I Hate Yall

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

Molly Fisk, Winter Sun

Louise Glück, Sunrise

Florence + The Machine, South London Forever

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Rumi, Bittersweet (trans. Fereydoun Kia and Deepak Chopra)

Eden Robinson, Writing Prompts for the Broken Hearted

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Pat Schneider, The Patience of Ordinary Things

Ocean Vuong, Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong

Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

Wendy Cope, The Orange

Salvador Plascencia, The People of Paper

Kedi (2016) dir. Ceyda Torun

AM I WORTH SAVING?

[ chapbook ]

Did you not shatter me,

Break me open and set free

The prisoners within me?

Did you not crush my walls,

To find my ghosts and demons?

Do you not want my pain?

Does the sight disgust you,

Or force that dam to break?

Good — I hope it hurts, too.

You pushed me to the ground,

Left me with bruises and scars;

A floor filled with vomit and broken glass,

You choke me until I don't hear a sound.

No matter how much I gave or did,

You would filled me with kicks and insults;

Everything that gave me happiness you forbid,

My screams and pain made your heart exult.

Didn't care about the baby or the people outside,

But after your hideous crime you ran away and hide;

Told the world I lied and was the ugly beast,

But of your abusive emails and chats, I have a feast.

Demanded for money and a good life,

While our child was connected to a machine;

You taunted me with your new brainwashed wife,

And I thought the Devil was the most obscene.

I had to be the provider while you played,

Covering bruises with makeup and lying for your sake;

Punches, slaps and mean words made me obeyed,

When gold bloomed, you wanted all from that cake.

Didn't care about the baby or the people outside,

But after your hideous crime you ran away and hide;

Told the world I lied and was the ugly beast,

But of your abusive emails and chats, I have a feast.

You told the world, the baby was nothing of you,

But he even likes your same shade of blue;

Now you want to give him your entire love,

Coincidentally when you have no money or home.

We built our world on our own,

Had to pass thru pain and even death;

Now you tell the world without him you are lone,

But I will never let you pollute him with your breath.

Didn't care about the baby or the people outside,

But after your hideous crime you ran away and hide;

Told the world I lied and was the ugly beast,

You acted again like one who actually loves

Someone does, or at least as much

As you've ever done. There was no doubting

No ever rising in volume shouting; no snapping

At innocuous questions, jittery jabbering--

Never had much patience for that,

Still sometimes simply tuning it out.

And with eyes squeezed tight I could make

Believe you were finally listening

More than selectively, keywords turning your

Attention back on me with the third degree

Twenty questions and "I don't know"

Not an acceptable answer to any. Funnily

After the dream we laughed like we used to--

Fleeting moment of shared levity breathtaking

For its brevity, bringing tears now at

The wrung-out memory and pale

Echo of a dream...it will never be.

Was it ever even really? You find new ways

To hurt me...fall to my knees keening

Bleeding at your feet while you look around

To see who may see, another barbed

But I can't go in with good faith

You say you were in a bad place

That it was a dark and cold time

That it's the reason your tongue was a whip

And your knuckles were white and red

"I was in a bad place. I didn't mean it

"I was in a bad place."

I was in a bad place too.

I was in a nest with a bird

A nest made from unclean sheets,

Hung to hide us from the beasts

The beasts that prowled about the exits

Their gutteral growls echoing off

Off-white walls, all stained with smokes

Smoke and drink that made beasts of men

Beasts that stood outside our door

Our nest as safe as I could make it

The bird shaking in my arms

Afraid of being eaten

"I was in a bad place"

Who else did you give that non-apology?

Were you in a bad place before your first wife left you?

Your second?

Your third?

Were you only cruel to them because of the darkness

The smoke and drink that made you a beast

Was it all the fault of a bad place?

Are there a hundred bad places

Or are you particularly good at stumbling into them?

Was the summer sun on the pasture too hot for you?

Was the cool water of the stream too deep for you?

Was the kindness and love you were given too cruel to you?

That's why you destroyed them, right?

The sun was too hot so you pulled up all the grass

And the water was too deep so polluted it

And there was too much love so you beat it into the ground until it bled

And bled and bled

And bled

So that blood could feed your plants

And grow your smoke

And craft your drink

So you could feel at home.

I want to hear you apologise to me

But I would go in bad faith.

Because I don't want you to say sorry for the place

I don't care about the place.

I don't want you to apologise for ripping out the roots of the trees

The trees were dead anyway.

I want you to apologise for what you did.

What you've done over and over

And never said sorry for.

I want you to be sorry,

But you never are.

"I was in a bad place"

No.