poetry4lovers

THE WHITE CUT OUT OF THE CAMERA WHERE A HEART SHOULD BE sby, jan 2025

I’ll admit when I said I’m not cut out for love I thought it a ward for the fact. I don’t feel feathers like other people, I’m not made like you. 

When I think about love I can’t help but bookmark the end of it, the inevitable reason that I am doll and you are person. My pieces came factory made in the image of anyone else, but without the clean middle bits. 

MAYBE i do fucking deserve to have a publicly broadcasted CNN mental breakdown • i mean a total fucking classic traditional meltdown on national television • call MSNBC call fox news i dont care someone get me on the air i want all of america to see me rip out all my hair and open my rib cage bone by bone the cartilage coming apart easily and • let the black shriveled up heart in my chest pathetically flop out like a tired sigh under my breath that i wouldnt elaborate on if i was even prompted to and  my lungs will pop from my fucking screaming and  my throat will be red and raw and bloody and • they'll recap it on NPR the next morning for all five people that still listen to AM radio on their commute and the BBC and the international circuit will have a field day with the clips. 

“american girl possessed on live prime time last night! great ratings honestly!”

and     it wont even matter who i am or what i feel because i’ll be american girl possessed on prime time 10/9 central ben shapiro or joe rogan or some other dipshit will make a point about the libs or something on their podcast and they'll make a tiktok audio that trends for three days from my dying breath and people will hit not interested and maybe it won't really do shit to change the algorithm feeding feeding feeding • and • they'll paint me over with a millenial gray paint they got from the home depot or lowe's.

ill be in the damn morgue so who even cares really because im dead so what do i have a say in it all and all that will be left of me are the people who i wasn't brave enough talk to because its my problem that i have problems apparently and  

they'll know all about the quote unquote real version of american girl from the nightly news and • what will be left of me is the she was so young and tears and whatnot not to put too fine a point on it but i won't even have the terrible terrible burden of wanting to know what they have to say anymore. 

ONLY BEFORE IT RAINS

(after michael gray)

can I finally tell

what my body is saying to me;

why did you take the elevator again?

O pray tell what

does the weather app say about it

now? …Rain by any means.

I lick my envelopes but don't know who to

address them to. I hope this letter can find

you. What was it like to be loved? I wouldn’t know, O God,

but I can tell you about the leak in

my building's roof and how your

suitcase was left in the stairwell / with one sock

Mistaking smallness for ease

...when I grow up, I want to be endless stars, reaching into infinity... mirrors refracting in on themselves... endless labyrinth of narcissistic supernovas...

I think, sometimes, I already have

that labyrinthine quality to my step.

O, treasure the misaligned patella of things,

and its gait, that ruinous gait, like

the sun nooning, the shifting mirages, where (

I am five or seven or even nine, but likely seven

) the room is getting crowded with oases

I will avoid anyhow.

Any one of these an outstretched hand,

Page 1 (text): I am an amalgamation of every me that has ever existed, stretching into the infinite and unknowable expanse; to throw out any piece of that past that hates and loves me would be to disrespect my

Page 2 (text): forbears, the fruits of their labor, their soft, weekend hands, their tears, their silence, their horrible, all-encompassing sentimentality. The piece of my heart responsible for the regurgitation of both blood and memory overflows with the joy of a drowning moth, flying to the pool light. To die, to clean, to keep all my memories

Page 3 (text): in the ribcage I call my closet, like a somewhat functioning card catalog of life. A thin layer of dust like a veneer of sacredness... What use is a beautiful museum of past lives— a series of statues standing tall in a decadent colosseum, spiraling down, out of view, to an original

Page 4&5 (image): A floor plan of my childhood bedroom. Marked is my bed, side table, closet, dresser, bookshelf, windows and light switches. Most of the room is empty space. Titled, fig. 1. my childhood bedroom.

Page 6 (text): that has been distorted and forgotten— what use to those who did not live them? I could talk about the Ship of Theseus, but I'm not quite sure it applies here. My legs and arms and eyes are still largely the same, each part different cells, still whole. My body

Page 7 (text): does not get rid of the memory, cannot get rid of the memory. It etches itself into every inch of my skin, deeper than vein and muscle, into the bone marrow. What use is that? (end text) The eye from the cover is drawn as a small, inline symbol at the end of the text. The rest of the page is blank space.

Page 8 (image): Titled, fig. 2. what is left. A diagram with the text all in different positions of what is left of my childhood bedroom, marking stairs, floor 1 and 2, my parents' bedroom, and the foyer.

[Text: Everything Leaves a Hole

It still feels like a summer and there's something about the smell

that turns me apprehensive. I love summer like I love,

whole in my heart. Sunscreen-smell like an old blanket,

smells like good. And I walk through through the trees and it

smells good. Smells like good green, like trees, and it leaves a

hole in my heart.

I put my hand in there to fiddle with the pieces

rattling & rolling around; I try to mend some of that.

Pulling strings like weaving. But the attention turns it into a mouth

and it bites - it bites my hand! - and I bleed.

It draws blood and it swallows the blood

which is OK because that is where blood even goes.

I grow around my heart while it

[Text: On Being Endangered: An Afterthought Realizing that a species is imperiled has broad connotations, given that it tells us something about the plight of nature itself. It reminds us of the need to implement conservation measures and to protect the region of which the species is a part. But aside from the broader picture, species have intrinsic worth and are deserving of preservation. Surely an oddity such as C. vicinella cannot simply be allowed to vanish. We should speak up on behalf of this little moth, not only because by so doing we would bolster conservation efforts now underway in Florida, but because we would be calling attention to the existence of a species that is so infinitely worth knowing. But is quaintness all that can be said on behalf of this moth? Does this insect not have hidden value beyond its overt appeal? Does not its silk and glue add, potentially, to its worth? Could these products not be unique in ways that could ultimately prove applicable?]