#out of my collection
Humiliate translated: 丢脸, to lose face. Once, I lost myself
& found an instrument of forgetting, let someone’s lover fashion from the ocean
of my solitude a shoreline for their sins to wash up on. Yes, I was an animal
crafting fables in the language of my body’s flood. It’s amazing what a little death
earns you. We imagine a funeral each time we peel back fresh need: wait for me,
it’s cold, I’m scared. Maybe the trade-off for resurrection is shame vast enough to kill
us & that becomes another execution to tongue our way out of. Look. Here are primal
& ungainly ways we tether ourselves to the earth.
—Natalie Wee, from “In Defence of My Roommate’s Dog,” Beast at Every Threshold
enough of can you see me, can you hear me, enough
I am human, enough I am alone and I am desperate,
enough of the animal saving me, enough of the high
water, enough sorrow, enough of the air and its ease,
I am asking you to touch me.
—Ada Limón, from “The End of Poetry,” The Hurting Kind
Have you looked
yourself in the mirror
and found the blessed halo
of a ring light in each iris?
Have you been content enough
being this content?
—Solmaz Sharif,from “Self-Care,” Customs: Poems
All day I feel some itchiness around
the collar, constriction of living. I write
the date at the top of a letter; though
no one has been writing the year lately,
I write the year, seems like a year you
should write, huge and round and awful.
—Ada Limón, from “Not the Saddest Thing in the World,” The Hurting Kind
I take the soil in
my clean fingers and to say
I weep is untrue, weep is too
musical a word. I heave
into the soil. You cannot die.
I just came to this life
again, alive in my silent way.
Last night I dreamt I could
only save one person by saying
their name and the exact
time and date. I choose you.
—Ada Limón, from “Invasive,” The Hurting Kind
but i only want to dedicate
a song to my jeva in peace,
without being asked for my gender licence,
or being told we are like flowers,
or we aren’t here.
—
pero sólo quiero dedicarle
una canción a mi jeva en paz,
sin que me pidan el carnet de género,
o me digan que somos como flores,
o no somos.
—Raquel Salas Rivera,from “flowers/flores,” x/ex/exis
A bed blooms attachment, the intimacy is
petalled smooth, soft folds. The heart
blooms like tears wept. The organic magic
of tendons wrapped around transitions.
It’s electricity spread through epidermis.
Love was a first-degree burn.
—Trevino L. Brings Plenty, from “PRN,” Ghost River
And so I have
two brains now. Two entirely different brains.
The one that always misses where I’m not,
and the one that is so relieved to finally be home.
—Ada Limón, from “Joint Custody,” The Hurting Kind
The great eye
of the world is both gaze
and gloss. To be swallowed
by being seen. A dream.
To be made whole
by being not a witness,
but witnessed.
—Ada Limón, from “Sanctuary,” The Hurting Kind
Chattering in eulogy
Which is a search for order
Which is nothing but
The elimination of beauty by artifice
By artifice we cauterize
My father’s drifting life
—Roger Reeves, from “Cocaine and Gold,” Best Barbarian
& death has a face
into which you pool fury
miniature tornado necessary violence
something to touch
instead of something
touching you
—Natalie Wee, from “Blood Triptych,” Beast at Every Threshold
who cares is fascism’s motto.
who cares if the minimum wage goes down in puerto rico.
who cares if all your people die slowly.
fascism is so not-new, that i don’t know the difference
between the rage i feel and the rage i felt.
—
qué importa es el lema del fascismo.
qué importa que en puerto rico bajen el salario mínimo.
qué importa que toda tu gente muera lentamente.
el fascismo es tan no-nuevo, que no conozco la diferencia
entre la rabia que siento y la rabia que sentí.
—Raquel Salas Rivera, from “i fight with my girlfriend because the fascists want me dead/peleo con mi novia porque los fascistas me quieren matar,” x/ex/exis
The mark of invisibility is often mistaken for the mark of absence;
All desire is shaped by the delusion of consent.
Who has not been an entryway shuddering in the wind
Of another’s want, a rose nailed to some dark longing and bled?
—Roger Reeves, from “Echo: From the Mountains,” Best Barbarian
i fight with my girlfriend because she forgets
my boricua friend’s name
and because i’m tired.
i self-medicate with poems.
i do rebirth rituals.
i fight with her because i love too much for these times,
because love is an elemental resource,
but never as elemental as self-defense,
which is the most love of all the loves.
—
le peleo a mi novia porque se olvida del nombre
de mi amiga boricua
y porque estoy cansada.
me automedico con poemas.
realizo rituales de renacimiento.
le peleo porque amo demasiado para estos tiempos,
porque el amor es un recurso elemental,
pero nunca más elemental que la defensa propia,
que es el amor más amor de todos los amores.
—Raquel Salas Rivera, from “i fight with my girlfriend because the fascists want me dead/peleo con mi novia porque los fascistas me quieren matar,” x/ex/exis
To write is to cradle myth
& memory both & emerge with the fact
of your flesh. I praise the first book
that touched me because it was beautiful,
because it was written by a stranger born looking
just a little like me & that made him beautiful, & in it
I find every person I’ve loved into godhood
tunnelling through the page & beyond the echo
of those precious trees allowing breath: their shadows
blurring into a wave, rich & urgent, to greet me.
—Natalie Wee, from “Self-Portrait as Pop Culture Reference,” Beast at Every Threshold
we will change our pronouns
& you will adjust
we will love whomever we choose
& you will adjust
we are not respectable
we are definitely bangable
the star spangled banner
has given us nothing but reasons
to wear Black year-round
which, we prefer anyhow
Black is our best color
we belong here, we are here
¬hing will deny us again
—Sean Avery Medlin, from “demiboy reprise,” 808s & Otherworlds
many theorists say trauma is time out of joint.
the audiotrack speed
doesn’t match the images.
my mouth also doesn’t say what my face wants;
the words come out too fast and hurtful,
as if it didn’t recognize her.
i think trauma is more like
they put the audiotrack on another series,
as if i spoke for her
and she spoke for the fascists.
it’s so obvious those aren’t her words
it’s so obvious, like saying
capitalism is the root of all our problems
or we can’t fight if we are dead.
—
muchos teóricos dicen que el trauma es vivir a destiempo.
la velocidad de la pista del sonido
no cuadra con las imágenes.
mi boca tampoco dice lo que quiere mi cara;
las palabras salen raudas e hirientes
como si no la reconociera.
creo que el trauma es más
como si le pusieran la pista a otra serie,
como si yo hablara por ella
y ella hablara por los fascistas.
es tan obvio que no son sus palabras,
es tan obvio, como decir
el capitalismo es la fuente de todos nuestros problemas,
o no podemos pelear si estamos muertas.
—Raquel Salas Rivera, from “i fight with my girlfriend because the fascists want me dead/peleo con mi novia porque los fascistas me quieren matar,” x/ex/exis
i fall into the void that is my body /
i am charcoal and cul-de-sacs and poetry
and hours creating mythologies
of myself / documents of then and now /
with no sources to foresee my future /
i leave the skin i shed in the corner /
change my pronouns /
and dance /
—Sean Avery Medlin, from “What It’s Like To Be A Suburban Black Demiboy,” 808s & Otherworlds
Like, I’ve decided,
is the cruelest word.
To step out of my door and hope to see
something like a life,
something passably me,
—Solmaz Sharif, from “Without Which,” Customs: Poems
