back in the day,
we actually felt
things.
look, I’m not gonna lie,
Western medicine was
a total fucking joke
that really wasn’t
very funny.
lots of us went around
suffering horribly
from easily cured
nutritional imbalances and
hormonal issues and
serotonin deficiencies, which
we tried vainly
to correct
by voluntarily ingesting
various poisons, known as
drugs of varying stages
of legality.
the sign at the Rite-Aid
asks, “what are you
going to do
now that you’ve quit?”
lately I’ve been feeling like
maybe I don’t want to
smoke cigarettes anymore but
that question haunts me.
what the fuck am I
going to do with myself
when the press of people
around me gets to be
too much, when I need
some air and a few
minutes to think, or
write a poem,
or when I can’t
sleep and I need a reason
to stand in the doorway
with the terrace door open
to the elements
for approximately
three minutes
and forty seconds?
what was it like? well,
in so many ways
it was barbaric, but
there are a few things I miss.
what passes for food now
doesn’t taste as good
when you’re never allowed to get
really hungry. and even though
it was outrageous, savage, tragic
the way we nourished ourselves
on death and pain, there’s
something to be said
for cooking. the process
of having to make the meal
meant that it was never exactly
the same. sometimes
you’d run out of something,
and have to substitute – many
a new favorite recipe was born
of necessity – or you’d add
slightly more salt and it would taste
different. yes, I know,
now we can just dial it up,
make that lifeless carbon
taste like anything we want,
we can even override
the nutrition warnings –
as if the medical nanobots
won’t just correct it the next
time we sleep – but it’s not
the same.
I dreamt of sex and
woke to find you missing.
I waited, patience growing
thin, hoping to tell you
in person and maybe in
so doing, remember my passion.
but hours later, the dream
has gone and my blood’s
gone cold. I’m languishing
instead. it seems
you missed the window.
maybe that will teach you
not to stray quite so far
from my side, or maybe
it will teach me
not to dream.
when Ruth was young,
many people told her
something she felt or saw
or heard or even smelt
was not true. they did this
for many reasons, not all
nefarious – sometimes
her senses were overly sharp
to soothe their self-esteem –
and so
to make themselves
feel better, they told her lies
that made her
doubt herself.
I hate everything. whatever
you’re selling, I’ll have
none of it. I am a lizard
person deprived of warmth.
my hinged jaw could open
and swallow you whole.
if everyone could just stop
expecting me to talk to them,
I might survive this night
without the blood of well-meaning
idiots on my scaly, scaly hands.
if one more girl looking
down on her luck bums
a cigarette from me, I shan’t
be held responsible
for my actions.
two years ago today
I was embroiled in a non-affair
that was going nowhere
fast. we were so coded, hidden
in plain sight, that there are
no pictures of us together,
there are no tags
for me to hide or remove,
no way for me to protect
myself from this invasion
of memory: just
a picture of myself
on the stage that you lit –
where I was singing a song
to an audience of ten people,
hoping you would get the secret
message in the lyrics – but still,
against my will, I remember.
I remember that outfit
I wore, and the obscene
comment you made about it,
trying to throw me
off balance, and I remember how
I didn’t answer.
how is it
that something so ephemeral
can be so unwarrantedly,
unwantedly real? you were
crazy, and you made me crazy
with you, and I don’t thank Facebook
for reminding me
of what happened
on this day.
at first I was confused
by your behavior. I thought
maybe it was because
I had sent you some music
and you hadn’t had a chance
to listen to it yet. that’s
the kind of reason I avoid
people with whom
I have no real beef but the way
they remind me of
my own failings.
Continue reading to my friend who has been ignoring me for 30 days now
it was the moon’s day.
I slept late and long,
and when I rose
I did not know
if I was still dreaming.
we fought, and then made
angry love. you left, and I
took what I had wrested
from you and used it
to make a child, dark
and lonely as the night
that spawned her.
my stepbrother wrote to me
to tell me about his
eleven year old
daughter. she’s writing
a book, he said. she
reminds him of me.
she is about the age that I was
when my mother married
his father. it was not
at all like the Brady Bunch,
though my sister
and the two boys
might have thought so.
R. Brookes McKenzie 