down in me

It’s easy to get into boy’s poems. All you have to do is imagine you are there and there you are. When you are old and gay, this ability will come in handy. I think a lot about the things I like. I like Daniel Bailey so I interviewed him for Writers’ Bloc. I read THE DRUNK SONNETS he wrote full in a moment, which is weird because I don’t read as much poetry as write. A lot of it shits me. But not Dan. Some people just have puppy power bursting out of the drawing on their goddamn bellies. I’m sorry I’m not a more critical reader. By which I mean I’d like to point and say, look there, that’s where it is perfect. Instead I navigate with my fingertips. Poetry is salty piss and backwash and heart. So much heart.

I kept telling myself: you would be very correct. I kept telling myself, TONIGHT IS THE NIGHT THAT SHIT HAPPENS. Tonight is the night. I started singing Bella Notte badly. I kept telling myself: when I was alone, I looked away! when I was together … I was never together! Ha ha, I kept telling myself.

I kept telling myself: FOR ONCE THE WORLD WILL BE GOT!

My shoe smelt like dung. I had stepped on a pie. I kept telling myself: this is okay, it must start out shitty if it’s to get better. I kept telling myself: STOP TALKING TO YOURSELF, MYSELF! TURN YOUR POEMS INTO PROSE! TURN YOUR APPLES INTO ALBUMS! COLLECT ALL THE SWEETS OF THIS WORLD! HIRE INFANTS TO NURSE YOUR BOOBIES! FIRE YOUR BREAST MILK INTO THE SKY! SAY HELLO TO SAM AND DAN FOR ME! Stop carrying on like a birthday cake. Stop hoping.

The house that Tony Blair would buy has sixty-seven rooms and a copy of Hustler in each of seventy-two bathrooms. That’s all I know about that. Oh well, that and that the knockers are fat, wrought-iron twisted motherfuckers with a grin that says HALLELUJAH! You knock one of them fucks you’d best be ready to run: down the hill, through the trees and into the small cemetery in the old churchyard behind the church. You talk about Tony Blair’s bathrooms but that ain’t his house, he never did buy the house. The town is a small town and the house is an aberration and Tony - well I used to have a crush on Tony and on Bill. I like my men older, powerful, deceitful (obviously), with Napoleonic wives and big fat wrought-iron knockers on the doors of their would-be homes.

i am a girl that needs to be babied. you are a boy that needs to baby a girl that needs to be babied. likewise, i am a girl that needs to be disciplined (sometimes). you are a boy that, well you get the idea. what i mean by babying is possibly simple. what i mean by discipline is possibly not so. if you are the boy that needs etc., you will know innately what is meant by these terms. you will know, for example, that whether babying or discipline occurs the result is always sex. this does not mean that babying or discipline are an excuse for sex or to in any way justify sex. this does not mean that sex does not happen of its own accord because it does very much so often, one hopes. it simply means that b. and d. are intimate and therefore arousing. it will be of course, for you to decide the terms and even the follow through, if such is to occur. as a boy that needs etc., etc., you may well be in possession of a larger amount of willpower, physical power and self-discipline than a girl that needs etc., etc., and so there are several ways - pacifiers, if you will - to get a girl that needs etc., etc., to shut up, including but not limited to: a throbbing cock or a large plastic gag or a well-placed palm or a combination. As in everything, the punishment should fit the crime and your response as a boy that etc., must be tempered with love, and appropriate - not borne out of misplaced anger. which is why it is also important that you are a boy open wide, a thinker and an artist. that your fingertips can feel skin electrifying and know whether i’ve had too much, whether i’m breaking or i’m talking too much, when i myself don’t.

Gonna show you what you’re doing to us, Maria. Maria mewls like a rotten child and bucks. All slow flesh, all pliant oooh, discarded self. A tangle of limbs and bends and sleepy night rollover push back and rub. A slappy shake, a quiver, a quake. The urgency of one hundred and forty-seven sirens. What are you doing to us, Maria. A grip, a grasp. A grab, a squeeze, a dig, a bite. A bit, a bind. A bidden slap.

1.
I wade the water up to my waist. I’m shark bait. A plume of wispy pink wafts from behind me like a dissipating eel.

2.
I am standing in line at the altar. A trickle straddles the inside of my leg like a shy retiring child.

3.
There is a small coagulated mass spreading outwards in the middle of my white ceramic dinner plate: shiny, the color of chocolate syrup, the outline of a misshapen silver dollar pancake. I fork around in it dispassionately.

4.
My fingers come up slippery and smell oxygenated. The white cotton string peeks out like a thin, wine-stained tongue.

5.
Through the dirt I leave a dark, dank trail in my wake. The dry ground slurps.

6.
I turn to look behind me like the Coppertone girl. I’m being chased across the courtyard by red puddles like so many stepping stones.

I wrote some straight up non-fiction. It’s up on Reflective Dog. I’m kind of embarrassed about it. I don’t know. Like the thought of someone reading it makes me want to grab the ruffled hem of my sundress and bury my face in the fabric while inadvertently flashing everyone.

Here. Listen to a great old punky song instead:

I love this. I love you. Marry me. What have I got to say that’s of interest to you, future husband? The song swirls in our heads, you pull me closer, we sway, the wind rolls around us as our steps turn quicker, and in the distance? A distant cackle. Someone is drunk. Smack my bottom, grip my neck and flash your smile, I’m caught.

She sometimes likes things I don’t like. She smacks lips and mouths the word FUCK with a savory disposition. I smile. I have no quarrel with her tonight, but what’s this? A gobfull of fingers, plastic and metal, writhing between my teeth and tongue beg me taste.