MYSELF AS US YOU I
polyphonous first person plural second person singular first person singular
good girl better girl the platonic ideal of a good girl eye patch girl normal girl
normaaaaaaallllllll giiiiirrrllllll art monster shorn squirrel in a drainpipe googly
eyes pigtails dysfunctional swallowing mechanism iron
seems sometimes we are medieval saints sent to teach lessons after death
linear chronology not our fate but even saints wished we were loved simply
even in the moment of dying one of our horrible saintly deaths of beheading
public burning or amputation of the breasts even then we let loose at least
one sigh
love is the simplest way to make meaning but if you do not have it or not
enough of it not enough of your head on a safe shoulder what then in some
other place and time you would have been an oracle sitting in your cave and
divining fates for all the coherent people who respected your discontinuity
you would have a place separate but together a use not this despair
in knowing you are different but nobody will tell you the truth this is a different
time and place
we are still alive the coherent people love reminding us we could one day
learn coherence gain narrative arc in their mouths they call this hope but
coherent people don’t know shit their lives only dotted with potholes they can
nod at the world we can’t stomach denial we sigh about the truths we know
understanding understanding have we surrendered understanding? again the
aliveness the continuing continuance the trying the trial a future where
rejection is weightless
but we carry all these girl bodies patterns feel like death we are cautionary
tales warnings for the young acquire coherence aberrance will be bred out of
the coherent future
OH DIFFERENCE, OH BUMMER
oh difference which never discovers sanctuary and in failing, walks into the weirds. I did want a
narrative conclusion, but I did not believe reality could be shaped. I knew random cruelty
blossomed in the bodies of 11 year old girls, and two decades forward I see they knew my
future.
oh, I was a bummer in a pubescent body! Informing sex-addled somas of collective prophetic
dooms. still the tongue rolls more tragedy than sex. No sacral portraits adorn my tech. Still the
choir speaks of love love love’s transformation of voids if only I surrender my body to the love
machine.
on the groaning metal twin bed/ he says ‘kissing isn’t cheating’/ the moment he dragged his
thumb down/ my bottom lip/ I saw/ sweet ruin/ loafing his way towards me/ despite my
parentage/ & protest/ when he overdrafted his bank account/ I bought him a banana and bus
fare/ looped my arm through his/ in front of the room-sized abstract canvas/ my molecules
undone and descended/ he stood solid
of course we’re abandoning the white picket fence due to principals or precarity but time
passes my eggs die and if I could wield luck I’d have liked to parent. I try to prepare for grief
and am instead drafted into the Great myth of American Dreaming. I am deemed not ugly
enough for pity. Life has been mean, like an 11 year old girl.
during my short era of beauty/ I sit in the passenger seat of another, attached man/ 22 &
mini-skirted/ directionless minimum-wage july heat/ I strike down pins/ drop heavy glass/ he
drives me to/ a hand-written calendar/ framed photos/ her easel/ an ecosystem / I invade
Regina Napolitano is a poet and teacher from Oakland, CA. She is currently an M.F.A. candidate in poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her work has appeared in Hot Pink Magazine, Noir Sauna, and her graduate student union's bi-annual newsletter.