Theanm Ankh Is Also Human: Poems

You glare into the lens with smoldering eyes
Your ghost
A fiery whisp of your soul
Hungry and straining to yank itself out from under your clenched jaw
Bite down hard
Watch the blood spill from your stone tongue
Into my plastic solo cup
Your tooth floats to the top
Quickly swarmed by genial bubbles
Mocking our leaden embrace
Pop pop pop
We fall to the floor
Breaking our bones in a fit of giggles

Happy New Year

#newyears #2024 #polaroid #freeverse

203 · Feb 20

We Can Talk

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Feb 20

We Can Talk

Looking up at me with dandelion glass baubles for eyes,
Say, "What about tomorrow?"
I shake my head down at you from my magnificent children's playset
My neck cracks when I **** it to the side
I whisper in singsong,
"I think we should stop."

How do you let someone down easy without letting them down so hard?

#maturity #relationships #endings

187 · Jan 27

Cotton Mouthed

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Jan 27

Cotton Mouthed

The realizations smarts me in the chest
The horrifying transparency falls out from under my teeth
Without the clash, I am lifeless
Left crippled
Watching it crawl away
Untouched
Through blackened eyes
Grizzly and ugly and growling
I have never been beautiful enough to be art
I have never been gifted enough
To make an art of it,
My circumstance
Curled up in my work clothes on soundproof sheets
Preparing for The Slumber

I hate college and I don't know what I'm doing!!

#devestation #realization

173 · Apr 2021

Suzanne Berlinsky is Very Upset With Us

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Apr 2021

Suzanne Berlinsky is Very Upset With Us

I'm going to trace you through your IP address
She tells us
I'm going to fine you for a terrorist action,
A threat.
She might have gotten away with it
Because I'm of the Islamic faith
And we get that
All the time
But hey,
I don't think she checked my age,
Don't think
She knows I have never flown on a plane.
I'm not sure she
Speaks English,
Actually.
Despite fascist points of view.
Because Suzy Belinky, dear
What you pulled up is a tweet
And ******,
Your condition,
Is an STD,
Not my fault.

Still a joke, hope she sees.

#******

173 · Jun 26

Husk Husk Husk

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Jun 26

Husk Husk Husk

The eternally dry patch of skin
Right above your elbow

The creased duvet
A sea of olive silk

The toughest pill to swallow
Better taken by mouth

DO NOT BREAK
DO NOT GRIND
DO NOT TAKE MORE THAN ONCE IN THE SPAN OF 4-6 HOURS

172 · Nov 2022

Eleven Sixteen Twenty-two

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Nov 2022

Eleven Sixteen Twenty-two

God do I wish I was dead

163 · Apr 21

Missouri

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Apr 21

Missouri

6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms
Ants, in all of them

New sofa, new perfume
Still, I see the holes in the walls

Tall ceilings, silver spoon
Mildewy, a faucet that only runs warm

A carton of milk in the fridge,
Spilt over,
drip drip dripping into a sour puddle
it soaks through the floorboards
pungent, cutting through the air
I hear it as you hold the door open

Come again
But please,
Leave soon

Somebody get me out of here

#vacation

140 · Apr 2022

Anti-Anti-Allegory

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Apr 2022

Anti-Anti-Allegory

I'm so upset with the world,
I've decided there's nothing right left to sea.
The Eiffel Tower can go **** itself,
The Leaning Tower of Pizza too.

I have torn myself to pieces on the fence that is bureaucracy
I get out the car, on the ledge, and plunge into the blue;
Look out God! I'm coming back to you!

Tell me you still think I'm funny,
Because you don't know it's breaking me in three.

Roughly inspired by Andrew Jackson Jihad's "Normalization Blues"

135 · Dec 2020

Tasting Time

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Dec 2020

Tasting Time

Loving you
It will take me a long while
But when you ******* lips,
The love will no longer be bitter, no longer vile and lying,
You will taste sweet, sugary time.

#love #time #poetry #lies

129 · Feb 2022

There Is Magic In Chicken Breast

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Feb 2022

There Is Magic In Chicken Breast

Pepper runs deep in my veins.
I am speed,
Salty, light, and ever so gent-
-ly freckled.
Slip through your fingers like time and
Twist myself around some others like twine
Climb inside,
Spill a bottle of cheap wine,
**** yourself dry
Day and day again
Down till you die

From Thanksgiving

127 · Nov 2020

Empty Tears

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Nov 2020

Empty Tears

I
Cannot cry on my own.
Sadness will pour through my pores but
My eyes stay dry which is why
I keep a list of songs,
3 pages long,
To which I pretend to relate,
To which I scream and let dry sobs ricochet
In my chest.
It's much like permission, because I've told myself--
I have been told
--That I am not sad.
That I do not cry, there is nothing to cry about.
Not the empty wounds in my soul, not the hole in my heart.
Compared to the rest, I don't have it too bad.
See I cannot cry on my own.
So I weep through another, and I know it hurts
The both of us
But without the outlet, I feel I might die so, so horribly.
And I've got to survive
To tell a story, my empty story, that will awe the rest.

#empty #tears #poem #lonely #hurt

122 · Mar 7

Herman

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Mar 7

Herman

Legs blown off
Your reflection stands in the corner
Growing heavy
Growing tired
Bursting out of your ratty car
Running through that barren field with bombs dropping out of your mouth
Cheeks swollen

Inspired by my politics professor's late friend, a veteran. My politics professor is very old and he is beginning to show signs of entering the early stages of dementia

122 · Mar 2022

In A Loop On A Roll

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Mar 2022

In A Loop On A Roll

Tonight I'm in for a loop
Today I'm on a roll
She smacks my head against the counter and says:
"Don't hurt yourself"
Mouth full of knives,
She embeds her glittering lips all over my body
I scream and I thrash and I bleed all over the bathroom tile
And I smile
Today I'm in for a loop
Tonight I'm on a roll

116 · Feb 14

Daylong Ailment

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Feb 14

Daylong Ailment

Feeling bad
Getting worse
I shrivel up under the sun
A prolonged fit of pain
Easily
Mistaken for
An erratic dance

110 · May 2020

The Summer Child’s Self-Imprisonment

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human May 2020

The Summer Child’s Self-Imprisonment

Dandelion
Seeds
Flock through the sky like
Silky little faeries and he knows he’s
Looking out a window when he longs
To be out
Side-- lying side by side with the flower beds that he wished existed out
Side of his mind There’s a
A little pecking that tells him the clock is
Going tick
Tock
Tick
Tock tick ticktick
Like the patter of rain against a mound of
Wet
Dirt
On which he’d
Like to sing his song---
His Haywire Song,
When the drizzle cast
Rainbows on the chipped auburn wood
Through the gold that pooled
In the pocket
Of shining sky, and he’d write without
Worry of the breeze that might run its fingers through the pages
Of his book and he’d smile through the sweat for
Three months if only he
Weren’t
So anxious of its end.

108 · Apr 2020

I Remember

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Apr 2020

I Remember

I remember
The sun shining through the trees
Gold flakes dancing over the green of the leaves
A book propped up between scabby knees

I remember
The song of a violin
The smell of paint
The small soldier made of tin
The resin free of taint
Euphoria induced by the greatest win

I remember
Hours of contemplation
Curses thrown around
A moment of hesitation
A purpose, lost and never found
The glare of the blade

I remember
The light of the full moon
The fireworks that seemed to grow by the bloom
Your hand in mine
Listening to the sky’s every wail and whine
The slightest drizzle of rain
And we were insane
Oh, but we were fine.
We were fine.

I remember
Traces of tears
Victory over fears
Youth thrown away only to be redeemed
A thousand realities
So wild even I could have never dreamed.

103 · May 2020

Modern Misogyny

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human May 2020

Modern Misogyny

It's funny, they say
Can't you take a joke?
It's funny until
You realize that the most powerful man in the country can admit to ****** assault on live television, and people will wave it off, calling it locker room talk,
Because locker room talk is okay, they'll say
It's funny until
You're still 16 and walking back home from school, only to be howled at the way savage dogs bark and wave their tongues at the sight of fresh meat.
Well you're ugly anyway, they'll say
It's funny until
You're a liar for standing up for yourself and calling for a change
What do you mean? There is no gap in pay,
That's what they'll say.
It's funny until
Your own father **** shames you for wearing shorts in the summertime because the boys won't be able to take your eyes off of you.
It's not that warm, you can deal with it for a day, they'll say.
What about the men? I ask
What about them? With their bare chests and shorts and their jeans that hang oh so low,
Low,
Low on their hips?
Tell me why a man who sleeps with 6 women is throned by society where a woman who trusts the wrong man with nothing but an image is a *****.
Tell me, why did our teachers ask for 3 strong boys to lift the table while we were being taught that harassment was nothing but an expression of endearment when it was issued by men, fueling thousands of abusive relationships?
And tell me why showing skin is taken as a plea for ****** advances on a woman.
Did the words escape my mouth?
Did you not understand me when I did speak? When my lips formed the word "stop" and traced them over and over a thousand times the way a spiral drawing is formed?
The downward spiral that would soon become my life, and somehow you'd hit me with a line about how you
"Banged three drunk ******* at the party last night"
And laugh when I don't, because it's "just a joke"
Sure, it's funny
Until you live like a woman
Because when you're a woman, you start to realize the harsh reality behind **** jokes and locker talk and compliments from strangers on the streets
It's funny until it's not
Until you realize where your country is headed, and what it means for you as a still 16-year-old girl
It's funny until it's terrifying.

87 · Jan 7

Aphididae

Theanm Ankh Is Also Human Jan 7

Aphididae

Lowlife
I crept out from under your ventricles
Cut out
From your glucosamine thoughts
Dripping with mucus, dripping with sap
Sugary sweet
Let me ease your pain
Let me rinse off your feet

It's finally started to snow

— The End —