Prescribed burn

when i got back in touch with you
suddenly there was lots to do just
like the year before
a year that i spent and meant to
save myself for you in case we did
open up the door again

you conceded a fault or two
explained how you learned what
to do but you'd learned much
more, from another guy you'd
neglected to mention. To
find out tore me up again.

It made me think of the times
I took you for granted and some
other guys too, thought it would
be enough if i loved you, be
important, an advantage, a step
up, a welcome challenge.

But you taught me that I can cry too.
In the rain watching him kissing you.
I can't stand the pain feeling the way I do.
Can't you just tell him now while you can
that it's over and he'll understand?
That it's over and I mean more to you?

Now I'm sad because it's a nice day.
If not for him I'd be calling you and
We'd be walking in a forest preserve
right now. Because I'm usually not
the jealous one, I don't know how long
it will take to feel as though it's gone.



by Missy

My Body Is Like a Cowering Dog

symbol of impermanence

i have a tiny window to save my life

i have a tiny window to save my life
but i'm too fat to make it through alive
maybe i stand back and let another man
through, or just look out on humanity
you know this hole can relieve the strife
or be a reminder of how time can strike



Dr. Donna Thong

Boiling Water Slide

The way I'd put it since we last spoke has been a
giant slide, maybe bumpy, no straight down in
every way. A twisty, like a water slide. Some-
times frozen, that would be an ice slide, and
sometimes boiling. Actually mostly boiling, so
mostly like a boiling water slide, would have
to be stainless steel or porcelain-- yes, that's it:
ceramic boiling water slide with stainless sides.



by Ilyn
"Not long for Illinois."
(before I'm feeling better)

Even if no one believes me, I can still survive

So I'll call on you, and when it's your turn, you can just say your name, a goal, and an idea that came up in your group that either you agree with or that you recall for any reason.

Umm, let's start with you. Yes, you at the end please.

Ok I'm Jan, and my goal is to live alongside my experiences. I...

That's great Jan, welcome. Do...

I do have an idea but they didn't say it in my group.

Oh, well sure, you could give a new idea or-- no one said anything interesting that you recall?

[snickering]

No, no everyone was great, so interesting, really. Ha! No, well Reptily had a thought I liked.

Good. Tell us.

That after her rape, the only form of survival she will ever be able to even imagine is living to see that bastard's brains splattered all over a wall.

[rustling]

Wow. Can...

And she would like it to be one of the walls at the place where they shared most of their time together, their workplace. She mentioned maybe outside the gym next to the fountain under the name of the school the Cement...

[whispering]

College of Cement. It's just a wide open cinderblock wall like where you could have a firing squad.



from The Pastel Notebooks
Thong, Dr. Donna

For good i swear

Moved eight times in ten years and countin'
this time settling down for good i swear
there's been men involved who've shown in
deed misdeed and no deed who they are



by KARZANA HOWZIZ

Godhead and tail

We've removed the shiv bone
and it's the longest we've seen
on which his marbles were ab
le to roll all the way to the god
head and back along the cresc
ent groove and bow each endp
oint so disparate it's hard to ju
stify the relationship but we re
joice that the cruel and perpet
ual circle had not been reache
d yet genetically nor will it th
anks to his homosexual bent.


Ms. Dr. Donna Thong, LCSW

Do I belong in a women's prison?

If baby kangaroo like I suddenly bop
a guy shuffling now through faces
yes this one. And following up with
knee groin, slapping, pulling of ears
head smacking, breaking over of
crockery? Not that imaginary act but
rather a constant willingness to do it
and growing constantly the boiling
ends of trains of logic leading in fact
reasonably to reach what yes horror.
I am fully far too ready to sacrifice
ex-digest call in all favors and that
desperation of levers is harder punch.
Let my relentless cycles show you
the way up and out and a template
to lean your big dick up against.

My Neighborhood

Look. There are two gay guys with
no air conditioning.
They seem to have washed up here
over the layer of primitive bones
like all the other unlikely characters
in my neighborhood.
Have you ever seen 1000 squirrels
in a single block-sized park?
It can make you nauseous knowing
how many times more wild animals
there are than humans and dogs.
Like just this morning I woke up to
widespread activity beneath the floor
gnawing shoving or dragging warning
scampering knocking dropping shaking
I had dreamt I was instrumental in
the Kavanaugh affair I had to provide
a body double and woke up damp
with sweat. Because I am like a
spider who's crawled out of a drain
only to be washed back in. Here is
the convergence of two natural
creeks: both alternately low and
stinking and high scary toxic. No,
I'm not fucking bi-polar that would
be Nature proper. She destroys and
ressurects herself infinite times
in every moment but no I'm the
one who needs meds. It's not
nature though what blights me
mentally apart from maybe mold
but that grows against a situational
motivator that's between the natural
and an effective realm that's distinctly
naked-ape mind. That's what's
happening on my block, and that's
what I'd like to explore here today.

Bitch you don't understand

IN my heart i was like bitch, you don't understand.
You need to hand over the fucking money.

BUT i wasn't that way. i melted myself down into
a puddle of cortisol and courtesy.



by Reptily

Not my vehicle

Not that i claim no ownership
Not literally a car, officer
Not a maneuver, plan, role, or mode
No faster than an office chair
Now that the weekend is here
Neither comfort nor purpose
Not a hope in the world
Not my idea, not all about choices
Nobody steps away to be sober
No one will put out the fire
Nothing will matter until it's over



Phyllis (embedded)

I Am the Golden Centre

I am the golden centre I
do not produce do not
manage serve operate
participate in or consume
However, observe I do.
I see desperate attempts
to keep me alive though
the legends they are true
I do not will not ever die.



by Illyn
"Short by Illinois standards."

She Finally Admits that She's Silly

ME: Are you silly?
SILLY: Yes, I'm a silly.

Sleep Paralysis Tonight

Steps down, steps tumbling, steps that surround
As if a broken neck, sleep paralysis is merciless

Today I worked so hard but the slider doesn't move
I went making every right choice today all day lord

But I'm poor, pity pity-pity po po po poor lord.
Lay me wrapped in poverty; let me rest with nothing



by Donna

Episode at the Drive-Thru

They sensed how urgent the shake was
Two of the world's most beautiful women
Dressed in tight grimy plastic

It was the wrong moment before morning
Just as they were crossing in the vault
To exchange their cash-and-coin trays

A fried potato slowly flattens, rides up
on a tire and into a shadow below
the fender and down the front again

It doesn't matter; I didn't mean to scare you
coming in with the gate half down demanding
an answer while you hide behind the fryers

So many greasy laps around a gas station
with an instant food parlor attached to its side
squealing engine on the cement drive

It'll be okay if I get my order
It won't take me long to get back home
The rest of the night can go on



LA CHAMA

Electrodes

waking up at noon
keeps you always on the down slide

been 57 for
10 days now that's a rock and roller

mouth stuck open
in permanent surprise or ecstasy

hairs going wide
keep me hooked up like electrodes



Ted

Thunder. Is. Appropriate.

it's almost like i want someone to put me in my place
so convincingly that i will be able there to stay

or at least to the extent i've experienced recently
i didn't mind it that much-- just a hard pinch of relief

a giant of a man stood in my path and did his dance
of existence assertion fertility personal power

a sage of a woman let down her braids and they
were all of my wrongs sewn into a jacket of shame

it's weird when a sting is actually an improvement
over what, a chronic day-to-day of head banging

i could see horrors in the craw of their history
and relax in the fancy that they also cried for me

i feared the righteousness of their angry purpose
and it made me silent




by Phyllis (embedded)