DEJA VU RITUAL
YEAR ONE
thrown
into a communal theatrical performance.
former sleepy-town lovers sucking amphetamines off each other’s lips, simplifying
new york as the place, man. the place where, like, i found freedom. interactive show, my beachtown tan shuffled on the edge.
distracted by onyx pigeons, dalmatian-speckled falcons.
five mom! i saw five rats huddled together like dormmates.
parade a cacophonous blur, i squinted.
a lifetime of buildup – is it odd to feel inadequate?
sorry, everyone.
my voice’s a mosquito stuck in hometown tree sap.
i grew up cozied.
birch fences, white as snowdays.
brunette snow moats, dirty springs.
last summer’s memories, dragonflies skimming.
silent pining, crickets.
oh. i thought this was it!
this was my debut – my exclusion from suburbia.
my first out. truth!
eventually after many bruisey months,
more nebula than roommate,
i learn to say my name.
oh ya.
i get it.
why everyone here wants an audience.
for a bit, all of me was all of me.
mantra-ing, is this even real? is this existence?
(now how am i here again?)
* * *
YEAR TWO
he rode me around a new suburban town
pixels no more
please
please take me
holy debauchery! i don’t want me
* * *
YEAR THREE
white button-down with a slim effeminate tie,
pleated skirt confessing to tawny thighs,
falling knee socks and worn pleather black boots.
i’m a humble student, slowly learning how to exist.
how to not be
alone.
i kneeled crescent moons in piss coated sidewalks.
begged out, “i’m capable of more than this illness (maybe)”
soft, but declarative, whispers, “i love all of you.”
less than 7 months later, ambulance croons & blistering ears.
man. to know i can never have a year like that again.
i can never have so much hope & optimism after so much grief.
i can never be so ready to trust.
so interested in touch.
the year i tried to be social. the year i confused being acknowledged with care.
a kind of sourhead candy
spat from mouth to mouth, til one back-of-the-bus badass choked on that 2:47PM speed bump.
bleached white and covered in someone else’s vulnerabilities,
fell out of that warm cozy cheek to roll off the bus.
i lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.
it’s okay. it was, for me, all for the better.
& it is still there.
a wonderland ready for me to trip into, where i can feel 20 again.
(my exes dull suburbia, my exciting 19 narnia)
* * *
YEAR FOUR
slow waltz, but without any grace or precision.
we seeped into each other.
lovely blue eyes, brillo cheeks, smug
twilight epiphanies.
i’ve never been loved before.
he –
a man. an actual man. my enemy –
someone to believe in.
failed orgy logistics, i’m still laughing.
a relationship on the backs of our inadequacies.
we talk shop. this city.
the altar it never asked to be. fails to be.
like all gods, easy to blame and dismantle.
even when i was quite literally – poetry metaphor to its side for a sec! –
bleeding, welted, bruised from pink to green, violet to black, no one,
none of them,
or anyone from the woods,
or anyone from the code,
ever called me strong & powerful.
daunting ink stains; initial spill bled out
& our midnight hands clutch.
* * *
YEAR FIVE
big bad storm pelted.
“the neighbor! their basement was flooded, but ours didn’t get one drop.
uncle joey just renovated that basement.”
loss and secondhand smoke. dust and flies and grief.
her surgery, her fucking surgery.
somehow,
this morose and helpless year is enviable.
god, i had not clue.
after the storm, the apocalypse.
* * *
YEAR SIX
my walk-in closet.
my mouse-hole.
a sanctuary like a womb, blindingly tight, nearly within myself.
but with 2 windows, spectating bluejays! cardinals!
fellow taco-hungry new england chirps.
walls plastered, as if a bullet went through my head and my subconsciousness, consciousness ricocheted 360 degrees around the space with the hello kitty pink that makes my brain’s slime. vibrator on my sheets,
sad journals open on the floor, “mom, dad,
i’m not asking permission but give me permission.”
queer refugee finally in asylum!
they say millennials are entitled, but all i wanted was a space of my own.
a place without that claustrophobic pretense that we love you,
as long as you behave.
be straight and cis and god be normal and please, listen to us, you are vulnerable. remember you are vulnerable.
* * *
YEAR SEVEN
front-teeth stained ashy-black.
bitch list, ferocious.
is this a bad year or the start of my new life?
wheezing self-esteem, breathing machine neither friend nor foe.
eh.
we’ve all listened to nirvana, read the glass jar.
we’re HUGE fans of despair.
wednesday, toes in sand.
thursday, i am not my thoughts.
i am not my thoughts.
i am not my unemployment. i am not my thoughts. i am
not my insecurities. i am not my failures. i am not my limitations. i am not
my problems. i am not my feelings. i am not my net worth. i am not
my pinings. i am not my frustrations. i am not my illness. i am not
my mother. i am not my family history. i am not my oppressions.
i am not my losses.
i am not
wigge those strings,
unlatch those loops,
let the material droop.
put everything away, at a distance, so they won’t tangle again.
* * *
YEAR EIGHT
a harrowing horror.
a galactic agony.
year eight should be a love poem, like year four.
it should be prose that would make her shake.
de-mystifying confessions spelt with affection and romances.
prose so honest she would be forced to face her importance.
a starling song present-day me croons to her, over and over.
and she would rub my nose with her nose,
brush my lips with her lips,
and feel safe.
it isn’t fair, none of it, but year eight isn’t about her.
cause, like, my mom.
my mom. my mom. my mom.
first, her wellness. then her mobility and voice. & then all of her.
“i wouldn’t want to live if something happened to one of you kids.”
“there is a hell – this planet is our personal hell.”
“i’m so happy for you.”
she was a tension in years 1 – 6 and even parts of 7. in years a -q.
but, but, give me those 25 years again.
i don’t need to grow. i don’t need to see what’s next. or i don’t care what i need.
the worst of my former days, the hardest most brutal and painful evenings,
i was still able to wake up, roll over to my phone, and hear her talk, laugh, even yell.
hear her teach me who she is. who i am.
imagine, if i got my wish & relived my life, even if was only a montage of my worst days.
that’s delightful to me.
i crave, like how the weight of the sun and the moon and the earth keeps us from floating off,
to hear her say my name again.
i’m still waiting for her recovery to progress to the point where she can look at me in the eye and say my name.
* * *
YEAR NINE
i miss when she was as close as eyelashes.
new york, where she was born and raised and married and had me and had her first house.
new york, a mausoleum.
* * *
YEAR TEN
WORK IN PROGRESS.
empty, slightly crumpled, piece of parchment.
if dead moms didn’t scorn all other luck, i would be rabbit’s foot.
just don’t die, and fuck, never move! and year ten will be probably be worthy.
as will all the rest.