substack
(p.s. drag me!!!!!)
the rot
it’s the bump on your forehead
you made by smashing your head into your fist.
then again, it could also be sfx makeup,
globular glob of wet packed onto the flat
of your forehead made big, made bump-like.
it becomes a monolith of sorry, this glob,
swallowing every stupid drunken mistake
into an array of fakeness; because it’s pathetic
and performative, the mass. you can’t seem
to ever get your face right. its twisted to
this pennywise snarl; because it’s shocking,
you’re shocked at yourself, you’re shocked
you’ve made it this far. and the wallowing
is sad and sorry, too, it’s really just dumb,
stupider than kindergarten math or tic tac toe;
it’s useless, the self-pity unproductive. you watch
the mass grow hair and then scab, you find it
dribbling pus then leaking small balls of blood.
it does everything in the book to make itself known.
it is the non-tumor horror, the facet of your
existence with pure and proper sense;
because it’s larger than life and smells like
rotten eggs. when the doctor finally cuts
it open and everything spills out, you heave
out breakfast, yesterday’s dinner, tomorrow’s tea.
you belch everything onto your white paper gown.
and then, finally, you apologize for the mess; because
you’re sorry, because you’re really just very sorry.
you made by smashing your head into your fist.
then again, it could also be sfx makeup,
globular glob of wet packed onto the flat
of your forehead made big, made bump-like.
it becomes a monolith of sorry, this glob,
swallowing every stupid drunken mistake
into an array of fakeness; because it’s pathetic
and performative, the mass. you can’t seem
to ever get your face right. its twisted to
this pennywise snarl; because it’s shocking,
you’re shocked at yourself, you’re shocked
you’ve made it this far. and the wallowing
is sad and sorry, too, it’s really just dumb,
stupider than kindergarten math or tic tac toe;
it’s useless, the self-pity unproductive. you watch
the mass grow hair and then scab, you find it
dribbling pus then leaking small balls of blood.
it does everything in the book to make itself known.
it is the non-tumor horror, the facet of your
existence with pure and proper sense;
because it’s larger than life and smells like
rotten eggs. when the doctor finally cuts
it open and everything spills out, you heave
out breakfast, yesterday’s dinner, tomorrow’s tea.
you belch everything onto your white paper gown.
and then, finally, you apologize for the mess; because
you’re sorry, because you’re really just very sorry.
Living in Parentheses
angelic breakdowns from two-story
terraces: the break and fury of something
half-born, something half-felt, an entire
colossal being splayed out on your
backyard. who’s to say that we’re
not living in parentheses, that this
fallen saint isn’t actually doused
in universe-dust and early organism.
the tube man outside the car dealership
is air-dancing, buoyant, free—the inflatable
organs inside his papery skin jittery
and alive, properly moving to whatever
pop ballad is blaring from the car radio.
we took a tally of what fell from the sky
today: some nuts and bolts, candy wrappers,
snake skin, and this. next to your bike
by the pavement, sprinkler whirring
wet onto its silky skin—a centaur,
a monops, no, an Unclassified One,
guts and intestinal fluid seeping toward
your front porch. today we witnessed
something so dead it has become other.
what if we enshrined it in plaster, posted
it up next to the living room fireplace
like a stuffed deer head, but greater?
or maybe we could sew it back together,
return it to glory, and then perhaps
station it next to the american flag
at your mailbox, fill its body with air
through a vacuum that we seal to its belly,
and let it fly once again, like a tube man,
our very own personal saint, one that ebbs
and flows to our whims and adheres
to our personal music choices, one
that dances with ferocity, its skin
slipping off with each sway, telling
everyone on the block that we’ve found
the answer to all of our questions.
terraces: the break and fury of something
half-born, something half-felt, an entire
colossal being splayed out on your
backyard. who’s to say that we’re
not living in parentheses, that this
fallen saint isn’t actually doused
in universe-dust and early organism.
the tube man outside the car dealership
is air-dancing, buoyant, free—the inflatable
organs inside his papery skin jittery
and alive, properly moving to whatever
pop ballad is blaring from the car radio.
we took a tally of what fell from the sky
today: some nuts and bolts, candy wrappers,
snake skin, and this. next to your bike
by the pavement, sprinkler whirring
wet onto its silky skin—a centaur,
a monops, no, an Unclassified One,
guts and intestinal fluid seeping toward
your front porch. today we witnessed
something so dead it has become other.
what if we enshrined it in plaster, posted
it up next to the living room fireplace
like a stuffed deer head, but greater?
or maybe we could sew it back together,
return it to glory, and then perhaps
station it next to the american flag
at your mailbox, fill its body with air
through a vacuum that we seal to its belly,
and let it fly once again, like a tube man,
our very own personal saint, one that ebbs
and flows to our whims and adheres
to our personal music choices, one
that dances with ferocity, its skin
slipping off with each sway, telling
everyone on the block that we’ve found
the answer to all of our questions.
A Letter to the Queen
it’s
almost as if she’s replaced me—
plucked me out of place and put in
something more cheery, a body
with cleaner lines, a person
with an ineptitude for calculating
or foreseeing malice. In this way,
I’ve been replaced by a baby, by someone
so clean and so thoroughly good-hearted,
good of heart, someone only capable
of seeing good. When I sat down
to chat with her on my dad’s balcony I said:
if you take someone, you take them
for the good and the bad. You can’t choose.
You can’t just find a little bit of sky, and claim
it’s synecdoche for the world. It is always
raining somewhere. But then,
it began to rain there and everywhere,
and everywhere became doused
in the lies I was spewing. What
is true is that I have been usurped,
and this foreign, smile-stained
chick is the new me. And everything
good and proper reigns in her universe.
In this universe, I am dust, zilch,
washed away in the downpour
of the royal welcoming of the nineteen
year old queen. In this universe,
I huddle in the corner while townspeople
offer ornate weaved baskets and small, ripe
peaches as tribute, the sun casting
a scorching glow over everything,
forcing shininess. In this universe,
I am not a daughter, or a sister, or
a woman with a body. It’s some kind
of feudal society with kings and queens
and magistrates in which she rules
ignorantly with a glean of happy, her face
twisted in perpetual joy—oh to live
in the kingdom of good—while I
am doing jigs on the street for coins,
pretending and hoping to recast myself
as the person I once was.
plucked me out of place and put in
something more cheery, a body
with cleaner lines, a person
with an ineptitude for calculating
or foreseeing malice. In this way,
I’ve been replaced by a baby, by someone
so clean and so thoroughly good-hearted,
good of heart, someone only capable
of seeing good. When I sat down
to chat with her on my dad’s balcony I said:
if you take someone, you take them
for the good and the bad. You can’t choose.
You can’t just find a little bit of sky, and claim
it’s synecdoche for the world. It is always
raining somewhere. But then,
it began to rain there and everywhere,
and everywhere became doused
in the lies I was spewing. What
is true is that I have been usurped,
and this foreign, smile-stained
chick is the new me. And everything
good and proper reigns in her universe.
In this universe, I am dust, zilch,
washed away in the downpour
of the royal welcoming of the nineteen
year old queen. In this universe,
I huddle in the corner while townspeople
offer ornate weaved baskets and small, ripe
peaches as tribute, the sun casting
a scorching glow over everything,
forcing shininess. In this universe,
I am not a daughter, or a sister, or
a woman with a body. It’s some kind
of feudal society with kings and queens
and magistrates in which she rules
ignorantly with a glean of happy, her face
twisted in perpetual joy—oh to live
in the kingdom of good—while I
am doing jigs on the street for coins,
pretending and hoping to recast myself
as the person I once was.
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.