poems

Uterine

I cannot stand the smell of menstrual blood;
the sour copper caked in my eponychium,
staining my nails where they peel.
My body, incensed at the lack of child to bear
this month, turns desperately to the healing properties of
routine self-destruction.
The almost mucosal
texture of the rejected lining of my womb
stretching as webbing between my fingers,
stretching as glue between the months and years
of my developing adulthood
has grown too familiar.
Beyond a disdain for the necessary time-sink
of eating and shitting, I do not much mind most biological functions.
But this—this cyclical hormonal coup,
this anatomical mutiny
filling my uterus with manure in the name
of fertile breeding ground
alienates.
My femininity cannot be found in the clumps
of flesh which fall from between my legs;
it is not womanhood which has been bought in blood,
but the opportunity to proliferate life—
this is our gestation tax.
I have not finished with my body for myself;
to surrender it to the existence of an else would be heretical,
but tell that to progesterone.
Humiliating, she reduces me,
turning my water into whine
which does not age well, no matter the wood of the barrel.
Galvanized hoops fall molten around the staves of my hips
and the sugar in me ferments.
There are scabs underside the toilet seat.

This poem was inspired by the photography of Brenda Oyervides (website; instagram) after reading Seamus Murphy's essay "Two and a Quarter" from the October '17 issue of POETRY Magazine. Please, please lor't check out these photographers (especially Mz Brenda, who is a fellow Houstonian, and she's got a vision). I'm not saying I won't do more of these Polaroid-style/inspired pieces. Keep yer eyes open. 

i type all my poems in notepad
because when i begin i never know if I want to capitalize my Letters
or not
and Microsoft Word(R) has autocorrect.
unfortunately--
((five syllables))--
that means i have to be sanctimonious without keyboard shortcuts
and just now
i had to google how to spell "sanctimonious."

when i read mrs. dalloway i didn't think it'd be this hard.

all my handwritten poems are bad(worse)
because i cannot copy/paste.
instead, i procrastinate creating until i may be before a computer screen
and justify my dependency by shouting about
oh, All the paper I save!
I stopped eating meat because it's bad for the environment
and uhh, that makes me better than you ..

i
am not a
Good Writer.

my thoughts are bad--
and i don't just mean lacking in quality:
there is a general air of negativity about them,
a perpetual combination of worry and obligation,
which,
i have been reliably informed
(by myself, of course, who else),
is not so good for me.

when i tell people "i am making art,"
the "attempting to" is silent.

- BUT THANKS FOR READING ANYWAY

Topographic

i
Please,
can I remember the necks of wine down which
we slid?
Cooler to the touch,
but not half as frigid
as the pool water our feet found themselves in.
It was not the first time I craved chlorine to chase my shots,
but now
the company was mine.
Somehow I stayed warm.

ii
I fell translucent in the blue haze
as his gaze crept across my roommate's shyest lap.
The metro gods counted down street names.
The taste of humid, oily air when again he touched her arm outside The Rooftop
remains acrid and deep in my mouth even yet.
We did not know him, so
I held her by her waist.

iii
Twice I felt the bedroom behind the local Deli,
but I do not know if it remains.
I paid for those opportunities in black satin and friendship,
and received no utility in return.
In his defense,
it was not a
fair trade.

iv
Have I any photos left
of Ashley's porch?
We lit the air with the flash of a half-dozen cameras
whose shutters never closed.
Perhaps scrapped
in a moment of iconoclastic cleansing,
they developed maddeningly underexposed,
and by then,
sliding down wine necks
was a hobby.

v
Across the bridge of my nose a scar stretches out
to remind me how it felt
to catch the ground
with my face.
This city held me here at night
when the only place I could call mine was inside a dented Expedition.
In truth, I had fortune.
A friend cradled my head against their bleeding hospitality
and, out of respect,
I tried not to dig my toes in too deep.

vi
Fairies' lights dangled above our heads and I sipped rose buds.
How delicious the Spider who served me must have found their tiny bones
for him to spend so much web
on such pretty, silly things.
Here is where I first spoke it: "I think I want to leave."
I did not know then
that meant, too,
the city.

4/25/17 ("The Handwriting Poem")

my ex always said i had bad handwriting. 
it was illegible to his eyes
yet i maintained it was no failing of mine that he
could not read cursive. 
i am the first to admit that my print is dismal–
my hand hangs far too heavily to properly bounce my vowels;
my words tumble into each other
and i cannot lift my pen as tidy print demands
"i can't read this."

but when my words are allowed to flow,
ink ebbing in tide
cresting where i cross my t's
i can see my mother's looping m
"melissa," she signs.
my characters clutch each other close,
unwilling to be unwound,
or too rushed to
pause
between pulling the lips every which way
exactly as my father's untidy scrawl;
quick and compact.
my script; intact
evidence they remain part of me in every word i write.
"i can't read this."

i prefer the presentation
bows tied tight around each gift
guiding the eye along
to the word which follows and then again
unwrapping meaning from every parceled phrase
as if it's christmas and once again i may be an excitable child.
there is little in this life which brings me back
to those moments:
a bare joy in that which i have given.
"you know i can't read this."

the rivulets which stream so fluidly from me
he convinced me must be damned.
he frowned at the presents i left under the tree
until it occurred to me
it wasn't my choice in wrapping
which caused his offense. 

demi wispies

she bought them to have eyes like zooey deschanel
three pairs
unopened—unouched
aspirationally displayed on her vanity.

the act of applying false lashes
however
is one of intimidating intrusion;
her hands shake and she cannot see
the mirror.