Posts for June 11, 2019 (page 5)

mutual exclusivity
is a dangerous thing

it’s easy to be sorry 
for playing it safe

if you don’t try,
you cannot fail

take the leap;
you don’t deserve regret

Are you okay?

Well, that’s okay.

Because I don’t need you to be okay.

i know i have more
buried beneath the surface
when i write
they drown me
as they come flooding back
when i move back into reality
i come back shaking
i think that when
i have my first kiss
i’m going to cry
while their lips are pressed against mine
i know
i’ve lost my mind
but
am i out of control?

God help me.

 It’s only after I got it home
and plugged it in
I realized my new lamp
reminds me of my mother.
Upright and proper
as a pilgrim.  It would fit
well in a funeral parlor.
A ceramic disc of black and white,
it looks ready to salute,
march off for Monday
morning drills,
click its heels.

You looked at me
the way a glassy lake
considers a funnel cloud
and I knew then
that all the ghosts
I thought I’d shed
were still there
and that I 
had become
the haunted house

If you’ve read more than two self-help books

If you know what all these letters and symbols mean: LGBTQIA+

If you’re an old man who thinks his opinion is worth anything

Refer to the title

footnote:  Those of us who have been abducted by aliens sadly find no room, no letter, no succor in the sexual segregation alphabet club.  Where is the symbol, where is the community, where is the support for we hexsexuals?
Bigots!

I’m at the shore of the burning lake,
Lapping up flames like a thirsty mutt.
Knees, toes and palms in black sand,
Never better.
Forever watching spiders,
Build bridges from fingertips to knuckles.
A beast of burden, hardheaded but headed home;
Wishy-washy where fairweather wings beat and feathers flock together,
Never better.

The gods must be angry again
stomping with Godzilla steps
through formerly-ordered lives  

spinning hurricanes of insult
tumbling landslides of indignation
eclipsing the sun of reason  

inspiring peaceable people
to load muskets and muster armies
to fight what can’t be seen  

on the ocean floor
of my african american voice
the conch shell is mascot / is king & queen.

we are a sideshow inside a broken world’s
handbasket / but the myth you call a mermaid,
is an ancestor / to me: trans-atlantis.

granmama was a sea-cow / sans serif.

i never learned to swim
i just taught myself to sink.

We never needed
her or anyone
to do the job
of temptation

for us—it was
always there:
The emptiness
of spirit

sewn into being,
the body, a phantasm,
a serpent
of longing

for that never
existed.  Let’s call
a fruit a fruit
and admit

this is why
Adam’s Apple
is perpetually

lodged
in the throat.