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)

My digestion is loud

i'm sorry i'm processing
i process hard
even from before i was old
my digestion is loud



by Missy

Please give me more

i walk around my workplace with my
balls out, hanging right there in front of me
striding in the corridors

colleagues want to come up and punch them
and do, square knuckled, and i say oh baby
please give me more

Think or die

anxious wanting to be born
you will exact screaming pain
on the dark nourishing walls of

free delight, a loose balloon
of spending new innocence and
gathering admiration, rancor

tamp you down, like a rodeo
now they let you have your own
screams until you think or die.



Missy, 13th Birthday

Workspace

I burned these hairs on the stove
I remember reaching over the flame
Now the brittle curls slough off
And drift throughout my workspace



by Phyllis

people can vary

some have heads others
skulls others noggins
others headless others

some eat, shit others
shit, eat others don't
eat yet strangely shit

people can be or be
becoming to be or
already have been

some can vary on
what they did others
didn't or might have

others seek to vary
others resist change
sitting beside another

Decommissioned smoke eater

Two darkened flood bulbs, in their mod white sockets
refuse to acknowledge me, even while I sleep below
in a space where there was a bar. Their nose: a decom-
missioned smoke eater. I consider adjusting the cones
for morning receptions closer to resembling empathy.



frag. "Fresh from The Nest"
by Hoolie

I Had to Hit Bottom

He was standing there with his hair a mess picking his nose, wearing nothing but a filthy white t-shirt on what he'd scrawled "BOTTOM" with a grease pen, so I had to smack him hard across the face.



CHAMATILLY

Your Own Death-Squad Vehicle

THE RAP:

They pop up around now in right-wing governments;
seems early, but it's not. I am the vehicle of my own
jacked-up F-150 death squad.

You say they're attacking us from foreign loams and soils;
I say I don't need no stinking foreigner to attack myself.
Goddammit I'll self-annihilate.

Most of all, if you are willing to answer in the affirmative,
I would like to take you along to a place that matters less:
The highest victory ever seen.

CHORUS:
Hey there, Nifty! If you're feeling broken down, there's a
Cure that you'll be needing, and I just arrived in town.
I'm a tool, I'm a tool, I'm a tool, I'm you're tool!
I'm a tool in my F-150.

Survivor of The Self

I'm a survivor of the self, that's
the me that isn't well, see,
I birthed myself as well, so
I had to marry me, just
the person that I well, not
the person of my-- I'm just
a dream that got a swell, and
it threw me in a well, me,
I mean myself, could tell that
I couldn't be my friend; we
decided on a duel (we
were just that kind of fool), so
we're always looking back, else
I'd pay me not to whack-- I--
should dial it down a notch, but
I'm looking at my watch. In
any way or any time, when
it comes, my lucky day, I
will get up off my ass, and
make that bastard pay.



by LA CHAMA

You want to become but not to be

You want to become but not to be
old
you begin curling into permanent prayer
no one's even asked you for the key
so it's peaceful there

Finding: No Equal Agency Among Persons

Not even to affect change upon their own immediate environments.
There are no slippery slopes, but some are steppy.
You can see the steps, and they're going down. You're on them.
It's not an escalator, but it's also not your dream, bitch.

No Chance Not to Love You

You give me no chance
Not to love you dear
I lose my resistance

Your shift at the grind
is the only time
I have my peace of mind

But then you return
Back in my arms, you're
A victory unearned

CHORUS:

No chance! Not to love you I'm so
Helpless! All that I can do is
Love, love...love, love... [bells]

REPRISE:

No chance! not to love you darling,
No chance! not to love... [repeat]





by Missy
Shiv at First Grafting