
in this fight for a chance at a fair fight.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Trigger Cut Your Hair to Cope
Past beliefs led me to believe that missing someone is loving someone in the past tense
But the advent of your absence is evidence to the contrary.
Don't apologize to me.
I will never feel sorry enough to absolve us both of our sins.
I won't apologize to you.
You will never feel sorry enough to absolve us both of our sins.
I grew my hair out the last time you left and told everyone I was just
trying to grow an afro.
Really I was growing my hair out so it would be long enough to grab and
jerk my scalp off.
They say pulling your hair is another form of masturbation.
When I pull my hair it pulls my head and I feel like I can finally
control my brain.
But I know I can't.
I take LSD instead.
I take acid to buffer the thoughts of you.
But I'm worn down to base thoughts
How I want to fuck you but will hate myself after it.
How I want you to fuck me but will hate you after it.
Violator.
Destroyer of worlds.
But really just mine.
Companion of cosmic concurrence.
Lock my carnal crush on you in the closet
you locked yourself in as the carnal crushes you.
The worst of us know how to place our monsters under other people's beds
The best of us know these monsters will play well with the demons
playing strip poker underneath our pillows.
When you die it will ripple through the universe to my cell phone.
Even though I'm sure when you die I will never know.
Mortality is the furthest distance.
When you die it will be first.
When you die it will be brief.
When you die.
Will I be alive?
I hope so.
I need some evidence that I can live without you.
Your birthday is this Saturday.
I think I"m going to get a haircut.
But the advent of your absence is evidence to the contrary.
Don't apologize to me.
I will never feel sorry enough to absolve us both of our sins.
I won't apologize to you.
You will never feel sorry enough to absolve us both of our sins.
I grew my hair out the last time you left and told everyone I was just
trying to grow an afro.
Really I was growing my hair out so it would be long enough to grab and
jerk my scalp off.
They say pulling your hair is another form of masturbation.
When I pull my hair it pulls my head and I feel like I can finally
control my brain.
But I know I can't.
I take LSD instead.
I take acid to buffer the thoughts of you.
But I'm worn down to base thoughts
How I want to fuck you but will hate myself after it.
How I want you to fuck me but will hate you after it.
Violator.
Destroyer of worlds.
But really just mine.
Companion of cosmic concurrence.
Lock my carnal crush on you in the closet
you locked yourself in as the carnal crushes you.
The worst of us know how to place our monsters under other people's beds
The best of us know these monsters will play well with the demons
playing strip poker underneath our pillows.
When you die it will ripple through the universe to my cell phone.
Even though I'm sure when you die I will never know.
Mortality is the furthest distance.
When you die it will be first.
When you die it will be brief.
When you die.
Will I be alive?
I hope so.
I need some evidence that I can live without you.
Your birthday is this Saturday.
I think I"m going to get a haircut.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
On Grief
The problem I have with grief
Is that even as a young child
I was aware that the world
Didn't always have my best interest in mind
Rarely had my best interest in mind.
As such I took easy to isolation
Not so alien
Not so strange
Voluntarily an island
An insular prominence
In this ocean of processed emotion.
A complex coping mechanism
I handled with care in younger days
Like a gilded chalice
Taken only in the sacristy's privacy
When I believed in such things.
My inward lens
For outward trauma
Indulgent and introspective
Yet.
In the shadow of death.
In the midst of a funeral.
My lonely, buried treasure
Revealed!
In the scope of grieving eyes
More vocal and expectant.
Suddenly recreational reticence
And internalized reflection
Forced into the open
By those believing that the act of grief
Is valid only as a public display of
human reaction.
A duty to the deceased
A duty to those suddenly aware
that they are living.
How strange it is
To mix
Business with pleasure.
Is that even as a young child
I was aware that the world
Didn't always have my best interest in mind
Rarely had my best interest in mind.
As such I took easy to isolation
Not so alien
Not so strange
Voluntarily an island
An insular prominence
In this ocean of processed emotion.
A complex coping mechanism
I handled with care in younger days
Like a gilded chalice
Taken only in the sacristy's privacy
When I believed in such things.
My inward lens
For outward trauma
Indulgent and introspective
Yet.
In the shadow of death.
In the midst of a funeral.
My lonely, buried treasure
Revealed!
In the scope of grieving eyes
More vocal and expectant.
Suddenly recreational reticence
And internalized reflection
Forced into the open
By those believing that the act of grief
Is valid only as a public display of
human reaction.
A duty to the deceased
A duty to those suddenly aware
that they are living.
How strange it is
To mix
Business with pleasure.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Twist Nothing
the story of me
told through the story of the storm
deep rumble gurgle thunder
quick whip crack sodomy lighting
white hot turn pitch black
white yes black no
and the ties that bind
the way we think
primordial conditions
ingrained by the tempest
shock sparks life
charges galvanization
we are all Frankenstein
looking to tell the story
of ourselves
through the validation of another
mismatching our self with the
discarded parts of another body
necromantic romance idiot
decking tragedy with maxim and proven
proverb
This too shall pass
The pseudoscience of feel good
by being nothing
to twist zero into infinity
nothing lasts forever
and thus become one
with the meditative echo
"ohm"
"ohm"
"ohm"
oh. no.
break my concentration with the thought of you
breaking the thought of you in the concentration
of unproving proverbs
The old adage: hurt people hurt people
so I hurt things instead to
throw paramedics and well-meaning holistic
healers off the trail of my bio-betrayal
stream of consciousness induced
by pharmaceutical nihilism
new mantra
"I do not care"
"I do not care"
"I do not care"
and in not caring
no longer suffer
but perpetuate
the miscommunication of heartbeats
veins and arteries cross sections of sky
Like powerlines
Yet broken under the weight of feathersnow
accumulated -- we tried
We have always tried.
Galvanizing glimpse into the story
of my story
by the eye of the storm
Beyond nonsense
Plotting non-sensical cynical
twists of storylines
like cardiac arrests twist bloodlines
i have always been twisted into your nothing
a futile attempt at forcing infinity
told through the story of the storm
deep rumble gurgle thunder
quick whip crack sodomy lighting
white hot turn pitch black
white yes black no
and the ties that bind
the way we think
primordial conditions
ingrained by the tempest
shock sparks life
charges galvanization
we are all Frankenstein
looking to tell the story
of ourselves
through the validation of another
mismatching our self with the
discarded parts of another body
necromantic romance idiot
decking tragedy with maxim and proven
proverb
This too shall pass
The pseudoscience of feel good
by being nothing
to twist zero into infinity
nothing lasts forever
and thus become one
with the meditative echo
"ohm"
"ohm"
"ohm"
oh. no.
break my concentration with the thought of you
breaking the thought of you in the concentration
of unproving proverbs
The old adage: hurt people hurt people
so I hurt things instead to
throw paramedics and well-meaning holistic
healers off the trail of my bio-betrayal
stream of consciousness induced
by pharmaceutical nihilism
new mantra
"I do not care"
"I do not care"
"I do not care"
and in not caring
no longer suffer
but perpetuate
the miscommunication of heartbeats
veins and arteries cross sections of sky
Like powerlines
Yet broken under the weight of feathersnow
accumulated -- we tried
We have always tried.
Galvanizing glimpse into the story
of my story
by the eye of the storm
Beyond nonsense
Plotting non-sensical cynical
twists of storylines
like cardiac arrests twist bloodlines
i have always been twisted into your nothing
a futile attempt at forcing infinity
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Law and Order (Confessional)
Bring in the homosexual!
The lawmaker says
In a tone – antiseptic and clinical
Like he’s announcing the onset of cancer
Though with less sympathy
No – none at all.
You stand charged with the crime
Of perverting the natural order
And defiling the sanctity of marriage
Under the laws of God and man
You are allowed a final appeal
Speak now
Or forever
Hold
Your
Peace.
Friends,
Americans, Countrymen: Lend me your ears
You
call me criminal and pervert under the laws of the land
I call
myself a casualty of your policy
I do
not believe in original sin
I
believe that whatever shame seated within my soul
Is
engendered
Not
inherent
An
artifice of hateful, unintelligent design.
You
call me criminal
But I
look in the mirror
And I
see a man who has loved people as hard as they’ve hated themselves
Realizing
the heart is too risky a fuel to burn.
You
call me criminal
But
when I turn on the T.V.
I feel
like a refugee
Running from violence like the blood and water
That
ran from the side of your Lord.
You
call me a criminal
But I
feel like a historian
Retelling
the stories of boys
Locked
in the skins of their fathers
Possessed
by the need for approval
Often times
– they claw themselves out
Fingers down to crooked bone
Fingers down to crooked bone
Often
times – they hang themselves
Necks hanging like crooked fruit
Necks hanging like crooked fruit
From
the branches of their family trees
Nooses
tied by the sins of their fathers.
What
you call a sin
That
breeds only contempt
Is what I call
a bridge
Closing
the gaps of compassion
Between
me and every other victim
Of the
scapegoat slaughter you offer
On the
altar to your God of love
You
carry as an ark of comely hate
Rebuilding
the ivory tower
With
the ivory bones
Of the
tragically impressionable youth
You
claim to save.
With the promise of being normal.
You
call me a criminal.
I am
not.
You
call me a monster.
I am
not.
You
call me an abomination.
I am
not.
Do what
you want, but do not throw God’s name in it.
Your
God be my witness.
If I
ever make it into Heaven.
I'm gonna rattle your pearly gates.
I'm gonna scream above the angel's song.
I'm gonna rattle your pearly gates.
I'm gonna scream above the angel's song.
I’m
gonna tell him everything.
I’m
gonna confess it all.
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