Author: R. Brookes McKenzie

what fresh hell is this

waiting

brooding like a hen
on a nest, hoping your
death will come soon, 
talking to my own
body like a disobedient
child – how dare you?
who do you think
you are? if there’s
someone in there, I’m
kicking you out. enjoy
the cigarette smoke,
coffee, weed smoke, alcohol, lsd,
rich foods, tooth bleach, staying
up late and coma-like slumber.
enjoy these sick beats I made,
and then get out. it’s
nothing personal; I’m just not
ready for you. now’s not
a good time. I’m used to being
alone in this body, and I like it
that way.

almanac

I started to make a list
of all the poems I’ve written
about you, but I quickly
lost count. they seem
as innumerable
as the stars in the sky,
multitudinous
as the diamond grains
of sand on a beach, countless
as the beats of my heart,
the tears from my eyes, and
the sighs of my breath.

sad ones, mad ones, ecstatic, longing,
resigned – I have as many
moods as the moon;
my feelings wax and wane
with the tides and are
twice as salty. these poems
are my farmer’s almanac,
my weather report. today
it’s balmy with a slight chance
of melancholy. a good day to
mulch sorrow, and weed out
old resentments. if you have
a kindness of rose bushes, plant them
at midnight, under the light
of the crescent moon.

on the way home

in a cab zipping
up First Avenue,
late at night with
no traffic and we catch
all the lights, I can make
seventy blocks in seven minutes
on a good night and I’m
watching the car’s reflection glide
sleekly, slipping fast as a
fish, frictionless,
through all the windows
and storefronts, metallic
silver and chrome and the dark
black, blank spaces in between,
as if I’m in a dream,
and I start to wonder
which is reality, this car
that I’m in, or that ghost
car? I can’t see anyone’s
face at the window
of that doppelganger
vehicle. maybe no one is home,
or maybe in that car another girl
is looking, half-drunk, dreaming,
and wondering
about my own existence.

Continue reading on the way home

the race

you tried, or so
it seems. I arrived
late, as usual, so
I can only assume
you did your best.
he may have won
the trophy, but
he didn’t win
the race. time
will tell
who really comes
in first. I’ll be
the judge of that.

trash

you know what they say
about one man’s trash.
the same could be said
about the man himself.
one girl’s scumbag
is another’s knight
in tarnished armor.
if I take off
these rosy glasses,
what will you
look like?

out with the old

in my medicine cabinet,
dusty drugs from psychopharms
I haven’t seen in years.
in my upstairs closet,
clothes I don’t remember
having purchased.
on my vanity,
a hairbrush
on which the rubber
is disintegrating and
all the bristles are falling out
one by one.
in my pantry,
canned goods that even charities
won’t accept.
in my downstairs closet,
boxes of books
I haven’t laid eyes on
in 6-12 years.
in my heart,
feelings that refuse
to fully die, though I
kill them over and over.

shall I take all these
outdated things
and have a bonfire?
before you answer,
consider this: for every
tub of bathwater,
there’s a baby.
if I start throwing
things out,
how will I know
when to stop?

mother II

I understand now
why you always talk to me
about having your children
and then – practically in the
same breath – deny having
any romantic interest in me
whatsoever. you want me
to mother your children
better than your own mother
did with you. you think
that only this can repair
the yawning abyss
she left in your heart
with her toxic
mothering. and if you
were to express any
romantic feelings towards me
it would be too close
to incest because
you conflate me
with her.

Continue reading mother II