And it waited a moment longer than a moment’s pause
It was rain resisting its temper, attempting tenderness
Each drop the poignant pain in a patient bladder
when you hold to hear the end
of a song in a play or a whisper behind you
despite your body insisting you must leave
Then, it drowned the saplings in the gutter
a violent politeness
an apology for impeding
a housewarming gift
Jan 31, 2021
Jan 31, 2021 at 3:27 PM UTC
i am lying on my stomach
after having spent hours propped up on my elbows
spent hours reading, sunbathing
spent hours getting drunk and tired in the sun
i am outside our new chicago home
in a courtyard belonging to only us
i am sprawled on the transparent blue plastic of my past
the cerulean beach chair that never made it to a single beach.
its plastic wound and woven around the metal
like nothing i’ve ever seen before
and i fall asleep
and i’m awakened by the raindrops on the low of my bare back
but it is not raining
and i wake up naked, inside, in your arms as you tap out a tune on me
and the blue chair that we put in the shower
when my brother was too weak to stand
because my brother was too weak to stand
is nowhere to be found
even when he went to live in the hospital
that chair
gathered rust
in a closed, dripping shower
we threw it out
it reminded us of a hard time
he was our only surviving souvenir
i miss the chair
and i miss the person he was before it all
before he gathered all this rust
Jan 31, 2021
Jan 31, 2021 at 3:21 PM UTC
and in the 12th my teacher grade tenderly grabbed my wrist
and said
what is this
and
I said
me
But
that was the wrong answer
he wanted me to say
my —-wrist
he wanted me to say my
MINE
He wanted me to take ownership
of my body
he wanted to acknowledge
Or
He wanted me to acknowledge
that I was
An inside
of a body
And
Not a body
He wanted
Me to think what I just
“mistakenly”
called “me” was just a vessel
To hold “me”
That is it was lent to me and would return
from whence it came
that I was barely or merely or some other kind of “erely” visiting
and
that me and mine were different when it came to body
Such a kindness and autono-motive restoration to remind a person that they are
More
That they are not their looks
or their actions
Or even potential ambulation
I know what he offered me was a kindness
I declined
I said no in my own way
If you’re wondering
What I said was “you are what you eat”
I still don’t know what I meant
If I meant
and I’ll ozymandius myself
If I claim to be more than this
I am crumbling, but I will stand tall on these broken feet
As soon as I can fix my posture
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 5:23 PM UTC
Mobile/Stabile - I don’t speak French
Main two types of mainly 3D artist
Alexander “sandy” Calder
Mobile - is a French pun meaning both "motion" and "motive"
If you had one of these above your crib to muse over as you drifted to dreamland, you have Sandy to thank.
Stabile- following the style of the name mobile, is a sculpture that is unmovable
Both are French words I have trouble saying
I am becoming or was becoming paralyzed from my feet up
(they still haven’t decided which,
feel free to laugh at that)
Feel free to laugh at all of it, I do
I have complications from unbeknownst year long scarlet fever that turned into rheumatic fever that turned into julian Barre to thank for that.
There is no cure, so I’m using condescension.
I call it Julian Barre because “Gee YAWN BERET” is just so **** hard to eek out.
And
It requires more pomp than it deserves
Okay it’s part condescension and part more French words I can’t quite say.
It’s sort of like the opposite of when I try to say “petit” pwessON” to be cute, I mean to say Little Fish to address my partner:
But instead say “petit pwazOne” which means
little Poison
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 5:19 PM UTC
And at my new job I am the manager-in-training.
In French it is
“Responsable en formation”
Or as I would say,
Responsible information.
However, I was not responsible in gathering my information.
During my interview, I said masseuse.
Turns out that is heavily connotated and maybe even denotated as a *** word.
I asked if it was the French ending
He said, “No, it’s the happy ending”
Maybe French is only **** because of how much is escapes me.
The opposite reason is why death was never **** to me
because of how much I escaped it
Maybe death finds
Me
****
And Anyway I got the job
And a month later my boss gave to me a T-shirt that said
your table is ready
At first,
Instead of a massage table,
I thought it was a stretcher
And I laughed
I wonder what that means
“You could have died” “you almost died” “it’s a miracle you’re still here”
“we’re /glad/ you’re still here”
Are words I often hear from my doctors
who almost always meet with me pro bono because I am poor, but also interesting
Medically
But they are not words I hear from my mother
Those are the words she saves to give to her 90-something mother-in-law
I say 90-something not because I am careless or inattentive, but because my grandmother Adeline lied about her age so often in her youth, that both she and the government forgot her actual age
The words my mother gives to grandma J upset her.
She is tired of living
Asked all of us to pray for her death
Asked my brother in law to be “to help her get to heaven tonight”
Said “I know you can help me get to heaven tonight” presumably because he works for the cook county coroner's office.
He is a man so jaded that he sometimes can only laugh on the job when he sees particularly trite Chicago suicide notes:
To be fair, he’s not cruel
It is usually when it is something
Like
“you either die the hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”
Anyway, it made him cry when old Addie asked that
and also if you are a prayer person,
please pray for her death,
I can’t bring myself to do it.
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 5:14 PM UTC
And I know so many things to be universal
I read somewhere once that we are all related to one another
to the tune of 50th cousins
That you just can’t go back that many generations
That there aren’t enough people left to give anyone their own grandparents
Or something
So intangible
I want to feel the connection between each two men
I believe we are all a woven blanket of fibrous soul
Aptly covered in fibrous meat
I want to believe that we all share more than ancestors, but I will settle for this
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 5:08 PM UTC
I
At night, I search for the wrench
I lift it off my nightstand
I lie down on the workbench
the cool weight held in my hand
what I must loosen first is my knee
lull myself to a state of repose
leg is a swollen trunk of a tree
placidity the pain soon outgrows
ache that is green
ache that is ivy,
ache that is wrapping
around me
entirely.
being disarming,
the way that a friend will--
in no way harming,
I pry up one tendril,
My ache and I have just locked eyes
I turn my bolt counter-clockwise
just one half turn.
making way t’ward release,
pain is adjourned
to finally find peace
II
And in the factory,
It seems I was wound too tightly
Deemed satisfactory
Now, I relieve pressure nightly
The bolt pushes in such a way
it leaves the metal bent
Relief is not given away
but instead it is lent
pain that is sharp
pain that goes squish,
pain that is swimming
around me
like fish.
The pain in my head
a pain bright white
Will surely spread
If not done right
My head and I sob, throb, and cry together
And then I finally sever the tether
spin one full revolution,
Though I know it's unwise,
Lets in nightmare pollution
Maybe last night’s reprise
III
At night, I will always search for the reasons
Why is it that bad things happen to good people
I lie down and lament each of the seasons
If it’s about church, I’m skewered on the steeple
Now plaguing me is my dear heart
O! Please don't think me frigid
It’s how to be, if you are smart
Walls that throbbed become rigid
want that is lace
want that is divine,
want that dissipates
completely
in time
Wincing at every twinge
Heart so hollow it awards me pain
Lace is fraying at the fringe
Meteor in my orbital plane
said it flutters and feels flighty
prescribed one spin righty tighty
Then, compact are the loves I hold,
Locked in my heart airtight
No space empty or left cold
I wish you all goodnight
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 5:06 PM UTC
The color of the cream
As it is bled
from the cows in my dream
Also in red
Unfurling, curling,
bended, distended
A color so bright
It demands a white vase
So tired at night
Cannot lift its own face
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 5:01 PM UTC
LONG AGO,
I S P R A W L E D.
I WAS THE OCEAN FLOOR
I WAS AN ASTRONAUT, A COSMONAUT
Still impressive,
I am now
Harry Houdini
in the worlds'
smallest box
Less impressive,
I am covered in my own ****
which is soaking into the cracks between the linoleum tiles
in the ****** kitchen
of the ****** apartment
i live in
with my ****** ex boyfriend
(But he is not home)
Serenity, alone
It's rare
To feel love
From inside
Serenity, together
It's hard
To have help
from outside
An hour and a phone call later
A friend hoists you up and carries you
Mopping your floor
wiping your genitals
Tenderly, platonically
The way we hoped had already happened for the last time
A moment between you as a baby and you as a parent
Before you gained a real memory
But that moment is happening right now
But, somehow, your whole childhood is ahead of you still
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 4:57 PM UTC
I thought I’d be smited, right then and there
The red gravel spilling into the dugout
Was now plastic aquarium rocks
I was in a bowl, drowning underwater
It felt like drowning a lot of the time I was out there
Mostly because I was easily distracted and couldn’t play softball for ****
When Paige kissed me, I cried
Now, those pieces of red dirt
were a hellfire beneath me.
My religious upbringing was the kind that’s secretly stifling. The kind that permeates so deep that to act against it is to act against yourself.
This generational inherited catholic guilt.
The idea that I should be unimportant and unassuming and sinning was important in a bad way.
I knew I would only get one trip to the bathroom per service, I planned it carefully each week
So that it would take the most time
So I could stand in the great hall and twiddle my thumbs
As we were forbidden to re-enter the chapel while the father was speaking
I am forbidden from many things as a child.
I’m forbidden from tears as if I’m not important enough to have them.
I am not stone and my tears are not blood. I am not a miracle. I am not a sight to behold. I am not a message from god.
I am not the prophetic ****** Mary in my mother’s dreams the night a relative passes.
I am not allowed to love without meaning.
When Paige kissed me I cried.
I had to tell everyone in t-ball that I was 5 when I was only 4 because my mother wanted me to start a year early.
I hid the sign up forms they gave us at school each year, but my mom would register me in person.
Every year she’d tell me, just one more year, this can be the last one.
This went on for nine years.
After I made my first communion. I asked to quit
I had to study five more years to make my confirmation sacrament, effectively promising I’d stay in the church,
before my mother would let me leave.
The irony was lost on her.
When Paige kissed me I cried.
What a cruel way to hurt someone. This was worse than the tripping, the taunting, the terrorizing.
Her tenderness.
I often wondered why she treated me as she did—I was already an ugly duckling, a left fielder, a loser.
Her mom was the coach, and she was the best on the team. They all listened to her, which meant they all hated me.
She’d call me a **** and pull my hair.
When paige kissed me, I cried
Why couldn’t it have been anyone else, why not natalie johnston
I never told anyone else, I decided it wasn’t my secret to share.
But I am tired of keeping secrets of what people who hate me did to my body.
Retrospectively, it’s easy to try to be flattered. I’m sure it was hard and weird for her to have those feelings.
I’m sure she expressed them as well as she could.
But I didn’t want Paige to kiss me.
I WANTED Paige to stop calling me a ****
I wanted her get hit in the face with a softball
and I wanted it to shove her nose into her brain.
And I wanted her to die.
And
I prayed for her to die.
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 4:52 PM UTC