give me heart of stone
my little brother chose his name, when he transitioned. socially, that is. he's 19, now. or 20? sometimes I lose track.
I used to love it. And now I'm sad that all I'll think of when I see his name is you, and what we had, and how it's gone,
and all the things that could have been if you were not so insecure that you felt the need to
lie.
gotta feel something, right?
punch. keep going. again. again. again.
don't stop. don't you *ever* fucking stop. even when your body betrays you, don't you dare stop the assault, keep punching through to feel something, to feel anything, to feel the
anger.
not at them. it's not their fault, after all, that you're gullible, soft, easy to manipulate; not anyone else's fault that you're a whiny piece of shit. you won't last much longer anyway. but it's not their fault. not the world's. not anyone else's
but yours.
it's yours.
it's yours. feel that rage that takes form in stinging on your skin, while you still can. ffeel that rage that takes form in age that takes form in
feel that rage that takes form in stinging on your skin, warm, hot blood dripping in rivulets down knuckles, lusting for the floor. might as well, at least. while you still can.
Cesar-ian
you no longer feel the pain of your wound. blood pours out, sure, the battlefield around you is fraught with shouts, orders yelled across the lines that blur in your vision, motion and stillness blending into one. and you can feel time stand still around you, you can feel something starting to shift inside your soul, in your breath, in your mind, in your bones, in your life. but you don't feel the hurt.
so it's not the pain that gets you, it's the chest crushing pressure as you begin to realize that you can no longer breathe. and you reach for a comrade, and find a lieutenant, one who tells you what he sees rather than assuaging fears as you lay there, helpless. the realization as time begins to slow that this is it, that you have been spilled open, and you're staring at yourself, guts all spilled out, organs exposed - that's what gets you. that's what does it. it's when you realize the elephant hand-standing on your chest is no elephant but simply pounds of tangled organs you cannot feel. *your* organs.
this is it. there is no return. you can never come back from that moment. you're a soldier, sure, in the Army of Caesar; you swore loyalty and meant it.
but this is not what loyalty looks like. loyalty is two way street. and you cannot win a battle where your commanding officers don't care to devise strategy that treat soldiers with respect and humanity.
so it seems to me that they should rename the procedure.
because Caesar may have been born in the same manner, but Rome's most famous general died by countless stab wounds in the Senate, and as far as I know the military man committed many cut-throat atrocities but never psychological torture of this nature.
and placing women's organs so carelessly upon their chests while they are conscious to the sensation, even if not the pain? well, that sounds much more like Caligula than Caesar, to me.
(but then again, what would I know? I'm just a sort-of-woman who studies history, living with chronic illnesses, navigating a medical system - that didn't even start researching menstrual products with blood until 2023 - with my own reproductive health issues.
it's just my Roman Empire.)
autopilot
I woke up this year. I really, truly did. I don't know how long I've been running just following the programming, going through each protocol. one must have an error, because every so often the system does get overloaded with all the files it keeps ignoring and tossing to the side. there's nowhere to put them, see, it just shoves them into a folder within a folder but eventually they reach maximum capacity and there is an
[ e r r o r ] .
and so everything stops while the system overloads, sometimes crashing other programs running, even destroying other files and projects and protocols and me? well I, the user, I have to wake up and Step In, I have to Pilot The Plane, so the speak. I have to reorganize the folders, find a new external drive. Except there isn't one, because I can't afford one, my brain is only so big, right? I don't have *that* many resources, I have to get back on task. I have a life to get back to, and quickly. this machine has things it needs to do.
so instead I set the original aside, lock it up, and redirect the protocol to a new folder entirely, present with empty inserts, ready to be filled - stuff them with the things that you don't have time to handle! shove the problems back! emotions, memories, traumas? no problem. filed away. bing bang boom. a well-"oiled" machine. and I, of course, am back on autopilot. I can go back to sleep. I, the user, can rest. again.
of course, there's always the *next* time it fails. and who knows when that will happen. the plane could crash. maybe it'll delete the protocol that holds, like, the will to *live* this time. or, say, I don't know, crash and burn on top of the job I'm in, but there's no way to know, really.
ah, well. c'est la vie.. ...isn't it?
...isn't it?...isn't it?
At least, that's certainly what I used to tell myself. But it's like I said in the beginning.
I woke up this year. At some point, I began to break down, and then all of a sudden there I was, seven months later, stripped to the wire, tubes and plugs throughout and liquids pumping into the veins of copper and iron and zinc, electricity zapping at the beating heart and brain of my being, the motherboard.
I woke up, and I was utterly destroyed. Useless. Broken. And I realized something. This was not just a time of suffering or pain. It IS not. If it were it would be an insult. No. This was, in fact, an opportunity - to rebuild my own system in a way that it flies so much easier it doesn't even *need* an autopilot.
I woke up. And the very, very first thing that I realized this year was that I never, ever wanted to sleep through it all again.
dead end: no access
usually, the shots are louder from my window. and today, I suppose that they were - one, two, three. typically there's the screech of rubber tires, one in awhile followed by glass shattering or shouts, by this time there was nothing but silence. no lights. no sirens. no whine of the cops (not that that's abnormal; fuck 20 on this block,) or EMS to follow after.
but then, something was different, today. because this was midday. not evening, no - right in the middle of the sunlight. I heard the neighbors talking when I took my walk to see the trees. I stopped to give a quick hello to a puppy, then say hi to the kids who bike up and down the dead-end street of the apartment complex.
"hey, hey! you hear? cops killed 'em!"
"What's that?"
"Shh!" (That's his sister.)
"Hey you guys go play, lemme talk to your Mama."
They say he was armed.
"You know he did not come out shooting."
"'Armed' my ass."
"Please, you hear how these gangs be poppin' off some nights. And they try and get the kids doing favors for them so young, too, now."
That's nothing new, isn't that how it's always been? Most of my students were being recruited by their own siblings and cousins for errands.
"Not the ones in this city. Ain't always been this bad, here."
"I'm just sayin', you don't know he wasn't going for it."
"Since when are you defending cops? Come on, girl, wake the hell up. Get your head outta the sand."
Everyone has a camera in their pocket nowadays. Bet you anything it's on video. If they were provoked at all, much less that much, I'd be shocked. Cause in the town where I grew up, cops shot the suicidal *white* kids at a rate of one per 36 months.
"See? She knows it."
"Alright, alright, I get it. You don't like it."
"They better bring in investigators. That's all I'm saying."
The kids' mom levels her sister with a furious look as I turn away. "You know damn well that man did nothing."
I don't bother staying for the rest of the conversation. I trudge back over to the kids, give them each a fist bump, and continue my way to the corner of the basketball court, where I sit against the outside of the fence in the shade. I can see the road, from here. Sure enough, there's no one driving on it. the traffic lights are stopped, flashing red. they've closed off the block. yellow tape. I can just catch the taillights, turned off, of three cruisers and a single fire engine. I slip my headphones on, look around my phone for a bit, searching for the playlist I need. then I close my eyes & let the voices wash over me, furious that music written in the 90s is still relevant, overwhelmed about how it is that it could have been written today, about this event exactly, and you wouldn't know the damn difference. because thirty-five years, forty years, a HUNDRED, even, has changed fucking nothing.
and at the end of the day, push or fall, shoot or pull... bullet casings, bodies, and tears alike all hit the ground just the same.
words so rarely fail me
in fact, they do the opposite
they take over my being
they will not let me be
leave me to linger in my body
in the silence of the moment
but the cadence of your breath
begs not for more speech from my lips
and so after you have waited out the
nervous rambles from my mouth
after anxious sentences their tumbling complete
there remains nothing between us
both but silence
you breath and mine, in rhythm
on the phone a thousand miles
across the ocean, and I finally realize
that i am fine with this quiet.
i think maybe we balance one another.
And more so I think, I wish, that
I could sit with you in silence
a bit closer than waves allow
but either way I don't think
I have ever been happy
existing in quiet with someone around
relaxing, even, content to just be.
until now, that is. until you came through.
and your patience allowed you
to see more than just who
the world gets to know.
and isn't that something? isn't that neat.
un-fucking-hinged
now listen here you asshole,
I know most my poems are trash,
okay? I know they're down the drain,
but man, you don't get to complain!
Cause here's the thing, dude
You pretentious, dickish, moody,
wanna-be, you can try to keep gatekeeping
but my lines weren't writ for you.
they're for the RACCOONS in my brain!!
(Huh?)
Yeah, you heard that right.
those little mother-fuckers
keep me up all damn night
banging on the metal lids,
DEMANDING to be fed
dubious delicacy of choice,
so this person must deliver
verse in kind (topped with a voice
that sometimes stinks of rotten thoughts).
Guess what though, "Robert Frost"?
(Since the public missed the cry,
let me help you out, here - THERE IS NO ROAD LESS TRAVELED BY!
The poem's about indecision:
a man who wasted all his time!)
Anyway. Where was I now? Oh right -
you can try just as you might to be a Great,
but I've gotten just a feeling
others here are in accord,
and not to mention their own -
- hold on, what was that? A sound? A moan?
Tapping comes, a tinging groan of metal, or a chitter,
coming from the window-panes, look!
Is that a paw? No, see, it's got claws.
Goodness, me, and fingers, too -
The trash-pandas! They've come for you!
Run! Save your soul! (...Or don't. *You* are not my problem, Tybalt.)
wouldve settled for each other - don’t forget, my former lover.
please forgive the indiscretion
of my begging for forgiveness
relentlessly repeating words
till "sorry" loses meaning,
the redundancy reminds me
that i'm further from that place
and i'm in a better space now,
safer with survivor's grace
habits learned and accolades
they just earned me back my name,
go on, tell me what the game is
who's the players, what's the stake in?
time keeps racing, past is fading,
won't outgrow old habits making
newer money, course it's greener
driving further down the highway
of my demons' newfound humor.
Can you tell me, will you leave me,
if I stop apologizing? If my words roll out
From others' mouths 'cause
I cannot deny it,
they have broke me, I owe nothing
to the future you revoke, we
never had a better chance to seek
out something else less broken.
(you and I deserve both better chances -
finding things less broken.)
space / place theory
forgive me father,
for i have sinned
i chased my future past the exit
exited before the wind
picked up my determined legs;
funny how it works that way.
you spend your life trying to pray
for ways to cut the tethers free
release the bonds! i couldn't scream
i once remember seeing someone
look at me all funny when i
laughed and laid my body down
and spread my limbs
felt the ground
fingers spread in lush, soft grass -
but father, i remember that
i met the stares and asked them
why they felt embarrassed
stars above and dirt below
i won't remember where to go
or where i've been, where i come
and in the end, where else was 'home'
except for being all alone and
lying here and begging of your
ghost to be forgiven, and for what i'll
never know, cause it's you who
should be begging
when the salt takes on the soil.
~~
i've spent too long not crying,
choking on these tears,
so don't tell me not to feel them,
it's this sin for which i fear
i must confess to windless past
that i escaped, you dirty bastard -
not meant to? too much to show from
headlights up ahead, lead the way to
my revenge. my revenge? no, not
really such a term, it's more a sense
of peace, a finality of knowing
that i tracked it down, you know,
the way you said i never could.
i pinned down my own future
and i told you, it would be there,
my future won't just up and vanish
when i turn or look away. i
can live authentically, no more
ideas of what it ought to be,
and that future is mine, now,
it belongs to me, and i'm the only
person who decides upon it for me.
forward
"What's it like? Skydiving, that is."
To be completely honest? It's thrilling.
Are you a rollercoaster person? If not, you'll hate it. If you are, you'll probably enjoy it. To me, it was incredible. I started laughing (nay, giggling,) like a madman when we got up to about 10,000 feet, and we were jumping from 14,500. The regulars, the people who skydive on the daily, several times a day, were getting an absolute kick out of me in my adrenaline high. I swore in that moment that I could've done it for the rest of my life. I looked at them and I understood exactly why they did it. I wanted to quit everything. I wanted to drop out of school. I wanted to leave it all behind on a whim and make *this* my life.
The first 30 seconds were fast, a rush. The wind nearly hurts. But then you pull the chute. And everything... Stops. The world is dead silent. You? You're not just floating. You're... suspended. A dandelion seed, making your way down but in no rush to meet the ground. A creature of the planet, sure, existing between heaven and earth. Between land and the thin, thin layer that protects us from the cold vacuum of space, of *nothing*, and of everything, beyond.
Do you remember those rugs with the roads on them, from when we were kids? The ones with the towns, the aerial view: mountains, roofs, tiny cars and schools, and dirt baseball fields where dust plumes up from the clay of a slide into home on a double play out; soccer pitches where a 4 year old just lost for the first time, but will soon be cheered by orange slices and capri sun, and a Senior who just scored their last goal on Varsity; yellow lines on faded black asphalt, heat waves invisibly rushing from the surface, with glittering blue jewels of waves peaking in the distance, but the water's not moving the way it does up close, it's all still; and there are no birds, no clouds, because it's cloudless, today, and the birds are too far below to even see; and the sun! God, the sun. You can't even *look* at it but you know it's there, cause you can *feel* it, more than you've ever felt it before, burning, blazing, seeking out your skin through the layers of the shirt and the parachute pants and the tops of your boots, even, the grips of your knuckles not even tightened but slack on the ropes because suddenly looking down, you're laughing again, and it hits you - nothing below you looks ***real***. It's all... small.
Everything. Everything you've ever known, seen, been, it's fucking **tiny**. The cars barely squeak along, even at 70 miles an hour, they look like the same matchboxes and hot wheels you once played with, that sit on your desk, now. Drive them carefully along the road - you used to have the power, you'd collide them in a racket, tossed out over the hills that lay out over the world like a blanket. Fuzzy, soft. Just like the rug. It's fake. There's no way that it's real.
You're not sure why it makes you laugh. Maybe it's because this thought, the hidden knowledge that it holds, is a relief. Maybe if the whole world could see it, if they knew, too, they wouldn't worry so much about things that didn't matter, and they would simply just *be*, to care for what they had, together.
And you drift down and you don't even want to blink, you barely even want to *breathe* over the next 12 minutes, because you refuse to miss a second of it, only closing your eyes to inhale that scent of fresh air, cleaner than you've ever smelled before (your lungs for once barely protesting). This smile will stay forever.
When you hit the ground, and stick the landing with a jog, and when your head drops, and your fists go up in victory, you'll be the only one who knows that it's not overcoming fear that you are celebrating. No, that's not it. Your arms are up, fists clenching, shoulders tensed and outstretched nearly out of their sockets, because even while your eyes greet the Earth again, your hands, and your brain, are going to do everything they can, instinctively, impulsively, to reach and claw their way back up into the sky. And after you do greet the earth, acknowledge it, that head goes back, again, chin tipped up towards the atmosphere, the endless empty space from which you've just fallen, leapt, floated - and you'll whisper, tears in your eyes, "Thanks. Let's do it again, some time," before you blow out a shaky, controlled breath of one who knows they won't be returning. Because that moment is one that you wish you could live inside of infinitely. But to return would be to feed this newfound addiction, this release of reality and life. And that, of course, is something only plausible and better left for dreamers with their
heads in the clouds.