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Each
Day
I
Pray
To slay
My depression.
Never been a quitter,
But I’d like to quit this obsession.
This obsession with my sadness.
And with my social status.
It’s like I fetishize the madness
Endlessly raging
Inside of my soul.
And I swear I don’t have
A place to just go
And lay low
For a while.

A place where I don’t
Have
To
Fake
A
Smile.
Hersch Rothmel Jul 2015
as we collect our stories and reclaim our names
we become aware of the possibility
that, in fact, we always live with our ancestors
as we collect our stories and reclaim our names
we start to contrive
the raw material
to obtain our fibers
as we collect our stories and reclaim our names
we start to cultivate the insights of how those fibers can be woven into strands
that when interlocked with other fibers
create a collective blanket, untold histories

No, not a patchwork-quilt, not a melting ***, not a salad bowl
not a room full of flags with countries we cant place on a map
and full of people WE can’t help but fetishize
no, No, NO
this is an interwoven stitch
this is a tattered rag
that has been used to wipe **** off of colonizer’s *******
that has been used to wipe the dripping *** off of Thomas Jefferson’s ****
as he finishes up with his Saartjie Baartman,
that has been used to hide the faces of the KKK as they drag uppity black boys down the street
and LYNCH them in carnival and spectacle
that has been soaked in Black and Brown blood on the streets of
Ferguson, Baltimore, New York, North Carolina, Milwaukee, and every other city and district in the US of KKK

This is not a handholding session with me
I am the oppressor and I must fear my own wrath
my fiber is white, my strand is white
and too many strands are white
and too many Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow strands have been bleached
or told “wait your turn to be included in the blanket"
or "be thankful we even include you in the stitching
give us a TOKEN of gratitude”
I take YOUR strands and use them to cloth MY babies while yours lie naked

The time is now
to take the clorox and gulp it down as it eviscerates our throats and consumes our souls
We don’t need anymore whitewashed histories
we dont need anymore white sheets
we don’t need to go to BED, BATH, and BEYOND
I cannot come to you with a bail full of cotton and ask you to join me in a knitting session
#IMNOTRACISTBUT…

this is not a time for diversity and multiculturalism
or the co-option of “social justice”

this is a time for Solidarity

this is a time for Liberation

this is a time for Abolition

this is a time for Insurrection

this is a time for Rebellion

this is a time for Revolution

I cannot be the leader
but I can contribute
I cannot be the voice
but I can sure has hell listen

and this is how we will transform the blanket
not with hollow words and moderate reforms
but with direct action and liberatory collaboration
by yelling the phrase “white supremacy is as American as apple pie” at the top of our lungs

not with corporate funding and 5,000 dollar a plate galas
but by dismantling the looms that have woven the threads of
Hate, ****, Land theft, and Genocide
that have woven the strands of
reservations, redlining, white flight, and gentrification
and by co-creating ones that speak to our destroyed histories
that refuse to use the bleach
even when the blanket gets *****
No, I’d rather not have a foursome,
I don’t think you’re onto a winner.
If I wished to disappoint several people at once,
I’d take my family out to dinner.

No, I’d rather not have a foursome,
The thought of it makes me quite ill!
Besides the new season of Bake Off is on -
Give me Netflix but not the chill.

No, I’d rather not have a foursome.
It’s not really my cup of tea,
Like Boy George I kinda prefer that to ***-
I’m mostly asexual you see?

No, I’d rather not have a foursome.
It’s the government’s fault, I’d say,
The Tories have ******* us multiple times;
I’ve been ******* over enough today

No, I’d rather not have a foursome.
Today, mate, you’re just not in luck,
Like spoons I only have so much to give,
And I gave away my last ****.

No, I’d rather not have a foursome,
With you and two other “bi chicks”,
My sexuality isn’t yours to fetishize,
And you [insert name] are a ****!
A rejection poem of sorts based on my life. The last line is changed from "And you (insert name) are a ****" on here but not when I perform it live.
Westley Barnes Sep 2013
What repose and subtle wonder it is
to venture looking backward
upon my written name.

Scribbled, lacking coherence in its characters,

doctored suggestively towards containing
 an inherent “literary” edge

out of just what it is,

an association of sounds,

(parent’s gifted accidents of intention)
commingled and pushed into

an accepted truth by repetition

and repetition alone.


The surges of black-tongued self-consciousness

-that I’m far above the spot-scratching undergraduate

notion of admiring my personal stamp, of falling in love

with myself by using “bigger” words to fetishize
my most basic claim on having existed, of being HERE-

are given rise. 


These fade, by examples immemorial, to give way to other voices

striving for attention, to grasp their mark upon the page.

Late evening



On a wall,

Initials carved with a filthy bar

of rationed soap

In Dungeon Europe’s eastern range.

Where prison bars once hounded in

where beating’s sounded off 
morning’s crisp hue

The inevitable made its finer points here

Trampling over names and voices

lost to history.


Now a museum

the lunch-time rush 
of internationals

(who mostly work for corporations with offices in every place they travel)

Photograph themselves with expensive cameras

After shuddering, some even hazarding a tear

in considering what fates have befell

occupants on the wrong side of a different bureaucracy

 ....but all that matters, after they leave, is the the proof 

they were there. And how it was just how they imagined.


Morning, in my bedroom

and I’ve written something again...



I can stack it away

if I feel that I failed to capture

what I wanted to be seen

(if not in my own handwriting,

then on some gilded white screen

letters upright and well-rounded.)



How much can it matter to me?

Seeing my own name

allotted above or at the end

of some juvenile thoughtpiece
the kind editors everywhere
are doing their best to get rid of.


I suppose I write because it pushes me out of the expected

it releases me, on these mornings, these graceful, time-blessed

mornings, out of the cell.

To roam among the other skeptics, who thought aloud to wistfully

spend time away from the routine

To hold aloft a lighter-flame for those trapped inside.
fairlyfreaksome  Mar 2016
One
fairlyfreaksome Mar 2016
One
>Want a thing? Relax
>into a script to get a taste.
>Fetishes? or repressed natural inclination?
>Roll a D20 to feel better, take fun and make it killing,
>with just enough free will to make it interesting.
>Nothing else can become reality so in the universe we got
>in the cosmic lottery, calm down
>and have fun.
>Find the most effective deformation — BAM BAM
>SHOOT EM UP — and life is real. Over the top?
>Or so aware that art is less than or equal
>to life, so why settle for realism?
>Say something the way that no one else can say
>it. Maintain a state
>of relaxation by white knuckling your partner until you forget to breathe.
>Fetishize white men not being racists.
>Lay it all out for your audience
>whose uneducation cries out to be fixed
>by you
>and you alone.
>Reassure them
>you get it:
>art is hard,
>so I’m going
>to speak my subtext
>and spice things up
>with some choreography
>just to make sure
>you get what it is
>exactly
>that I’m trying
>to say,
>because god knows you wouldn’t get it otherwise.
>(And this way, people will finally understand you, and you will be complete, and you will be satisfied, and you will get everything you ever wanted, and you will ride fulfilled into the bright new day of artistic enlightenment you lucky sonuvabitch.)
Kristin  May 2016
Daddy Issues
Kristin May 2016
So yeah,
Maybe she does like calling guys daddy
But not for the reason you may think
Maybe it’s because she’s looking for fatherly love
Because she could never quite find it in the places she was supposed to
So instead she was left to wander
Through the constant murmurs of
“You must have daddy issues”
“Your dad left? You must have a daddy fetish”
“I’ll be your daddy”
Because people would rather fetishize an emotional trauma than
Acknowledge the pain
Maybe all she knows is unkempt promises
Because the only time her “daddy” came close to actually being one
Was whenever he kissed her on the forehead goodbye
Promising to play with her later
Look at her drawing later
Read her a bedtime story another night
And walked out the door
Maybe all she knows is love through screaming
I love you
I hate you
I love you
I hate you
Maybe all she knows is purple, blue, green, red and yellow are the colors of tender love and care
Why else would they show up on whoever her “daddy” touched
Psychologists say that it’s not uncommon to marry someone that is similar to one of your parents
But what happens when all she’s known from her “daddy” is neglect
Because her dad would rather choose being with a new family than the one that taught him how NOT to be a dad
Because her “daddy” would rather say “talk to your mom about this”
Than listen to his own flesh and blood’s worries himself
Because her “daddy” would rather come in and out of her life when it’s convenient for him
So now
She’s left
To sit alone at the end of the day to think that
Maybe if she had just been a “good girl”
And behaved,
If she had just listened to her “daddy”
Maybe she wouldn’t have to look for one
In other men
At age two,
The strangers flocked to my mother,
Cooing over the stroller.
They ask, "How long does it take to curl her hair?"
My ringlets fall in strawberry spirals,
Making even Shirley Temple jealous.
She tells them they are merely freshly washed.
Who in their right mind curls a two year old's hair anyway?
At age four,
I am no longer encased in my protective stroller,
And humanity has taken tacit permission
To run their fingers through my strands at any given moment.
After all, I am only 2% of the world's population.
Is that not consent enough to touch my child's body?
Their hands are abrasive and painful to my autistic skin,
But I smile and twirl for them like the polite little girl that I am.  
Long before I knew the name,
I was taught that the world fetishizes redheads.
I was taught that being rare is forfeiting your right to your own body.
I'm 5 now, and the teachers tell me I have angel's kisses on my face,
That freckles are the touch of tiny winged souls upon my skin.
Young me shudders at the thought of seemingly hundreds of dead spirits caressing my cheek bones.
I did not ask the teachers about my freckles or comment on their presence.
I already know it is not my place to discuss my body.
That right is reserved for others.
I'm 8 years old the first time I hear the phrase "Carrot Top"
And 10 before I hear "Volcano Head."
At least the latter indicates I'm not to be trifled with.
We're playing the elimination game in class,
And "Stand up if you have red hair" is the equivalent of calling my name.
I'm 12 when "Ginger's have no souls" is suddenly hurled at me.
I wonder when I exchange "kissed by angels" for becoming a vampire.
Perhaps it's part of the transition?
This is the age of growing self awareness,
The age where it's really beginning to stick that I am alien and different.
I am so tired of being asked if I am adopted because my hair is red
But my entire family's is brown.
I tell them I get it from my grandfather.
I do not tell them that he is the one who used to drag my grandmother
Through the house by her hair
Or how his drunken rages would force my mom and her siblings
To crawl under their front porch in search of safety.
I do not tell them that my mom saw him shoot himself when she was 19
Or that she hasn't opened a tin of biscuits since.
Mother reminds me almost daily that I am the spitting image of him,
Leaving me wondering what else I might've inherited.
I touch my face in the mirror, haunted by the sins of a man I've never met but whose reflection I apparently share.
I write letters to his ghost, asking him if he understands this affliction.
Why do they touch me?
Why do they buzz like bees, these strangers on the street
Around my hair?
Why do they think it is acceptable to drink from my reserves when I am dying of thirst for oxygen and personal space?
I am 16, still naive in my social perceptions, often misunderstanding the norms.
Autism has accelerated my intellect but delayed my emotions.
I am licking a minion themed popsicle with childlike enthusiasm when mother snaps a photo.
I post it to my newfound Facebook account,
Proudly sharing my joy.
Over the course of a week, I receive more and more friend requests from unknown internet men.
I am confused until mom tells me my gleeful ice cream moment could be interpreted as simulating a *** act.
"But I am too young," I tell her. She smiles humorlessly.
She knew what I would soon learn.
At 17 I'm informed that "redhead" is a category on PornHub,
That my beautiful affliction is as it has always been,
A searchable object for other's gratification.
18, baby faced and lonely, He finds me.
I still get mistaken for a 12 year old and this 42 year old man finds me ****.
I wish I could say I knew better.
I wish I could say I ran as fast as I could,
But oh how naive was I to believe that he meant what he said when he told me he meant me no harm, he wanted nothing from me.
I now know his behavior is called grooming.
He whispered his nickname for me as he ***** my bleary eyed body.
"Red," he called me.
Red like my hair, like the first sentence out of his mouth at every gathering
"She's a redhead."
Red like my volcano, how he said he never wanted to see me angry.
Red like my personality, how he liked "a woman in charge,"
Which was synonymous with do all the emotional and physical labor.
It took me a year to break free of his tangled, twisted, traps.
I was today years old when the man in the car followed me on my way to school.
Armed with nothing but mace and the attitude to back it up,
I gave him the look of "You can come get me, but I swear you'll regret trying."
My hair like a siren call to all wayward souls.
They dock in my port.
Red hair means they will fetishize me from 2 to 4 to 8, 10, 16, 20,
And 100 years from now the bones and dust of these keratin strands
Will cry out from the ground I am buried beneath
In support of the next child blessed or cursed with this beautiful affliction,
And all others whose rarity is seen as permission.
Hear me now when I tell you
My hair is a warning.
This redhead is fully loaded,
Is angry, enraged, head fully lit, and heart on fire,
Tongue fueled by two decades worth of injustice and the suffering before me.
Redhead means don't ******* touch me.
Amanda Stoddard Feb 2017
1, 2, 3, 4
What are women fighting for?

My father doesn't know-
about my past.
As the **** culture comments
slip from his tongue-
I mourn for the women
who experience the same.

Because every time
it is a knife upon my spine
chipping away at my backbone.

Some days,
it hurts to stand up straight.

5, 6, 7, 8-
Women need to procreate!

We tell women
their legs are an entry way
men can use at will.

But then they urge us to keep the seed
growing inside of us-
when sometimes it is just a ****
coming to the surface
because of an invasion
of our own garden
the one we spent
so much time growing.

In the case we let it flourish
into a flower, even though we don't
have the proper nutrients
all of those mouths
that told us to water it
are now dry and absent.

They don't return
so we are the ones who become withered..

Once,
a man who thought we was more
medicine than overdose
took away a child
that could of been my sibling.

And ever since-
my mother feels the withdrawal.

7, 8, 9, 10-
Will **** culture ever end?

Not when there's a vulture
among the white house
now painted blood red,
Caucasian white,
and bruised ego blue.

When the words
are noosing their way
around our necks-
we must give misogyny a kiss of death.

When some "feminists"
spew misandry from the pores
remind them to exfoliate
the hatred from their vocal chords.

Remind them to
look up the definition of feminism.

We can't forget-
about the boy who was forced
by his cousin and stayed silent
because "men can't get *****"
right?

We can't forget-
about the women of color
who fight harder than most
because their skin
gives them the greater war.

When this America
is etched with white supremacy
Don't let them fetishize
or demoralize our sisters.
We stand together.

Don't let these instances
slip through your fingers.
Grab them by the throat
and remind yourself
of when they made
you lose your voice.

1, 2, 3, 4
What are the people fighting for?

******* Equality.
Austin Heath Sep 2016
Your words grow heavy
the sparser they become, and
slippery as well.

I'm wandering still,
looking for a pain that feels
closer to the "soul".

I'm desperate now,
I can taste his sweat on you
but I say nothing.

Everyone's alone,
but it's a human concept
to be so lonely.

Everyone's dying
without any dignity,
soulless and divine.

Everyone's silent
under the deafening sound
of thought in practice.

Everyone's losing,
and we've only learned how to
fetishize the pain.
Written for someone else, I imagine.
Austin Heath Jan 2016
I am using them;
Their bodies constellations,
to fill my own void.

Exploring them, I
might find something nostalgic,
even romantic

to fetishize or
mutilate haphazardly.
Accidentally.

******* problem solved;
Fill in your holes with nothing,
to slow the bleeding.

Bleed from the mouth as
you kiss their own deep red lips.
Hold hands as you ****.

Mercy, mercy, I
pray for something to stop me
as I go deeper.

I empty my own
empty self into their voids,
as they place their stars

in my otherwise
empty skies, begging, begging
begging for fresh light.
We're all begging.
Adriana Makenna Aug 2020
Let me lick your cinnamon freckles
and map them with my tongue.
If I could strip you of your body
I'd leave this feature, just this one.

Perhaps that might sound creepy,
I fetishize your spots.
But dear oh dear forgive me
I could gobble them right up.

If poetry must be pretty
I will take this moment to compare
them to stars, grains of sand- whatever
sends the shiver back up your spine.

But these thoughts are not pretty
they are hungry
and your skin makes my mind
S A L I V A T E.
Sid Lollan Jun 2017
Cosmic tool
never stop looking
for newfangled science
procrastinate in a future scene

“Lets be honest…”

ill-mannered to speak
of perfection
in a body so busy
w/ hypocrisy

My pain ain’t yr pain
don’t think I understand you
don’t think I ain’t care
don’t think you overstand me
I ain’t believe in victims
of society on account-a
i ain’t no perpetrator

It’s not wise to wage war
on preferences
and
dogma look silly when
you’re 25 or older

Sad to hear pragmatist
is now
the face you wear
when you have no foundation
yr mouth could talk an endless mile
of rhetorical obfuscation

Gimme change for yr hope
…O child hope is but a dream
-Life’s sure a joke heh?
-O it’s just a scream!

We need divide
like the dope need a ******-vein
blood rush concrete monkey brain
Who can we blame?

Cure the myths
and **** the idols
Don’t commoditize the truth
or fetishize our differences
No-one owns the past
No-one owns the future
W/ all the guns in Chicago
we could be free (for) tomorrow
but with all the language
in our words
we could free our heads
and make enemies
into neighbors
like Grown-Ups do

Cosmic tool
never take nothing serious
play the fool
while the world is delirious
Get-a laugh
out-a the hootin’ and the holler-in’
Such divine comedy make a man spoiled.

— The End —