Spelling Bee

9-22-24

But the point is nod this

It nevr was

Wen literture widters into

A shel of

Sintaks spelling sillabels

All we hav wud be

A shadow a silluett

In which we can only gess

What was the ful body

That wasn’t skined aliv

Sold as vaniddy, an intelectual fasion fad

But most importanly had speach

And was free

The Female beauty standard is a square

9-6-24

Fine

I’ll be pretty

I’ll sit my ass down and

I’ll smile so hard my lips slice open my skull

I’ll tie my legs together so they’re still

I’ll open my eyes and listen

I’ll open my ears and watch

I’ll shut up and shut down

Shut left, shut right

Until I’ve smoothed myself down to a square

I hope you’re happy

I hope you’re happy I fit here

I hope you’re happy I’m pretty now

I Had Never Not Been Punch Drunk

9-10-24

My heart is a shotglass

Filled to the brim

With anger or impulse or something in between

Actually, no

I’ve never been in between

I had never not been punch drunk

Punched a hole in the classroom

Told I was adversely drunk on hypnotic daydreaming

“Ah, so you were retarded? Why didn’t you tell me already.”

I fell in punch drunk love at 14 and a half

I was punch drunk vomiting because

The world turned a disgusting shade of sober

And “The only thing that filled my addiction was you”

I had never been punch drunk

But I fall in love in punch drunk love

And I punch in punch drunk anger

So I punch myself in punch drunk self-hate

My punch drunk nose starts bleeding

And I, a punch drunk, start to punch drunk laugh

My Mother-Tongue is Imprisoning Me

9-19-24

Sorry mai engrish is bed

I wazzen’ bohn ina engrish speeking cuntree

I come he-uh to be a myujjician. Luh-ning engrish is similah to muzzik

Yuu kip repitting somccing dhet pheels akwahd and unnehtyurral until ada certahn poin’ it come alive

Bud dheres one dding diffuhrunt. You see, id doezn’ mat-tuh waht inztruh-munt yuu lern ferst in muzzik

Iph yuu pla-ee gee-tah likge a chellyst, an’ yuu pla-ee baicce likge a gee-tah-list, id doezn’ mat-tuh cuzz you’be steel gaht zhat ahat in yuu

Bud in engrish idz diffuhrunt. Ib’fe yuu can tell waht inst-ruh-muhnt I lern’ to pla-ee fuhst, I’m do-eening id’ rrong

I sink idz berry sed

— “I’m sorry sweetie, can you please repeat that? I couldn’t hear through the accent.”

Cookie Cutter Father

10-2-24

Stop tiptoeing honey

You don’t want the other kids to hate you

- Don’t you?

Stop making sounds

You don’t want them to think you’re retarded

- Don’t you?

- Because I did,

I want you to walk honey,

I want you to talk honey,

I want you to be safe,

That's all honey—

Your sweetness is all gone

And all you’ve got now

The cold metallic twang of

Saccharin and sugar free

- To be broken all over again?

- To be safe, that is all?

All you want right

They cut off all our soul

You know we weren’t cut out for this

Yet I still do this, just to get his—

- Their approval

The soles of your feet are bruised

- And I see so are yours

Sisyphus to sisyphus

10-20-24

You cried for me the day I left our city

Your tears fell down my chest and through my bones

It pierced through my ribs and made me breathe


It felt like tiny balls of dynamite

Burning through my chest, hot and lively

I was blissfully dead before you


Like a newborn baby breathing

Your tears opened my airways

I was reborn as a being of pain and reality


- What can I do?

Nothing.

- What is this for?

Nothing.

- Why do we love?

For nothing.


You spoke in destruction

The more you spoke

The world was naked

Dynamited of the walls of meaning

And finally raw, empty, and embarrassing

Just boom, boom, boom


So we learned we were doomed

Yet we gripped harder

Death gripping to each other

Sisyphus to sisyphus

Waiting for the next boulder to crush us down


I thought you were real

How dare you

I thought you had meaning

How dare the world

I thought you were like me

How, how, how, how come

Because it is

It just is

Is - Sis - Si - Phus

We were not Sisyphus

We were both Sisyphus

We were both the boulder

We fell down, tumbling onto each other

Happening, happening, happening

Just an event, an experience, and not an existence

But so is everyone

And so are we.

O! the useless and passionate

10-2-24

Be good at writing

But not too good

Because if you’re too good

Your fingers will take over you

Like two large uncontrollable wings

It’d fly you away


Be good at painting

But not too good

Because if you’re too good

You’d drink the paint

You’d think you are the art;


And art isn’t meant to be happy

It's supposed to make you feel

I don’t want you to feel happy

I just don’t want you to feel

Because I’ve tried

Breast cancer: a daughter for flightless mothers

10-24-24

When you fell ill I was fifteen

I looked at your photos

Of when you were fifteen

You were a artist - a renegade

And I was one too, you were afraid


You looked like a canary-

So light yet heavy-

Eyed, intelligent and not-

Heart heavy, heart was bright-

Fluttering, galvanised and electric-


And that's when I knew


I took you out with you

When I was taken out of you

I was born a tumour inside you

And I took out parts of you


Then I hid under your breast

Deep imbedded in your chest

I crawled up beside your heart

Made me part of you


I have known for so long

This wasn’t your song

And that I was the knife;

That cut of your flight

But with that same knife-

I will now sing what you sung


For I have made you a wife

And have stolen your vice

I shall pay with my life

And I shall pay with my blood

I shall pay with my life

And I shall pay with my blood

On stupid

10-24-24

Oh how much I wished I was you

For I have been omitted since birth on being diligent

For I have committed a crime of being incomprehensible-

I wished you came to me

Caressed me and told me

“You are retarded

Hey, but at least it's not morally wrong?”

Because right now

My cognitive state is a crime to god and capitalism

My contradiction is my vice and my vice a cataclysm-

To education.

Dear education,

For the love of god education,

Please listen to me

Because I am not the only-

Girl that cries every night wishing she had a defect

Rather than a gift that makes no sense

And you should know from that point

That you have messed up severely

On how you make kids shine;

You sand down rocks smooth; diamonds too

Tidy up, cut crystal; diamonds too

And every time we had a bump or a spot with too much

You’d cut us down, or discard us if we failed to.

And you’d see the scattered light off my eyes;

The sin of being contradictory-

The sin of having a asymmetric intellect-

You’d see instead.

And I’d wish I had no light at all.

Every time I got the hard ones right and easy ones wrong

I would cut down and discard a part of myself

And at sixteen even while pumped up with adderall and sit-still

I still feel I’d rather be dumb and shiny

So stupid was the aspiring name I gave myself

Because I’d rather have a defect than a gift that makes no sense.

Patients (impatient)

10-27-24

The wide eyed people

Of great minds

Are trying to fix us

We cannot walk

No contribution to them


And we yell

“My leg hurts!

I cannot walk!”

And they’d say


“See from what I see

I see that it is unable to walk

I see that it must be an issue of the spine?”


We yell back

“No! Our legs hurt!

We cannot walk because of our legs!

Please fix our legs, our bright people!”


And the people

Bright eyed and blind

Would keep on talking

Floating above us


They cannot hear us -

Our mouths are theirs

And their eyes are all our voices.