poets of wordpress

I wish I had more words for
“terrorized.”

just another verse
picking at its stitches,
grunting from the dark and
taking educated guesses at the Rorschach blot
that spreads across its skirt.
but writing with cadence,
inflection, downplaying
it with rhythm as you
try to capture the humiliation of
all the little violations
that add up to today
without one strong word
or accurate verb
to describe the way a knife
sticks for a second and you moan
the wrong way.

what sounds better to you?
I say over coffee, trying to
finish some titles.

“besieged” or “PTSD”
or simply
“raped?”

“the act of naming things”

August 11, 2018 0

you tell me your preferences
with a bit of a clenched fist
and I know you are fighting
some primal scream that turns you into
the thing that beats the submission
into me, licks me clean
and that is
fine;

I’ve been around.
I’ve dated men
plenty of times:
saved their leftovers,
moved their crossword puzzles, watch,
socks from the floor,
ignored their predacious attacks on my
girlfriends.
ignored their violation of
contract re: respect and space
and “I’m too drunk to sleep
with you.”
ignored their wandering eyes,
wandering hands,
wandering notions of pre
consent when I am now too drunk
to stand.
I’m proud to say I’ve adjusted
to many morose habits before.
in fact,

my newest craze is
self-cannibalism:
find the trauma and puncture it,
bleed onto my palms and
taste it; the way it felt
to be used like that and years later
the aftertaste swallow
another old neg or two,
a curse word, a punch directed at the wall,
a public critique of an outfit or body part
or everything at once.
a light strangle, a light
choke in the sheets;
a little sexual coercion to get me roped and
in heat.
(I’m ready for this)
that means you were tired but wanted it
sometimes the body is replete
with blockages and I just
feast on past rapes
until I’m plump,
obese with past places
that rocked me gently to sleep
I was tired but wanted it
like a noose,
but worn tastefully.
that means privately and quiet
ass swamped with little taps
at crowded parties,
“honey, smile!” and “where you going, whore?”
hips full with sudden caresses on
the subway, at the office, at the party,
after school, and other places too;
my fingers bursting with strangers’ hands
that grabbed mine in the bathroom
when I was sick and he
assumed a slumped girl over a toilet
wanted to touch him, wanted to
prove something could rise
from her grip.

lungs heavy with little moans at the
wrong time, little “nos” they just can’t
hear over their own gasps,
over the bed creak,
over me slowly falling asleep
underneath them.
(that means I wanted it)
my sacral remembers every single score
of every man that touched me while I was
peacefully sleeping in my inebriation,
that means deserved
and every man that grabbed me on the subway car
and every thirteen year old boy that rubbed me
as a five year old girl
and every man that watched me hang myself
first
before he would either remove his dick to get
the law involved
baby, here are my words, they are the law
or believe me at all.

I’ve dined on my own tongue;
loyal and quaking
flush with recollection and
shaking prologues for
so long,
even a yawn at the wrong time
causes her to shrink
in ignominious retreat.
honestly, it might be fun to have a little help
disappearing completely
no, no, you sit, I’ll stand, I’ve taken up too much space anyhow
and
if we both get started
there may be nothing left of me
by dawn to hold onto
or photograph or
fuck,
follow with your car,
tell me what you think about my style:
my gritted smile,
ass, boobs, hips, and face.
put me in my place:
print those pictures and
exploit me,
deny my needs,
deny my history.
whistle slap gaslight,
intimidate in alleyways when I’m trying to
get home and you’re trying to feel
giant, or when it gets going–
mind the rope there
ignore.

with all the kinks possible,
wouldn’t that still be something
kind of new for you,
boy?

“you up?”

August 11, 2018 0

grow up big
like
great, big
potted
bonsais:

warped,
admired for aesthetic,
pruned to look pained,
trimmed excessively
with some self-seeking worship;
most every limb
lacking expansion
or utility,

most every limb
kept smaller than it
should be.

“girls”

August 11, 2018 0

kitten ears and painted whiskers
tumble down my block   in rows
rehearsed
in leotards and black lace gloves.
precocious     those high pitched
y o w l s floats through open porches.
TV taught them how to meow
for Kit Kats   Snickers Almond Joys
male applause.
one bends over to tie her shoe
and seduce the nearest father;
he eyes the crevice peeking through her
black tights.

she wants attention from her own father:
a photograph or upward twirl,
burning torch,
purr in his lap while he strokes her hair
without fetish
or just acknowledgment that she is the prettiest
girl dressed up as space cat,
those others are unoriginal, just regular
cats, he says I love yours best
and pats her on her head
and there is no offense taken.

she will grow up to be even smaller
than she supposed:
silent enduring still,
not awake in her own power,
her own body
like a stillborn tiger:
expelled with a tear
coated in the blood of her mother’s
screams as no one prepared her for the
slow cooked torture, ecstasy
that followed expelling something
parasitic and omniscient,
a future rival.
she lands on the floor
in a sealed protective pod,
fetal for always and
wrapped in excretion,
the thing no one wanted
like sewage water
without even a congratulations! bouquet
or a lotus to symbolize completion.

we aren’t worthy of those feline endowments
thrust upon us when we are playing
mole carcass on the doormat
aborted from our burrowed holes
for something more vociferous
to grab onto and finish,
our kinship, the lions.
we are nothing like our ancestors.
our virile mothers–
who know nothing of preening,
who care nothing for tail feathers,
they take what they want,
they don’t grovel at their fathers’ feet.
they honor the slaughter,
the one they started
before the harvest and pay homage
to the sky for the water provided
before they stuff themselves
with vision.

we lack vision.
we just paint our nails black,
and dress like witches,
talk shit;
start shit for derision.
and we keep turning to our men
for forgiveness when we are wayward
or won’t marry them
or stand up when they
crush our necks and they
say the rope is coming next.
we should be
stuffing our faces with the meat they provided,
learning fillet knives,
learning to skin hides,
smiling like shovels and
burying them.

“Halloween”

August 11, 2018 0

take me and
stuff me in a bag;

in the rapture of a girl
first kissed behind the ear,
never once being touched there before
and tell me you’ll carry me across
the whole ocean
if that’s where
I need to be today.
I’m laughing and
you say the most ridiculous
things like
(and you turn to me)

you say to me:
this will never end,
right?

“the blue book”

August 11, 2018 0

“I have opened it.”

–Alfred Tennyson’s last recorded words, October 6, 1892.

and letting her inner
child suddenly scream in
public, what became of
noise trapped:
an ode to tombs
in reverie reflected
back.

marrow cage pinned beneath his
sex and a
a grab for steady wages,
three thousand pages of
unique rejections,
and my wrists are bound
together by a little
self denigration.
a noticeable attachment to water,
currents or anything that’s
palpable,
a noticeable longing for windows.

my veneration for absence.
a noticeable longing for door knobs,
race tracks, wide open space
to act out the disordered thought.
my admiration for sadists
and what they take,
an unwavering self-beratement
tightening the joints of bone bars,
my masochistic streaks
and the interminable door
slamming shut.
less concerning to everyone
involved:
a child who paces the room in silence
hugging herself and her twisted straw,
murmuring at the walls
and a noticeable absence of
anything palpable; namely
them, fingers,
love.

“doors”

August 7, 2018 0

“I’m always knives-out,
a chain of razors folded
behind each gesture.
You who loves me: are you
paper? Or plywood? Or stone?”
–Christopher Morgan

I never write about blossoming but
I’m seeing inflorescence in
my dejection:
my censorious portraits
cascading and
my unpolished toes
at the edge of the kitchen
where the carpet meets the tile,
an unwashed bowl of almond butter
next to my tea,
empty half of a house,
my patient sponsor and the
tail end of my
frantic texts public mania;
an affinity for
inscripting every feeling
somewhere permanent.
begin to plan the next
black mark on my body;
a large alligator named
Milo. I’m flagrant when
offended and they
say I turn violence
inwards.

I could have been
sitting still,
saving face,
explaining through private sessions,
watercolor, the grace of
long sleep, ten am and
fresh and lucid still
immured in dream.
she mentions doing the
dishes she mentions
deep breathing

I see a bud in the daffodils
you left, a water filled horizon
that distorts my perception
of what “leverage” really means.
and the big picture,
obscured by my choice of lighting;
all fluorescent,
it’s cheaper
blinding everything overdone
with explanation and
cyclic editing,
ornate,
constant litter.

I liked some things about us:
two dirty bowls to wash
but saw clearly.
we were soaked in
soft lighting and I held
your gaze,
your torso,
your incogitant rage
that I managed between fits of
self soothing and pleading,
placating.
mouthful of bitten tongue,
some little good timing,
ready for
hi there
some little soft haunting.
for you,
always:

a toothy smile,
walk for miles,
fingers crossed for some
little soft revenge.

you?
I think about you.

August 6, 2018 0

lashes black and wet and
shaped like little
bolts.

we watched fireflies and I
licked your earlobes,
tried your fingers on
while I played with truths;
denied them.
felt your chest pressed against mine.
we clanked with ease
and I took in the scene of two people
unclothed and unseen
underneath some crescent innuendo
in your backyard
without friendship between them;
without people between them and I dared
to stare in a way that endures more than
deciduous planting.

I broke at the
not now
you spoke back
with a masculine fragility
I had never known envied,
tried on later with pants,
unplucked eyebrows
and alone.
you became all red and
graceless, I became an unwatched bull
headed to your porch,
snorting and you were
bare faced and guarded in all the ways
I have yet to learn.
I’m so obvious:

a scarlet blaze that starts with a joke,
two bodies parting,
an unreturned question that ends
with a sharp exclamation,
annihilation of something.
ends with a reminder from someone higher
to stop destroying something
to eliminate one part.
I am a wave of coercion
pulling you in and under
when I should have been
patient;
when I should have been laid in the grass
gently next to the ant hills
where you can learn my thighs,
breasts,
spine,
toes curled without injury;
when I should have been pausing to notice
there are no people between us;
when I should have been gracious,
with you and naked.

I remove the rest of my top
and close my eyes deliberately
to show you the length
of each thorn.
with my tongue pressed
against your chin,
my lips trace
your jaw I say
more softly
than before:
you know,
I have never
become divine without
first becoming storm.

“Scorpio”

August 6, 2018 0

sometimes I do ceremony,
sometimes I just
let things pass.

we do that for others;
we carry our grief quietly,
bury things deep
within ourselves.

I feel the root rot and darken
without altar, water
or speech.
you walk in and
I’m here now
growing into a black trunk.
you walk in and look
right at me
and I don’t know
where to begin.

I begin to grow,
unfurl, hum
softly.

August 5, 2018 0

I couldn’t stand the sight of me
so I watched the willows
perfect their melancholy
some days

when I walked
to the edge of the city and back.
they carried it naturally
and I tried passing windows
without looking at my face.
it’s dark at four and
forget about the moonlight,
or a headlight
or my sun lamp.
my body sees no glare or
person and
my head is drawn
in hoods.
I am their winter rival.

my pores were lined with bentonite
and steam and suffered
prayer; a nihilist effort’s
worth so my skin was
exfoliated but my heart
was still blood-thirsty
in knots.
Nana’s rosary draped across my wrists
and most of my fingers stayed crossed
to become a space that contains little breaths
of God personified.
I scrubbed the dirt from every inch
of my scalp,
the bridge of my nose,
under my elbows,
my kneecaps.
any crack that light could fit
I tried to rinse it first.

sometimes I took the long way to the store.
29 degrees and someone drew a giant sun
blanketing a tulip garden
on the side of a wall in an effort to,
I only assume,
preserve summer and cure their own
raging seasonal affective disorder.
I focused on the colors.
tried to pay attention to the subtle shift in greens
as the stems got closer to photosynthesis,
the yellow stamen, orange petals,
tint of turquoise in the grove of trees
hovering in the distance,
the way everything tilted towards the right
on instinct
with no speaking masters
and no shadows beneath them.

I leaned left towards your block
focused on feeling the weather change in my tights
and mock wool mini skirt
in hopes it would
cure my malingering,
would halt my bloodlust,
my persistent inner child
bleating with her hands out
looking for touch and I am
suddenly spades out in your dead garden and
running forward,
something pinned between
my teeth:

lines, the way that
pauses form a book,
my thirteenth draft
to you.

“Saturn returns”

August 5, 2018 0