"mishear" poems
TW: r#pe culture
anxiety-riddled,
my head is a constant battle of sounds
and feelings crashing
like waves into each other;
interference scares me.
as does being out of rhythm,
missing too many beats — i am
conflict-averse but i am also
realistic:
i know that
sound travels faster
through solids and liquids
than through the air,
can be distorted
and interfered
into oblivion—
that when
push comes to shove,
whisper networks
can only reach so far.
scores of screaming matches
between metoo advocates and r#pist apologists
crescendos of nails
scraped across a board
feel a bit too familiar
like listening to white noise and broken records on repeat
while scrolling through toiletpaperworthy nonapologies
witnessing victims collectively crying in an orchestra of agony
and then be blamed for attention-seeking at best,
of causing their own suffering at worst.
although it pains me to listen to these tragic tunes,
it is amusing how so many mishear this collective choir as
survivors celebrating with silly receipts in cancel parties
serving blistering hot tea sweetened by revenge - no
all this is anything but
cathartic.
it’s to make people aware
that the same melodies are sung or screamed
by those who suffered similar pains
and so that those of a similar frequency know
there are those who listen
that their voice matters
and we are not alone.
- 20210315
May 28, 2021
May 28, 2021 at 12:44 AM UTC
i swallowed the sun and
washed it down with a little inky night.
now wildflowers bloom in my heart
and light fills my mind. these
words are solar flares of a
fallen petal.
the price of it all--
welded lips of unspoken words.
now other people mishear
and believe i am speaking,
but it is only the wind
whistling through
my teeth.
now i find that,
being alone is silence,
but it is never quiet.
Dec 29, 2013
Dec 29, 2013 at 1:32 AM UTC
say cowboy.
say hot dog.
say ice cream.
say baseball.
see, the step into the sound booth is an awkward height,
about 6 inches off the ground,
and i find myself raised on a pedestal,
sealed in for you to inspect,
watching you and an audiologist
through a glass window,
watching you decide my future
as you face away from me
so i cannot read your lips
and you cannot see me shouting stop.
say airplane,
say sidewalk,
say you might hear static in your right ear
but i know i will only hear a tone,
an electronic beep going on and on and on
say conducive hearing loss say sensoneurial damage say surgery say it might be permanent this time,
like it hasn't been permanent for the last ten years,
say there's a new technique say we can fix this,
say negative impact on social life, say poor classroom performance,
say we just want what's best for you,
say try hearing aids try CIs try cued speech,
say you need to be fixed.
it's been a decade since i first entered that sound booth,
noises not echoing off these walls that take a little more from me with every test.
it's been a decade since my hearing slipped away and
i am done mourning it but i don't think you are.
persistence is a valuable trait but stop trying,
stop putting me under with an x on my right cheek so the surgeons know how to lay me out on the operating table,
stop refusing to turn on the captions because i need the practice,
stop talking to me without tapping me first,
stop screaming at me when i mishear.
i am done mourning my hearing and i don't know if i ever grieved in the first place but you are still stuck in the stage of denial,
hoping against hope for some ******* miracle.
i don't want a miracle, i don't want anything god can give me because i am not lacking, i am whole, i already am the miracle you were looking for and i don't need to be fixed.
but you don’t believe that, do you?
so the audiologist can open the heavy soundproof door but i am still trapped inside this box,
the walls swallowing my words as you decide my future for me because
no one wants to listen to those who cannot hear.
say stop sign,
say hairbrush,
say push the button when you hear the beep
and i hold it down with my thumb,
gripping the clicker like the handle of a gun
until you tell me to let go.
but i hear deserts stretching away from me,
flat sci-fi dreamscapes where there is only one sound and i can hear it too.
say tinnitus,
say psychosomatic because you don't believe that i might hear infinity where you tell me i shouldn't.
say hole in the eardrum say the surgery might have accelerated the deterioration,
say we can try again but
i gave up ten years ago and i think you should too,
and i'm here in this sound booth screaming for you to stop
but you will not look at me,
will not even attempt communication.
no one wants to listen
to those who cannot hear.
Jul 9, 2017
Jul 9, 2017 at 1:05 PM UTC
I think of the men I've exhaled
Salty and in charge,
They swirled around in my thoughts
Entrancing me with shadowy shimmers
Cosmic vibrations and mystic visions
Enveloped across my soggy sore soul.
I ate my own soul for lunch today.
I am my own and my own angel
Programmed and primed not delicate enough for words
I wish I could entwine my pragmatic, cutlass wisdom
Into the sticky, soggy, sore soul.
Carol Ann Duffy could write for trillions of years
About me, about her, about every one of the millions to be heard
Exhausting is the useless, their one ***** soft and shallow pierces
It's a story we all may very well know
However it's another thing to drop this muted partner
Dump it into the Indian Ocean, let it go
Continue forward, marching on.
I loved myself more every yesterday
Seems my youth is draining with age
"Wasn't I beautiful, fragrant and young?"
Perhaps, but no one said the Queen was built in a day.
Wisdom should entwine my soul, not listless lovers
"I refuse to give up my obsession"
But you mishear, somehow my obsession is ME
ME ME ME
My sticky, soggy, sore soul.
The girl with unkempt hair and a messy soul.
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 8:31 AM UTC
My birth certificate was written in the blood “she”
(I, me, they) would one day shed from the bleeding body
Given to me by who knows what (how does it bleed without being
Cut) because my ***** is not cognitive of what it is (nothing)
To me and my period is done to me you can’t know what it does
To me but it has nothing (nothing) to do with me
And I’ll never be able to speak of the violence it acts on me
To bleed (and bleed) and be called “she”
Because wars have been fought in my ***** (does
This mean I’m a war criminal) and I am all scars and all blood and my body
Is not a graveyard because a graveyard holds something but I hold nothing
I want to hold (nothing) for my period to stop being
Misgendered because “shesheshe” is not my being
“She” wants to be a prophecy but the violence of “she” slices me
The repetition of “she” of the tiny letter “F” in blood ink does (nothing)
Does battles on me (does violence) because the repetition of “she”
Is not enough to create a prophecy and words do not change my body
Believe me I have tried (I have tried) but nothing does
Because my body is vein-seeped concrete my body does
Everything I don’t want it to but somehow without being
My enemy because the wars fought in my ***** (on my body)
Were not fought by me and the violence of my body is not me
It is every ************ who has called me “she”
And the violence of my period compared to “she” is nothing
But my period wouldn’t be violent if it was labelled as nothing
If “she” wasn’t written in blood my period wouldn’t do what it does
(To me) but blood has no gender I have no gender “she”
Is not my ****** gender because my ***** is an ***** being
Exactly what it’s supposed to be not “she” but me
(I, they) functioning as a reminder of the wars fought on my body
The concrete gravestones tumbled on my body
The victory celebration on my body where violence is nothing
Because “she” is nothing not concrete or a graveyard to me
So I will mishear “she” and I am free from what it does
From my birth certificate blood drenched burning “she”
Is gone my violence is gone I have brought myself (they, I) into being and
My body is not a graveyard it is a sanctuary “she”
Cannot enter nothing but my they-being
Can enter because I (me, they) know what it does
Aug 15, 2019
Aug 15, 2019 at 6:55 PM UTC
The bearded man in the forager’s cap rode in on little sorrel that night.
Lee had called a council of war to game plan for the coming fight.
The Northern aggressors were on the move but they might be vulnerable on their right.
It was a bold audacious plan to divide in the face of the foe.
The Calvary screen was key to the scheme to find where best to strike the blow.
The battle would be called Lee’s masterpiece; Hooker’s men broke and they fled.
but the battle would also be Jackson’s last; in just a few days he’d be dead..
In the dark of May second, men rode the plank road, Jackson rode at their head
Did they ignore the Sentry’s challenge? Or did the sentry mishear what they said?
They took Jackson arm, the saw-blade did sing, but alas it was to no avail
He crossed over the river to rest neath the shade of the trees in the hero’s vale
May 1, 2015
May 1, 2015 at 10:45 PM UTC
*The words dripping,
Our feelings flipping,
The tears falling,
Our ways splitting,
Your care disappears,
Your heart reappears,
Your eyes like gears,
Your ears mishear,
I speak in language,
Our thoughts never engage,
I try to salvage,
Our mismatch damage.*
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 12:52 AM UTC
my space against the ravages weather can wreak
is full of saints and angels taking it easy-
just sitting around waiting for me to speak-
if I wish to ask a favour they all perk up
crowding round so as not to mishear me
and I whisper prayers just to keep closer
closer to the love they all bare me.
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 7:57 AM UTC
Speak thou you’re so spoken of
Reek of truth so that all your love
Doubts you enough to call you a liar
So beautiful, this sound from above
That always reaches out
When the heavens drop wildfire.
Angels fall,
When they face the night sky,
And be that as it may, they call
For the one and only track
That will ever call them back,
And so did I.
Time was to no avail
And so you’ve spent yours
Watching these petty lives of ours
Laughing at our ending hours
While setting sail
On your path of imortal lore
Whenever you found our tendency
To misplay with the time we’re given,
To misjudge our own misery,
To mislead those who led us to wisdom
To mistreat those who care for our freedom
To mishear our life-ending song,
You found us, where you now belong.
Hear thou you’re so heard of
Reek of lies so that all your hate
Doubts you enough to call you truthful
So hateful, this sound from the ground
That never reaches out
And whether it's lower or higher
There will come a date
When the heavens drop wildfire.
H. Aleixo
Jul 30, 2017
Jul 30, 2017 at 4:17 PM UTC
Forever forsaken to the blind rage that is quiet depression. Suffering in silence, wanting to speak but forever trapped in the fear that this feeling of lonesome and depression is becoming a severe obsession. Constantly questioning sanity because words and thoughts SEEM to not make sense and SEEM unclear. Spaces in my brain filled by forever haunting memories, and drowning in the missing details of mixed signals and ununderstood words. We swim laps in the same swinning pool of dreams abs memories. You continue to swim but i slowly drown and sink in the bottom. Sinking in the botton of an empty liquor bottle which is joined by a mixture of unknown pills to **** the pain. Not just to **** the pain but also to **** the strain, and quite often to **** away. (Did you catch that, nope probably not) INSANE. Insane like the lines, ropes, and strings that entangle thoughts abd wrap confusion in the open arms od my brain. To quote the words of B.E., books dont make sense if you read them backwards. You'll single out the wrong words. Like you mishear all my songs. Those are not my words, yet, I understand so well that its like a segment of thought blindly retracted from the deepest parts of my brain.
Jun 20, 2019
Jun 20, 2019 at 3:56 AM UTC