take one
gotta make sure the lighting is just right
that silken glow perfect for when the other
first graders take off your dress for you
because dress-up is one thing, but this, another
take two
adjust the camera angle, you wouldn't want
to show your tummy. **** that gut, boy!
no streetwear allowed in the public pool;
you can't keep your hoodie on forever
take three
i cast coal and cherry juice over myself because i'm scared
scared to show it all for what it is on camera but the truth is,
i was clueless, she was strong, and what's the harm in a little
********* when she'll bruise and asphyxiate you otherwise
take four
i knew this time, but i liked that way her teeth raked over
my bottom lip, it satisfied that near-catholic compulsion
i had to atone, to hurt myself to better myself, it was sweet
the sweetest bloodwine my adolescent pre-homo self would ever have
take five
my god i deserved you. we deserved each other. until, of course,
the stones you used to give me -- agate, citrine -- landed on my
dusted cheekbones, in the middle of love, sometimes because your nose was stuffy and you felt you couldn't breathe and it was cathartic to take out your frustration on objects (hello, hi, i am not one)
take six
and the truth is, i'm too tired to write a take six, and i've long abandoned this metaphor, and take six will be a poem of its own, in ways, take six is my teenage finale, my rite of passage, my understanding of myself as a vessel of men's aggression
and far too few sunsets have passed for me to write it, anyways, and far too few footsteps over the land below the car where i was ***** and far too little writing on how this has affected me, my psyche, my masculinity, any sense or semblance of self outside of victim, and ********* i'm not ready i'm just not ready so don't push me with this take six, business, alright?
CUT
Apr 7, 2017
Apr 7, 2017 at 11:38 PM UTC
i remember someone on this site a long time ago.
they would write unrelenting epic poems that
always made my fingertips tingle in that way
they do when you're surprised art made you
feel something again, you know?
i arrive back here tonight because i've been
doing a whole lotta feeling and far too little art
and i've stopped letting it surprise me.
i keep oversharing when people ask, "how are you?"
i keep wondering who i'm supposed to be at this point on this long path of becoming. i don't know, i've never liked the phrasing but it resounds so cleverly from forebrain to nervous system it's uncanny and unavoidable and ineffable. who am i am i am i am i am i ...
i want to make a map,
a cartography of memory,
charting the granite and
soil, marrow and moss,
river foam, abusers,
flower gardens, wild blackberries --
the purple dabbed away from those
soft parts that blackberries might stain
to wash deep berry blood off
in the public pool bathroom
where she first made you a novelty
to scrape darker
from under his fingernails
with bark from the tree she
made you hide behind
the same park you grew up in
a spot you always caught the sunset
a spot he caught you and the sun seemed always then to set
still haven't gone back
it's time to make a map
Apr 7, 2017
Apr 7, 2017 at 10:40 PM UTC
upstairs and downstairs, like a frazzled owl character in my third-grade reader
in the doorway of my 200-level on sub-Sahara where we talk only of Nigeria
holding the elevator for my superior in the lobby of a too-tall edifice to man
a college student.
an ABD.
intern.
backstage at your high school graduation ceremony, your mortarboard won't stay on your head
in a food court where your mother doesn't get it when you say you can't wear pants anymore, or get your bimonthly haircut
when you're skirting the poverty line after your family business was sued but your FAFSA says parent #1 earns six figures
initiate.
neophyte.
not-quite-other.
the female body as a threshold between worlds, channel betwixt boundaries
Schrodinger's cat simultaneously in separation and marginal phases according to van Gennep
divorce papers signed but not sent, enclosed in manila at the bottom of a cherrywood desk
continuum.
spectrum.
a line without points.
Mar 3, 2016
Mar 3, 2016 at 4:55 PM UTC
capitals irk me.
parentheses are comfortable, like my love embraces me, like i slide letters into envelopes, or don't, rather.
uneven lines and fragmented line endings feel more accurate,
real, everything that is not posed or
staged, everything that keeps you
hanging on to the last syllabic
exhale.
Feb 25, 2016
Feb 25, 2016 at 1:44 PM UTC
n. A homesickness for somewhere you cannot return to, the nostalgia and grief for the lost places of your past, places that never were.
insatiability makes its burrow
in my gall bladder,
wringing bile from the *****
craving toxins to purge.
i thirst for sweet lexical gaps,
holes in patterns,
dots that don't make shapes
but still gladly connect
komorebi
n. The sunlight that filters through the leaves of the trees
loveliest in the distinction
it is only komorebi
once filtered, green soul
bleeding through
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 4:58 PM UTC
writing is my ******* bane.
jeweled paws of inspiration
dangle that carrot to keep me running.
wring out the baby with the gray matter,
spool it like spaghetti, slowly get fatter.
i was under the distinct impression
that this habit was too large a vent
until i left it somewhere in July
between the Yuba and a car ride
and never quite calmed down
it's my solace, my oak-tree,
haven in the hellishness,
clarity to ugliness,
Gilead balm,
panacea.
why
should it
take such tolls--
to push too hard
is to turn a deaf ear
my ear ain't so sharp
and my brunt is still strong
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 12:14 AM UTC
buckeye flour,
almonds,
acorns,
tree-bark,
cacao,
wine
your only criticism is that i split infinitives and spit bitters.
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 12:16 PM UTC
my grace is cherubic,
seraphic, angelic,
she is a temple built
upon skepticism.
my boy wears a sloth-suit
and is swept away by even
the weakest rapids after
dipping only his pinky toe.
my grace is a hefty FAFSA award,
and she is report card dinners,
a new-blue honda, a heartbreak,
she is coming home to do laundry.
my boy is a defect, anomalous,
he cannot bide his time and so
rushes. i chase him to the city
limits and hope he'll get it right.
my grace is building strength,
compartmentalizing, sequencing,
she is careening into career
and coping/moping with loss.
my boy is behind, he's lazy.
he shirks, avoids, evades,
any escape, any port, no storm,
he has to bring something else,
he only sits with us when he
wants something. he spends
time with us when it serves
his agenda, his procrastination,
he likes men; he's abnormal,
he has to bring something
extra to the table or else
it will reflect badly on me.
i never went to college.
i rarely did my homework,
so my daughter, son, my wife,
they bear the brunt of my avoidance.
my grace breaks down while
student-teaching. i love her.
my boy aces econ test after
physics quiz. i tolerate him.
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 12:09 PM UTC
yeah i'm angsty,
angst-ridden,
angst-infested,
angst-infected,
weren't you
(i leave the question marks off rhetoricals because it's only honest)
no no no no no more metaphor. i'm crashing headlong into this one:
i am a person. i write. i am a writer-person or maybe just a too-clever-person.
my parents are in debt, and my parents' parents went back to work at eighty.
my friends' parents are debtless and their parents' parents never stopped working.
there may only be a year of water left in California, but i need water, i run hot and my skin is uneven from cracking.
i'm tired from only resting one eye when i lie in bed, i sleep a solid eight hours each night. (just how sturdy is time)?
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015 at 6:23 PM UTC
in the somatic nervous system,
acetylcholine (ACh) stimulates skeletal muscle, causing contraction
action potentials
in the 8am physio lecture,
the biggest on campus
crammed with nursing majors,
and health science hankerers,
public health preachers,
OT saints and angels
amino acid NTs: glutamate (+) GABA (-) aspartate (+) glycine (-)
the prof wrote on a distant whiteboard
too many complained about being lost
she made a joke about feeding *******
to mice for her neuroscience research
amines: serotonin (-) dopamine (-/+) norepinephrine (+/-) epinephrine (+)
STEM-dominated
when i'm just looking
to drop my roots
and press that
good earth into
the spaces between
my toes and
under my nails
but the grounds are a garden
of biodiversity from clippings
gathered by migrant habit-clad
founders more than a century ago
the soil is fertile it is temperate
there are water filters in most residences
there is enough here for me
Feb 21, 2015
Feb 21, 2015 at 3:06 PM UTC