POEMS:
VOMITAGE
Mindfulness
Stationed
there at midnight, far-flung
toward end-time. I can hear it breathe. Seam
of my jeans, pulsing left side of the mattress,
metronome’d to my heaving—steady, reliable,
there. What I know: the American Robins perched
at bedside, night chill puts me to sleep, fox racing
alongside car. What serenity is gathered in perching,
and I’ve never been able to spend quite so much time on it.
Lucent mornings shift gears. I’m really only prepared
for the rain, the drizzling of it all; I do not anticipate
clarity. I’m bound to the same white comforter
for months. It’s ironically white. I can give you five different
stories for each blood stain. I’ll eat in the spur of the moment.
Let me Grecian coast this downpour. Sometimes, rainwater can be
wine. It’s a matter of mind over matter. If you believe it,
it most definitely won't be. I’m afraid that my nail polish will run out.
It’s a bottle of black, and I apply a coat every day. And then
smudge. It’s all about the painting and the smudging, about how flat
the set-up is. No, I don’t want to buy press-ons at the store. No,
I don’t want a day where there isn’t even a bit of black chip left
on the sheets. I want anticipated clarity and forthcoming stock
market boosts but I’m really not trying to ask for much. Give me
black nails, give me them at midnight. I’ll bear them to the blackness
as witness of cruelty, spectator to atrocity, and then
maybe you’ll all understand what I’ve been through.
toward end-time. I can hear it breathe. Seam
of my jeans, pulsing left side of the mattress,
metronome’d to my heaving—steady, reliable,
there. What I know: the American Robins perched
at bedside, night chill puts me to sleep, fox racing
alongside car. What serenity is gathered in perching,
and I’ve never been able to spend quite so much time on it.
Lucent mornings shift gears. I’m really only prepared
for the rain, the drizzling of it all; I do not anticipate
clarity. I’m bound to the same white comforter
for months. It’s ironically white. I can give you five different
stories for each blood stain. I’ll eat in the spur of the moment.
Let me Grecian coast this downpour. Sometimes, rainwater can be
wine. It’s a matter of mind over matter. If you believe it,
it most definitely won't be. I’m afraid that my nail polish will run out.
It’s a bottle of black, and I apply a coat every day. And then
smudge. It’s all about the painting and the smudging, about how flat
the set-up is. No, I don’t want to buy press-ons at the store. No,
I don’t want a day where there isn’t even a bit of black chip left
on the sheets. I want anticipated clarity and forthcoming stock
market boosts but I’m really not trying to ask for much. Give me
black nails, give me them at midnight. I’ll bear them to the blackness
as witness of cruelty, spectator to atrocity, and then
maybe you’ll all understand what I’ve been through.
Doomsday
Two times this year
it had been her. Shift-
shattered all the known embers
on Earth. She had plucked each individual
rosary bead from its stem, placed them
in acetone for renewal. It was terribly
exhausting work, the upkeep of it all.
She was the person who donned
high priestess gear and went cajoling
on Hollywood Boulevard. In the grainy
late-night ads, the ones paid for
by small or dying companies, the ones
with lawyers advertising hair gel
and orange veneer, there were prayers
said. She knew the mysticism
of the every-day, traced the Latin
in seagull screams. Now, a quietude
settled upon the city, and no one
seemed to be interested in the pamphlets
she had to offer. When nothing
was happening was when something
was wrong. The physics of it all
seamlessly organized within the arena
of her brain during the pitch black
night, when medieval orders could be
elucidated through the paint thinning
of the walls, or astronomical
end-dates were deduced within
the shut-eye of her leaky faucet. She
liked when things finally made sense,
in this way. When outside was scary,
unknowable, nonsensical, and doused
with a kind of realism so precise,
cartoon-ish, even: that was when dark
became safe. It was in the dark
where she could coax chaos, something
knowable, the shadows on the ceiling
undulating with such familiarity, utterly
rational, and completely hers. It was here
that she embraced and knew who she was,
knew that she was destined, chosen, even,
for something very important.
shattered all the known embers
on Earth. She had plucked each individual
rosary bead from its stem, placed them
in acetone for renewal. It was terribly
exhausting work, the upkeep of it all.
She was the person who donned
high priestess gear and went cajoling
on Hollywood Boulevard. In the grainy
late-night ads, the ones paid for
by small or dying companies, the ones
with lawyers advertising hair gel
and orange veneer, there were prayers
said. She knew the mysticism
of the every-day, traced the Latin
in seagull screams. Now, a quietude
settled upon the city, and no one
seemed to be interested in the pamphlets
she had to offer. When nothing
was happening was when something
was wrong. The physics of it all
seamlessly organized within the arena
of her brain during the pitch black
night, when medieval orders could be
elucidated through the paint thinning
of the walls, or astronomical
end-dates were deduced within
the shut-eye of her leaky faucet. She
liked when things finally made sense,
in this way. When outside was scary,
unknowable, nonsensical, and doused
with a kind of realism so precise,
cartoon-ish, even: that was when dark
became safe. It was in the dark
where she could coax chaos, something
knowable, the shadows on the ceiling
undulating with such familiarity, utterly
rational, and completely hers. It was here
that she embraced and knew who she was,
knew that she was destined, chosen, even,
for something very important.
The Potter
Ever since technology had come to their
town,
the ceramic purpose of her life had undergone
some undoing. Syv still made pots, but barely.
There was this app where you could scale a bowl
to your liking, liken it to a piece you might have seen
in Syv’s shop. Color it with preference, and then order it
via the app. And it came in a week. Everyone
could be a potter, suddenly, and pots and bowls
and vases were now made with swipes
and a certain kind of refined pinching
of the thumb and index finger. Syv contemplated
the value of finger versus hand dexterity. It
was a more complicated issue than just that,
obviously, as working the wheel concerned more
than just the hands—it was the hands, fingers, the toes
barely pressing on pedal, the arms in a very specific
hug, perhaps the most intentional hug that could
ever be given, Syv contended. It was the time of day
that a bowl asked to be made. It was the clay
demanding to be shaped while the light pursed
in through the clouds, but barely. It was the fact
that Matt had broken Syv’s heart when she was twenty
and in Portugal, so she had dropped her phone
in the most intentional way possible onto the concrete
of the sidewalk. It was that a potter was nearby,
taking a smoke break and watching Syv break
her phone with intentionality. It was that Syv
had no way of getting back to her hotel so the potter
generously offered to call a cab with his phone,
his phone back at the studio. It was that pushing
the clay around on the spinning disk felt purposeful
and extremely important, like the most
important task in the world. It was that Syv
had never known anything else but brokenness.
She always started a bowl this way: in concert
with the clay, a left hand steady, in position, ready
for anything, and the right one taking a leap
into darkness, pushing forward, upward, with
upmost certainty, pushing and breaking the seal.
It was the moment of surprise when something,
anything, was miraculously made.
the ceramic purpose of her life had undergone
some undoing. Syv still made pots, but barely.
There was this app where you could scale a bowl
to your liking, liken it to a piece you might have seen
in Syv’s shop. Color it with preference, and then order it
via the app. And it came in a week. Everyone
could be a potter, suddenly, and pots and bowls
and vases were now made with swipes
and a certain kind of refined pinching
of the thumb and index finger. Syv contemplated
the value of finger versus hand dexterity. It
was a more complicated issue than just that,
obviously, as working the wheel concerned more
than just the hands—it was the hands, fingers, the toes
barely pressing on pedal, the arms in a very specific
hug, perhaps the most intentional hug that could
ever be given, Syv contended. It was the time of day
that a bowl asked to be made. It was the clay
demanding to be shaped while the light pursed
in through the clouds, but barely. It was the fact
that Matt had broken Syv’s heart when she was twenty
and in Portugal, so she had dropped her phone
in the most intentional way possible onto the concrete
of the sidewalk. It was that a potter was nearby,
taking a smoke break and watching Syv break
her phone with intentionality. It was that Syv
had no way of getting back to her hotel so the potter
generously offered to call a cab with his phone,
his phone back at the studio. It was that pushing
the clay around on the spinning disk felt purposeful
and extremely important, like the most
important task in the world. It was that Syv
had never known anything else but brokenness.
She always started a bowl this way: in concert
with the clay, a left hand steady, in position, ready
for anything, and the right one taking a leap
into darkness, pushing forward, upward, with
upmost certainty, pushing and breaking the seal.
It was the moment of surprise when something,
anything, was miraculously made.
Rage Song
Word-laced scepter skelter, and fine
figs for dinner. Listen,
there is a lot of joy in the little things, in the ho-hum-dum-dum-
damn bugs picking licks, finding spots, scram-damn-dum-dummy
bugs all crevice-bound, bloodthirsty, blood fiends of dark.
The allure ends here, it’s the punch-line and the general
underwhelming reveal, because Yes, it doesn’t last forever,
and yes, I do end here in flames. Let me be the piotious, pretty
pamplemousse pink-gummed gallbladder of your choosing, let
me rest here, stick-bound, bound to a stick, primed and pretty,
scepter of red and oozing ooze. I’m the Cannibal Holocaust
stick-fucked faerie gnashing on wood, wood stick peeking up
from my esophagus like God. Look. God compounded make man
after man of loss. It’s like that one time when I didn’t choose
to set my own hair on fire, flames finger-licking, scouring
for the last square centimeter of dead skin, skull-climbing, using
strand as ladder, inching towards home base. Then I was off
puking mucus, a bile-ridden carpet, sulfur scent spinning
me off into delirium, dum-dum-dummy bugs rising up
to the surface to lick the ash. Now stick-bound, endowed
with the great gift of great prophecy, all-knowing, all cure-having,
all bliss-containing, cheerful nuclear wife ready to show the others
how it’s done. Enjoy. Ready for the fanfare, for the fans touching
feet then hands to forehead, venerative cucks slowly on their way
to earning their very own molten wives. Listen, it’s either stick-
bound or aesthetic for life, but I’m thirteen and you’re fifteen
and she’s sixteen and there isn’t much substance in the whole thing
if we can’t be our true, vapid selves.
I’m starting to believe that the new wave of romance is just
prolonged rejection, tape-looped ‘till the end of days, being powerless
to the projected omnipotence of limp dick. It’s sputter-me-up
splutter lemon drop coughs into his cheap TJ Maxx suit (bad joke
recoil), it’s being ketamine’d at the hotel bar (quick slip), it’s
Kraus-ing a guy until you get a restraining order, shivering at
the curve of his d’s, his p’s, his o’s, your name written there
in lovely, distracted man-scrawl (swoon). It’s knowing that
it’s all going to end. It’s counting losses like coins. It’s being
more woman the richer you are. It’s accumulatory loss-accumulation,
it’s acclimating to the acrid acid of burning flesh. I met most
of the men online. I burned a piece of me in their wake. At
their wake, I burned beside casket. Before you wake, I’ll burn
the evidence. Me. I believe Notley when she rewrites mythos
with She-God’s “lightbulbs and liquefaction.” It’s a matter
of believing, then, in either self-imposed or statutory masochism.
State-mandated pyres blazed the lands, bright with liquefaction,
searing the eyes of watch-bound teenagers, clung and thick-lipped,
clipped news articles of the most recent fire—just a few years ago,
yet now as something illegal, something committed on one’s own
accord. Says the news, anyways. Ketamine’d at the hotel bar says
otherwise, I’d argue. It’s being poised and primed and pampered,
sitting pretty, pyre-bound, bound to binds by ballooned hands,
camera in focus and white men disseminating the evidence. Me.
There are different depictions. You pick your favorite. There’s
the sexed-up voluptuous female crouched over dead husband,
welcoming, evoking the flames. Then there’s Sati as colonial
justification, widow white-wearing and dark-skinned, tears
like gas, egging on the fire. What’s the difference between
martyrdom and martyrdom? The flame-laced, rope-tied woman
was bound in every corner, bound to be in every corner. Across
every ocean. All the time. Everywhere. There’s something
about the spectacle of loss. Give me woman crying, breaking
down, head on ground, heaving, she must be heaving (adjust
her posture to look more heave-like), heaving, yes, heaving.
Give me woman on a stick, give me indigenous woman blood-laced,
luster-struck boobs embalmed in grime, then put it on a stick.
I want a fun, fresh, funky Drew Barrymore-type cut into pieces.
I want a sexy, sultry, contemporary Black Dahlia. It’s all about
the smile. If it’s not there, carve it on. I want a day where I don’t
dream of setting myself on fire. Then I question if it’s something
genetic. Am I inherently barbaric, is lusting over inferno
something integral to who I am? I like the idea of everything
going away slowly. Of you watching. Eyes aflame. This is a general
“you.” This is for the fanfare in the back, for that guy at the bar
that didn’t text back, for the boy that I dated who actually died.
Give me self-flagellating toppling bodies stick-fucked, fisted
balls, balled fists and iffy-type sideways women heaving and
heaved up to the stick with heathens watching chewing
bubblegum not mourning not crying and not even heaving.
And in my final act, I stand stick-fisted, stuck on a stick
engulfed in gestures of homage—a rose here, a splash of gas
intermittently, word-laced scepter skelter hour upon us. Ready
for round two. More gas, more infrequent now, more infrequent
are the fans, the fanfare dwindled, fans now morose and sweaty
and bored in my company, retreating. I forgot my lines. It is hard
to conjure up air here. Breathing has never felt so much like heaving.
I feel blisters pop and bristle like juiced-up spikes of electricity,
and I feel nothing. I know what will be said tomorrow, that I was
humpty-dumpty strong, or perhaps was squirming on the stick
too shamelessly, was Notley- worshipping, was waiting for She-God
to end the shebang. It didn’t end. I burned and I died. But not before
I slut-shamed the bubblegum girls, pity-pissed the stragglers
who walked by without a glance, flipped-off the magistrates
who organized the event, shat-sat the uniformed Brits pretending
to close their eyes, lip-kissed the baby boys, praying for infanticide,
tummy- tucked the pregnant women, their screams furthering
the fire, undercut the gamblers, playing to win on my demise,
and wind-whipped the ashes, forming contrails out of self.
there is a lot of joy in the little things, in the ho-hum-dum-dum-
damn bugs picking licks, finding spots, scram-damn-dum-dummy
bugs all crevice-bound, bloodthirsty, blood fiends of dark.
The allure ends here, it’s the punch-line and the general
underwhelming reveal, because Yes, it doesn’t last forever,
and yes, I do end here in flames. Let me be the piotious, pretty
pamplemousse pink-gummed gallbladder of your choosing, let
me rest here, stick-bound, bound to a stick, primed and pretty,
scepter of red and oozing ooze. I’m the Cannibal Holocaust
stick-fucked faerie gnashing on wood, wood stick peeking up
from my esophagus like God. Look. God compounded make man
after man of loss. It’s like that one time when I didn’t choose
to set my own hair on fire, flames finger-licking, scouring
for the last square centimeter of dead skin, skull-climbing, using
strand as ladder, inching towards home base. Then I was off
puking mucus, a bile-ridden carpet, sulfur scent spinning
me off into delirium, dum-dum-dummy bugs rising up
to the surface to lick the ash. Now stick-bound, endowed
with the great gift of great prophecy, all-knowing, all cure-having,
all bliss-containing, cheerful nuclear wife ready to show the others
how it’s done. Enjoy. Ready for the fanfare, for the fans touching
feet then hands to forehead, venerative cucks slowly on their way
to earning their very own molten wives. Listen, it’s either stick-
bound or aesthetic for life, but I’m thirteen and you’re fifteen
and she’s sixteen and there isn’t much substance in the whole thing
if we can’t be our true, vapid selves.
I’m starting to believe that the new wave of romance is just
prolonged rejection, tape-looped ‘till the end of days, being powerless
to the projected omnipotence of limp dick. It’s sputter-me-up
splutter lemon drop coughs into his cheap TJ Maxx suit (bad joke
recoil), it’s being ketamine’d at the hotel bar (quick slip), it’s
Kraus-ing a guy until you get a restraining order, shivering at
the curve of his d’s, his p’s, his o’s, your name written there
in lovely, distracted man-scrawl (swoon). It’s knowing that
it’s all going to end. It’s counting losses like coins. It’s being
more woman the richer you are. It’s accumulatory loss-accumulation,
it’s acclimating to the acrid acid of burning flesh. I met most
of the men online. I burned a piece of me in their wake. At
their wake, I burned beside casket. Before you wake, I’ll burn
the evidence. Me. I believe Notley when she rewrites mythos
with She-God’s “lightbulbs and liquefaction.” It’s a matter
of believing, then, in either self-imposed or statutory masochism.
State-mandated pyres blazed the lands, bright with liquefaction,
searing the eyes of watch-bound teenagers, clung and thick-lipped,
clipped news articles of the most recent fire—just a few years ago,
yet now as something illegal, something committed on one’s own
accord. Says the news, anyways. Ketamine’d at the hotel bar says
otherwise, I’d argue. It’s being poised and primed and pampered,
sitting pretty, pyre-bound, bound to binds by ballooned hands,
camera in focus and white men disseminating the evidence. Me.
There are different depictions. You pick your favorite. There’s
the sexed-up voluptuous female crouched over dead husband,
welcoming, evoking the flames. Then there’s Sati as colonial
justification, widow white-wearing and dark-skinned, tears
like gas, egging on the fire. What’s the difference between
martyrdom and martyrdom? The flame-laced, rope-tied woman
was bound in every corner, bound to be in every corner. Across
every ocean. All the time. Everywhere. There’s something
about the spectacle of loss. Give me woman crying, breaking
down, head on ground, heaving, she must be heaving (adjust
her posture to look more heave-like), heaving, yes, heaving.
Give me woman on a stick, give me indigenous woman blood-laced,
luster-struck boobs embalmed in grime, then put it on a stick.
I want a fun, fresh, funky Drew Barrymore-type cut into pieces.
I want a sexy, sultry, contemporary Black Dahlia. It’s all about
the smile. If it’s not there, carve it on. I want a day where I don’t
dream of setting myself on fire. Then I question if it’s something
genetic. Am I inherently barbaric, is lusting over inferno
something integral to who I am? I like the idea of everything
going away slowly. Of you watching. Eyes aflame. This is a general
“you.” This is for the fanfare in the back, for that guy at the bar
that didn’t text back, for the boy that I dated who actually died.
Give me self-flagellating toppling bodies stick-fucked, fisted
balls, balled fists and iffy-type sideways women heaving and
heaved up to the stick with heathens watching chewing
bubblegum not mourning not crying and not even heaving.
And in my final act, I stand stick-fisted, stuck on a stick
engulfed in gestures of homage—a rose here, a splash of gas
intermittently, word-laced scepter skelter hour upon us. Ready
for round two. More gas, more infrequent now, more infrequent
are the fans, the fanfare dwindled, fans now morose and sweaty
and bored in my company, retreating. I forgot my lines. It is hard
to conjure up air here. Breathing has never felt so much like heaving.
I feel blisters pop and bristle like juiced-up spikes of electricity,
and I feel nothing. I know what will be said tomorrow, that I was
humpty-dumpty strong, or perhaps was squirming on the stick
too shamelessly, was Notley- worshipping, was waiting for She-God
to end the shebang. It didn’t end. I burned and I died. But not before
I slut-shamed the bubblegum girls, pity-pissed the stragglers
who walked by without a glance, flipped-off the magistrates
who organized the event, shat-sat the uniformed Brits pretending
to close their eyes, lip-kissed the baby boys, praying for infanticide,
tummy- tucked the pregnant women, their screams furthering
the fire, undercut the gamblers, playing to win on my demise,
and wind-whipped the ashes, forming contrails out of self.