TFLN Poem - Bidet, Breakdown

Hey.

Here's this week's www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.  Thanks to Stacy Keele for helping me pick one this week.  There were a bunch of contenders, and they all seemed so good.  She went with this one based entirely on the Austin area code.

And then I went with it, dove in,  free writing, and it got dark quickly, as it always does.  This template fascinates me so much.  I love dramatic narrative poems.  How does a person get to where they are based on where they've been?  What has altered them?  What are their stubborn, deeply held, sometimes absurd beliefs?

Here we go!

(512):

I can't decide if I'm depressed or if this is just what life without a bidet feels like.

Hitchhiked all day until I ended up in

Cedar Creek.  Harder than I thought it’d be.

Torn up coke can hidden on the 110 came up quick

Through my black converse sneaker, slashed up my right

Heel. Stuffed some pages from my dream notebook into the shoe,

Pressed it down, flagged a trucker. He exhaled gunpowder

And runny beer. Sucked him off.  Eyes closed, brutal, efficient.

I hadn’t showered in seventy three hours and six minutes.

Did he, did Thomas ever love me?

Did he watch me sleeping, morning come morning

Studying my face until the lines grew wrinkled

And make an algorithm in his academic, tidy mind

Exactly when he’d cut me loose, find someone firmer

And more fun?

He was so goddamn proud of that bathroom.

So cosmopolitan, he said. So civilized, with ionized water

To clean and hoses to treat your tender, soiled self.

He would call me his little bidet

As he gently pressed me down and held his

Quickness into me.

It was  - I just used to find it so charming.

Then I looked it up.

The French.

It means pony.

Some dumb, helpless animal you ride.

Not even on your level.

That’s when I felt the walls in my heart

Tremble, and a hammer appeared in my hand

And I took to the porcelain

And screamed and screamed

Until there was thick, chalky dust and Thomas found me in the rubble,

Slapped me to the floor, kicked me til my blood pursed through my coat

And he sent me running.

Keep telling myself: the pain, the transitory friends, the bottomless cask

of suffering,

The mottled love, the resonating, sin-swept bones,

The chapped, bitter flecks of cum on my teeth were temporary.

But the work, what’s made – what’s sheltered, won’t be taken.

It will keep.

It will keep me warm.

TFLN Poem - Con Atrevido, Culture Clash

Hey.

Here's the www.textsfromlastnight.com poem of the week.

Accidentally found myself talking about race and culture in this one. Being biracial, it's always a tough feeling. Not being white or brown enough for some. Getting odd looks from parents of girlfriends and wearing non-threatening sweaters to overcompensate for the tension. Being asked, "Where are you from?" and already having prepared a stock answer ahead of time which suits your taste and sensibilities.

Here we go!

(617):

i would really appreciate it if you would stop texting my girlfriend.

(508):

i would really appreciate it if you would stop cock blocking me.

Ever seen a bunch of crabs, live ones,

Layered deep in a bucket?

Soon as one tries to get loose, pry itself free,

The others, they pull him back, stuff him down.

That’s you. You passive-aggressive, tweed-suited,

Crossword-puzzle-in-ink-dabbling, condescending dick.

I ain’t gonna step away from a chance with Gloria.

We go back.  You’re just the seasonal flavor.

Once you see the real stories, the marrow behind

Those gray, regal eyes, once you catch her abuelita’s

Warrior voice, locked behind the curses she taught her,

The words she don’t use much no more, but still

That power, it’s quiet and shored up along

Her spine, supplicates at her breasts - once you witness the fire,

you'll run, like a  pinche coward. She is a machine 

Of death and prophesy, entiendes?  La palabra asesino.

What? You don’t  - you don’t  -

Of course.  You’re pocho. I get it. Watered down.

Cafe con leche turned americano..

No longer Guillermo, but Bill.  You ever make babies

With Gloria, probably give them stupid cookie-cutter

Wonder Bread names like Harper or Kaiden.

And like that, all the past, the fragile significance, it’s gone.

Know this: that woman, that wonderful, terrifying

Creature, bears a scar, size of a hammer,

Down the back of her thigh. Thin crime of skin.

She’ll never tell you the tale.

I know what happened.

That is love. Shared Sorrow. That’s what we got.

TFLN POEM - Romance, Risk

Hey.

Here's this week's www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.
Thinking a lot about creative risk in general this week, and realizing why I don't extend it to dating. And I should. I really should. Soon.

Here we go!

(616):

He's so vague sometimes. Like dude, we've been friends for 3 years. I don't need you to be vague, I need you to be inside of my vagina.

I’m just waiting.

Maybe Scott will pull me into a quiet room,

Fidget with his glasses, give one of his shy, rare smiles,

And just fucking say it.

What’s he scared of?  Being happy?

Seems like it.

He gives out these half measures and hints and clues

And dances his way around the subject

Like he’s defusing a bomb.  Romance isn’t about

Removing collateral damage; stemming risk.

We’re gonna be altered, permanently. That’s

What makes it so intoxicating. Change.

We surrender to an altar of shared experience.

It’s violent. It’s a tempered beauty.

I want that.

I know he wants that too.

And, I’m just so – I’m so goddamn horny.

Way he talks, like a low rumble of dry leaves.

Way he strums guitar and weaves these sad, haunting stories

Way he holds his heart way a baby holds a spoon,

Hesistant, and then proudly and then continuing against all reason,

Getting it dirty but smiling, as if he were the

Warden of a secret.

I want to jump him, knock the fear out of his bones,

And say, here,

Here is where touch

and tremble

and trust are waiting.

TFLN POEM - Return, Resentment

Hey.

Here's this week's www.textsfromlastnight.com poem.

(949):

Fuck. That. I'm gonna get drunker and make them regret they EVER put me at the kids table. I'm a MAN.

Gary.
Gary Gary Gary Gary Gary Garrrrrry
You shitastical older brother.
I – I didn’t fly all the way from Mozam –
FUCKING
Bique
Just to wedge my scrawny ass between some diaper-clad crotch droppings
At a card table.
Oh, yeah – I know, I know it’s a card table.
You cheap dick.
It’s the same one dad used for bridge and whist and all those other
Basement games.
He’d try to teach us and we’d get bored and cry and he’d whistle-smoke unfiltered
Camels and the washing machine never stopped running.
He’d puff them down to ash.
And now he’s dry, harmless ash, too. No more fire. No more
Hunger. I stole some of him,
Maybe a hand’s worth.  Put it in a plastic bag, then a grey athletic sock.
Scattered him over the still waters of Lake Malawi.
The fish, he would have liked the  -
But fuck it with a bucket, you’re not gonna ask, or talk about my
Service in the Peace Corp.
You’re a big small-town married man.
Smile so tight, hands like a pack of sausages. Every wedding picture,
The same fucking smile. Guests are staring at me, my clothes puckered loosely
Around my ruddy skin. Suit doesn’t fit.  Itchy. Smells like turpentine.
Buncha old ghosts trying to squeeze some tears from me.
No way. Nope. I’ve got liquor. I’ve got time.
Now back off, mouth breathers, and give me,
Give me some of your vanilla cream cake.