i have hit the cold floor again. my lovers are sleeping soundly, dreaming that i am still between them while i grip the kitchen sink, taking sandpaper to my frontal lobe, feeling the solitary sage capsule rattle in my ribcage. i have cut my hair and practiced violin and thrown out my scissors and i have been a man and not, but at least i have a perfect sense of direction.
Category: Poetry
Father/Son Dance
I am the child that crunched up near the tire grease and spectated intently and delighted in the music of your voice, the nonsense rhymes of chrome&cog mechanics & when I jubilantly said I'd grow up to be Daddy, the miscommunication made you dream of blueprints and lava soap, and crescent wrenches laid out like piano keys but what I wanted was feet to fit your boots, complete with hairy toes encased in steel & not the endless meaningless blood, in gushes and torrents and nauseous waves, that was at first a shock, a day of tears, but then subsided into another dull ache of resentment, bone-deep, chromosomal. You could have passed on to me the tribal drumbeat XY chant. Instead my cells hum white noise, one syllable like the Hindu om, ringing like trapped water in my ears. The peyote god has granted me a different dance but there's no shining desert beyond the chrome of the kitchen when, a decade later, we stand at the sink, arms newly scrubbed of grease and I spit it up finally and your lips go thin and disappear into your beard. I know our Anglican world won't abide any of that silly vision business, or drumbeat dancing, or especially swapping and so the demon Lady Luck clamps down her teeth, tightening her grip right where it hurts.
Poem: “engulF–d”
Trigger warning for sexual assault.
engulF–d by a curtain of flamingo-print
heavy across my air–
I Swallow The Worm.
hands pressing mine by the wrists down into my lap–
my pose so polite except
my head, leaned all the way back to Avoid,
But i would never say it with my mouth.
i don’t have words for a lot of things that wiggle inside of me.
i swallow the worm instead,
adding another wiggle. (i have nightmares about these)
the chair squeaks once with the weight of two bodies on it.
i contemplate the ceiling
with his tongue scraping my teeth.
everyone (everyone) can see us. there is a grumble of disgust from somewhere. i can see nothing but open eyes, an inch from mine. i look away. it is a nice day outside.
i am no longer pristine
in appearance. i am
significantly rumpled
and oh my! i appear to have misplaced my hands.
everyone notices.