Tag: literature

Have I always been this way?

Each section is based on the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the day from January, 2023.

I. wardour street, adj. and n.

Back in ninth grade,
after our English class read Romeo & Juliet,
Dom kept speaking
in fake medieval diction.

She’d spend lunch telling me about
the latest episode of Riverdale 
with the occasional ‘ye’ and ’t’was,’
a smattering of ‘-eth’ suffixes.

II. Ideogenous, adj.

Dom used to write stories all the time.
During class, her laptop
would be open for ‘note-taking,’
but she would be deep into
her latest Reylo fanfiction.

III. collabo, v.

The first time Dom spoke to me,
she asked me to help with a piece she wanted to play
for the solo and ensemble contest.

She was taking a mute out of her trumpet;
I was putting the marimba part of “So What” in my folder.
The hollow sound of her emptying her spit valve

filled the time it took me to understand.
I never thought I was that good or noticeable.
I accepted the opportunity.

IV. amigurumi, n.

I have a squid on my desk,
small, purple, a tiny grin,
that Dom knit me
before she moved away.

I think about messaging her
every time I see it,
but get too afraid
to type anything.

V. groceteria, n.

The morning of the solo and ensemble contest,
Dom said we needed to stop at the Haggen
by my apartment complex to get
AriZona Arnold Palmers for good luck.

She walked across the store
like her life depended on it.
The cashier complimented our suits.
We chugged them in the high school parking lot.

VI. misogamous, adj.

Dom texted me
during winter break our sophomore year
upset her mom got engaged to her boyfriend.

She didn’t understand
how her mom could happily participate
in such patriarchal traditions.

VII. y’alls, pron.

When the judge announced
our performance of “Take Five”
won the small ensemble category,
the audience erupted.

VIII. roscidating, adj.

I sit at my computer,
doomscrolling,
alone.

Dom’s squid stares at me.
I need to talk to someone,
but what would I even say?

IX. red queen, n.

She always wanted to get better
at whatever she was fixated on.
She encouraged me to do the same.

She even showed me her earlier fanfiction, which was
so terrible she swore to never share it.
But she trusted me.

X. cabinet able, adj.

I used to eat lunch in the library.
Well, I’d sit in the library during lunch.
But Dom invited me to sit with her and her friends
after we started practicing for the contest.

It was like starting a series
halfway through the third season,
piecing together names and plots
everyone else already knows.

XI. ajangle, adj. and adv.

I remember the sound distinctly:
the chime my phone made
when Dom texted me 
to tell me her stepdad got relocated;
they’d have to move during spring break.

I remember the sound distinctly:
the chime my phone made
when I learned my best friend
was leaving in the middle
of our senior year.

My phone has been on silent since.

XII. coachy, adj.

Junior year, when my grandpa got sick,
Dom drove me from school to the hospital.
She refused my offer for gas money,
said it’s what friends do.

XIII. blankety, adj.

I don’t have another way to describe it.
When I was around her, I felt safe.

She understood me
in a way most people don’t.

XIV. galdem, n.

For me, it was hard feeling part of the group.
I always felt outside, apart.

When Dom invited me to her lunch table,
she made sure I was part of the conversation.

It’s because of her I was able to make the friends
I had, the memories I have. She made it so easy.

XV. satoshi, n.

Is this what distance does?
Does the past live behind rose-tinted glass?
Does she remember me this way:
emphases on my positives, whatever they are?

Or, does she remember how much she did for me,
how little I could return?
Does her mind filter me through the windows
of an abandoned home?

XVI. cyberslacking, n.

I don’t even know what I’m afraid of.
Sometimes, when a professor’s lecture is slow, 
I search Dom’s name on Instagram
to see what she’s been up to.

I don’t follow her, too afraid
of her seeing the notification
with my name, remembering how
I disappeared, then blocking me.

XVII. mindstyle, n.

Have I always been this way?
Has it always been the case that
the walls around me were
constructed by me?

Am I to blame for my own isolation?
How couldn’t I see it before?
Why can’t I
change it?

XVIII. barnstorm, v.

In the spring of freshman year,
our jazz band did several performances
at nearby memory care places.

Dom was so excited to be a traveling bard,
she memorized several sonnets and monologues
by Shakespeare to recite between songs.

XIX. bumble broth, n.

The week after she moved,
she texted me, asking how I’d been,
apologizing for not reaching out earlier
overwhelmed with travel and unpacking.

Words flooded me. Where
would I even start?
I couldn’t even find the words
for what I was feeling.

XX. cruyff turn, n.

For a while, I tried diversion:
ask about her day,
ask about her mom,
ask about Euphoria.

Much easier to read and listen to her
than find words of my own.

XXI. booze can, n.

I remember the first time
I felt the fractures grow.

It was a month after she moved. My dads
were at a school counselor conference.

I raided the liquor cabinet in hopes
it would loosen my lips, find my words.

The words that came were hurt,
full of confrontation, resentment.

XXII. dumbsizing, n.

She didn’t text me for several days.
I didn’t blame her.
It was never the same afterward.

Time between messages grew 
like moss
after a rainstorm.

XXIII. kitbash, v.

The way she’d play trumpet,
write her stories—
she’d draw connections
between unlike things, create
something I’d never seen before.

XXIV. durex, n.

We were inseparable once.
Each afternoon at one of our homes,
homework and horror movies,
walks through the parks

at our neighborhoods’ edges.
We’d share AirPods and secrets
before school, at lunch, at games
our boyfriends made us attend.

XXV. ramfeezled, adj.

I’m standing at the end
of the bread aisle staring
at the everything bagels,
her favorite breakfast.

I miss her so much.
What’s the worst that can happen?
I already have nothing.
I already am nothing.

XXVI. skyrgalliard, n.

There’s a beehive in my chest.
Words fill the windshield
on my way home.
I activate the wipers
to sift through them.

XXVII. shockle, n.

We did a morning hike at Franklin Falls
the last day of winter break senior year.

We packed two thermoses of hot chocolate,
drank them at the base of the frozen waterfall.

We talked about our families, the future,
decisions we would have to make.

XXVIII. chup, int. and adj.

My natural state is silent.
It’s easy to listen to other people talk.

It’s much more difficult to say something,
to be open and vulnerable to someone else.

XXIX. mopery, n.

On her last day, I couldn’t
drive home from school.

I sat in the parking lot
on the hood of my car.

She said she had to go,
had to finish packing.

I watched her drive away,
then sat and cried

until security came
to shoo me away.

XXX. send-forth, n.

I helped organize a party
to tell Dom goodbye.

We marathoned Star Wars movies,
ate bagels, drank Arnold Palmers.

It was the last time we were in the same room,
the last time we laughed together.

XXXI. navel-gazer, n.

Stare at the ceiling for an hour,
dig my phone out of my bag,

take a deep breath, 
open Instagram, find her profile,

hit follow, open a message,
type the first words that come to me,

hit send, enable sound,
throw my phone across the living room.

It dings.

breakfast with a bald eagle

downed spruce trunk
under green water
a steady current
rain drops on
their cloud’s reflection

on the riverbank
a bald eagle
beak-deep in a
pink salmon carcass
under its talon

thick fog in
the tree line
at the foot
of the mountain
slow as dawn

a call from
a nearby fir
the rhythm of
a playing card
between bicycle spokes

frantic brown wings
into the air
forsaken salmon flesh
on the shore
for the seagulls

Feminist Masculinity

After Feminism Is for Everybody, by bell hooks.

You are 32.
On your way to work, you listen to an audiobook
where bell hooks talks about
how difficult it is to teach boys feminism,
how feminist masculinity is often ignored
for simplified narratives of blame and finger pointing
rather than rebuilding society.

You are 27.
During an English department meeting, 
a colleague from another school remarks 
how good you are at
being the only man in the room.

You are 25.
On your daily walk around your neighborhood,
your dad calls.
He tells you about his family, the latest news about your cousin,
how nonsensical it is
her best friend to be a man.

You are 17.
You work in the kitchen of a restaurant.
You mostly interact with servers, 
most of whom are women.
It is taken as a truism:
women get better tips than men; you belong in the kitchen.

You are 12.
During your sixth-grade class’s sex ed. unit,
your teacher talks about
biological differences between boys and girls.
She singles you out for being a boy with long eyelashes,
a trait associated with girls.

You are seven.
Your mom is driving you home from daycare.
You ask her about her day.
She tells you about work you don’t understand,
coworkers that frustrate her.
You ask her if her coworkers are her friends.
She tells you men and women
just can’t be friends.

Can’t Find the Words

After Swing, by Kwame Alexander and Mary Rand Hess.

The nation's pulse
can be found in
Charles Mingus's fingers
walking on an upright bass.

There's so much I want to
say to you,
so much I can't
find words for.

Have you ever heard Coltrane
run up and down a scale,
then deconstruct every rule
you thought you knew?

You're right in front of me,
but I can't reach you–
my hands trapped in my pockets,
my throat dry as August sun.

I wasn’t good at being good

Each section is based on the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the day from December, 2022.

I. carbonado, n.

Um, hello?
I hope this gets to you
at all. I know
I haven’t sent anything
in a while. I want
to explain. And yes,
I’ll get to the mark on my face.

II. finger trap, n.

I need to start at the beginning.
You must have known
I needed to leave.

Whenever I had tried running,
something tethered me —
feet in quicksand.

I didn’t know
I’d actually break away.
I didn’t know
I wouldn’t be able to get back.
I’m sorry.

III. amor, n.

I guess
it was just that—
Dad always
loved you more.

You had basketball trophies,
positive comments on your report cards.
He always said
he never had to worry about you.

I had shit; I had to earn his love.
Sometimes, I thought I had it,
but it would fade away
like the doppler effect of a siren.

That’s why
I did all this:
I had to aim so high,
he’d be forced to see me.

IV. dunning-kruger, n.

I thought I had it—
I thought I had it—
I thought I had it
under control.
I swear.

V. eustress, n.

I knew what I signed up for—
I was going to be
in the first group of people
to terraform Mars.

I had the degrees, the years
of research. My name
was announced on cable news.

I was a leader in our shuttle.
People listened to me,
asked me for guidance.
I couldn’t get enough.

VI. palustrine, adj.

It was like when we were kids,
back at the lake, catching newts
in a plastic bucket.

I always needed to catch more
than you, staying out
after the fireflies showed up.

VII. perfectibilist, n.

It was arrogant to think
we could do better than this.

It was arrogant to think
we could start over.

It was arrogant to think
there was nothing here before us.

VIII. soz, adj.

I’m sorry
all this is coming to you
in pieces.

I had to reconfigure our transmitter
with spare parts of
our landing rig.

IX. carnyx, n.

I took the controls
in our final descent,
convinced I should do it,
only I could do it.

I missed a switch,
a small mistake, enough
to damage the hull.

An alarm echoed
through the ship until
someone else 
repaired the necessary parts.

X. bambi, int. and adv.

The repairs set us back 
several hours.
When it was safe and
I was finally allowed
out of the ship,
I stood on red earth,
saw maroon mountains
meet black sky,
an overwhelming array of stars
around a blue dot
where I knew
you all were.

XI. rantipole, n.

They stopped talking to me,
stopped asking me questions.
I could see
hastily-constructed walls
flash across their faces
when they saw me in the hall.

I offered to help;
they said they had it
under control.

XII. boykie, n.

This keeps happening.
I always get in my own way.

I go too far into the water,
lose my balance in the silt.

Why were my successes
never enough?

I couldn't just pass my tests,
I had to be better than all my classmates.

I couldn't just go to Mars,
I had to lead the people who went to Mars.

XIII. yampy, adj.

Dad was right.
You are the better son.
You wouldn't have
put the lives of your crewmates in jeopardy
to serve your ego.

He never made you attend
your parent-teacher conferences.
I had to sit there
while he voiced every disappoint,
while each teacher reached for any solution.

XIV. bretheling, n.

I joined the survey team
to earn the crew's respect back.
It involved walking alone,
away from their bitter eyes.

In addition to creating a map
of the surrounding area, we were looking
for somewhere to build our base.
That's when I found the cave.

XV. ballyhoo, n.

I updated the map,
sent an alert to the leadership team.
They called me to the conference room,
where they sat around a long table,
cluttered with annotated reports and blueprints.

I stood before them, detailed the cave's location;
its approximate volume; how much time, effort,
material it would take to build a sustainable base.
I-

I emphasized
its safety.

XVI. devil’s coach-horse, n.

There were so many things we-
I didn't know:
the actual depth of the cave,
the small holes within its walls,
the boring insects who created them.

XVII. sambaza, v.

Our ship was modular,
created to be dismantled,
room by room,
once a long-term location was found.

I assisted groups of people pack, travel,
and reconfigure their rooms in the cave.
They thanked me for my help, my discovery,
made eye contact with me again.

XVIII. dreidel, n.

We had a feast
once everyone was housed in the cave,
most of the landing rig left as 
a monument in the red desert
for where our settlement began.

People laughed, ate, played games.
They were so happy.
It would be
the last time that feeling was shared.

XIX. carboy, n.

The next morning,
Hisashi, our agriculturist,
lead his team to establish
micro- and macrocrops
within and outside the cave.

He asked for my help
surveying the land, showed me
all the tubes and bottles for
his complex compost system
and his set up for brewing beer.

XX. hagwon, n.

Many people invited me to help them,
learn their roles.
I was accepted again, fully.
I was seen as a leader again.
I was learning so much.
Things were going so well.

XXI. rinky-dink, n.

So, you should
be able to see the wall behind me.
If it's not in focus, just know that
the shelves have fallen over,
the posters and pictures ripped.

You can actually see 
on this shelf panel, the holes
from the insects that live here.

It fell apart slowly. An air leak
in one of the rooms deepest in.
Patch work covered it, we moved on.
Then more leaks, more patchwork,
until Gloriana died in her sleep.

XXII. mondialization, n.

Gloriana was the lead
of the communication team.
They were constructing the transmitter
to report our progress back to Earth.

Our first report, as you well know, was
her death, no explanation or cause.

XXIII. lip-sync, v.

There was debate
about whether to share
that information right away.

There was debate
about whether to carry on
like nothing happened.

For days, we
cosplayed professionalism:
did the tasks on the docket,
said words with no real meaning.

XXIV. zilch, v.

They left no one.
There's no one
left.

I
examined Gloriana's body,
her room, to look for clues.

Day by day, there was less of her,
not natural decay, chunks bitten off
her limbs.

XXV. christmas, v.

On Earth, I think it was Christmas
when I made that realization.

I wrote a report, took some pictures,
presented my findings to the leadership team.

Two of them were absent. We assumed
they were on an assignment or

were recording messages to send
to their families for the holidays.

We were wrong.

XXVI. hanukkiah, n.

The next day, the lights went out.
Emergency flashlights under our cots
lead us through the hallways.

As we approached the power sector,
there was a whirring sound,
like an engine low on oil.

When the door opened, our flashlights
were whipped out of our hands
by a gust of wind escaping

through a large hole in the wall.
Shards of Tenzin's sweater caught on its rim,
their severed hand on the emergency shut-off lever.

XXVII. chindogu, n.

It all went fast then;
panic has a way of
exacerbating things.

We huddled together,
surrounded by machines
that were utterly useless then.

Gathered in one of the central modules,
we concentrated our food, water, spacesuits,
smuggled weapons and ad hoc ones.

XXVIII. bak kut teh, n.

Hisashi set out on his own,
knife in hand,
to find a specimen
to examine, develop a strategy
for attack.

He returned dangling a beetle
the size of a football
by its antennae.
It oozed a viscous blood,
shade of mulberry.

After some poking, prodding,
he suggested
someone should take a bite
to see if its edible
in case our food supply runs low.

I volunteered.
It all felt like my fault.
It was the least I could do.
As my teeth sank into its flesh,
the floor rumbled, erupted.

XXIX. mugwamp, n. and adj.

A swarm of them
fell like hailstones,
bounced like rubber bullets,
sank teeth and pincers
into whatever they found.

We scattered, ran for the exit,
but there stood the largest of them,
the size of a loveseat,
shrapnel lodged in its exoskeleton,
human blood in its teeth.

Hisashi and I charged with sharpened table legs,
hoping to distract it away from the doorway
while others fled to safety.
They all fell to the swarm, Hisashi fell
when a pincer stabbed his stomach.

Sharp pincers, legs scraped my face as I escaped
alone, the captain of a solo-mission.
I ran to the communications room, this room right here,
through a drafty hallway,
this room, the last lung to hold air.

XXX. dear john, n.

You’re going to learn about this
through an official communication
someday soon.
I typed it up and sent it to NASA
soon as I caught my breath.

But, I needed you to hear it from me.
I needed you to know I tried.
I needed you to see my face one last time,
know we fought back.
I needed you to know no one else should come here.

XXXI. mukbang, n.

I can hear them now
in the walls.

They’re going to get in
any minute now.

I’m not going to make it
back home.

So, I just want you to know
I lo-

a bedroom

a body on the floor
a pool of blood on the carpet

spatter across the frame of a picture
someone in a robe with a diploma

a chair in the corner
under a pile of shirts and jeans

spatter across an unkempt bed
grey comforter with teal bedsheets

a dresser messy with articles and pens
necklaces and earrings

spatter across a full-length mirror
the post-it note affirmations along its edge

a body on the floor
under a thin white sheet

You get to work early.

You get to work early,
pull up into the school’s empty parking lot.
Three street lamps shine their pale glow onto dark asphalt.
The sun hides
behind some blue-black clouds
behind an oft-forgotten portable.

Your car eases into the same spot you always park in:
five east of the planter with the sword ferns.
Its door makes a soft sound as you open it;
it sounds like how you feel when you stretch your quad after a jog.

You walk across the lot, travel mug of coffee in hand.
Crow caws echo off the brick facade of the school,
a faint twee from a tree behind you.
You stop, stand in the middle of the asphalt sea.
Late October.
It’s cold— not heavy-jacket cold, but hug-your-ribs cold.

After a minute or so, you start walking again.
You get out your key, slip it in the lock like a dagger into your victim’s back. 
You think about how improbable it would have been 
to actually pass the stealth check.
You smile, shake your head, go inside.

the girl who lives in your mom’s house

the girl who lives in your mom’s house
cries inside the bedroom walls
when she thinks no one else is there.

the girl who lives in your mom’s house
tosses and turns at night,
awoken by the slightest sound in the dark.

the girl who lives in your mom’s house
laughs at jokes she’s too young for
but was forced to understand anyway.

the girl who lives in your mom’s house
stares into the bathroom mirror,
not recognizing who she sees.

the girl who lives in your mom’s house 
walks from room to room
looking for you.