Chorus (5 page)

Shuffling to the bathroom late at night, I thought the lights looked like moons in the vanity mirror,
an orchard of dense halos
protected by metal framing that I wanted to touch but could not reach. What a paradise I thought I was making. What a trick, to hide and then forget that I was hiding.

It sounded made up. And after

five hours of neuropsychological

testing, of being faced with beads

I could not arrange on wooden posts,

of Stroop tests, of
blocks
I couldn't

position in the
patterns
they asked,

of recalling
lists
of words I recited

but did not properly organize into

categories
to help me remember them--

I did not want some made up diagnosis.

I wanted
drugs
. I wanted a pill

I could take that would provide

concentration, motivation,

organization and every other “ation”

I needed and never had. But I only

got one-- an explanation.

For my whole life. A fucked up

looking glass to re
color
hi
s
tory--

the reason I have no mental filter,

why I only like
music
for the lyrics

not the actual
melodies
, why

I can't find my way out of a paper bag,

the cause of my bad handwriting

and hatred for anything
math
-related,

the basis for my fear of exercise

and team sports, the root of why I don't

get art or
philosophy
or why I got

enraged every Sunday when my ex

wanted to do
puzzles
or play Scrabble.

But when you're 30 and you learn

your white matter doesn't function

properly and that's why you keep

getting fired from
bullshit
jobs,

why you can't sustain relationships,

keep friends, why you can't ever

keep your mouth shut, why you

insist on always telling the
truth

even when you're becoming

your rude, crazy grandmother

who yells,
“he's too old for her,

she can do better,”
in the middle

of your cousin's wedding
ceremony
--

it's not any kind of
comfort
. It doesn't

turn
failure
s away. It just reminds

you that you never had a choice.

It proves that a malfunction in the right

hemisphere controlled
personality
,

formed what you could and couldn't do,

and ensured that you take everything,

even the
diagnosis
, the wrong way.

I've bought the bloody
myth

swallowed that sucker

hairy legs and all

crawled careless into bed with a
fantasy

and now I'm hopping antsy with expectation

having drawn these
crooked
lines

in what looked to me like sand

my
uncertain
frame
s
tands

hooked

on what I have been promised by the TV

by that
saccharine
ache Anita Baker

moans from a
mass-produced
CD

The game of happily ever after in love

is a cruel farce

the lonely wish of a gullible asshole

who somebody done told

a whole lot of
silly
lies
to

love is nothing

but the by-product of a teenager

wagering hormonal changes

against the smell of his own diluted sperm

spilling
innocent
into his
awkward
palm

Love
is the alms

given to the poor to divert

focus from the difference

between the shacks that teachers live in

in Brooklyn

and the mansions that senators fuck
young
interns

in Washington DC

I am just about ready to give up

on man/woman

dog and tree

the whole
romantic
tic is hogwash

The idiots

who look like they might still be in love

have only been together

for three weeks

and those
lucky
enough to have lasted more than a year

are rapidly shifting gears

towards chopping the shared

now
dysfunctional
cat

in two equal parts

so they can cart the rest of their shit

to the new apartment

they cannot afford by themselves

I am tired of searching for Ms. Right

always something wrong

with the one girl who likes me

too
smart
/too skinny

too much of a ninny

too short/too tall

too-much-of-a-mall-girl for my liking

too
free
/too taken/too I'm sorry I was mistaken

in my initial assessment of your sexuality

sometimes

I think I hang my hat too high

for my own arms to reach

which brings me back

to my
original
hypothesis

of love being somewhat like the perfect orgasm

the trip there

is
infinite
ly better than the letdown

of having already experienced it

After the first

actualization of intercourse

there's no up to go from there

what is one to do with the sticky wet

of saliva

and vaginal fluid

and sweat

not drying fast enough

in the center of a lumpy futon

you are desperately trying to fall asleep in

Love

as I have
understood
it

is primarily disappointment

and hard work and very little return

so now I'm canvassing for volunteers

to go tar the cupid who conjured

the stupid concept

feather the fucker and leave the body to burn

we are the cunt|fused. hour vaginas tighten to virginity over and over. each time. ti|me up, in|to what dicks think|are entrances to
a 4th dimension
. excuse me! call me miss mister; pussy, this pen|is – my own.

eye ink. jizm.

sum do knot no how two take me? i nor eye can be red. sea me wave hy|men to sea|men, swim backward thru (hys)teria and untangle o|varies: oh my, oh my god, oh my God|damn, She is not a He, but hem is.

scissors in hand, they run up on me. cut in front of me|in me|from
behind
.
when one's perception is globalized to one|size fits all, sodomy ensues
; belief systems blare in bass. traditions tweet on tips of thwarted tongues – spoke|in sounds the
unconscious
can't turn down. they peddle hidden ace under sleeve. trick-deal drawn from unzipped pants. rod and staff got balls|banging loud beats against thighs. the eyes. the eyes, yes!
unravel.

bend for|ward, grab toes, brace|your psyche. there is no room for sanity in the inn. dawn of (r)age – New|Or|Eve's could never trust
A|dam
. women know, the patriarchal world been yelling since birth – “FEE|MA; you can't afford liberty, just|ice. we will send prayers instead of help|better yet, we will send our
summer son. all liquids evaporate to heaven!” melt. submit. be pass(I've) heard them say|in corridors of cocked legs|for cuntrol of categorization. cauterization? eye burn and can only re| member – lobotomies sever things.

i am too|spirited. Berdache. native. eye nor i, need make-up. keep your shadow, it saddens. to hell with a|Mary|K|K|K's ass. Amerikkkaz mine too. squeezed this whole land through head cock-tip. cocked head as drill bit, and dug out through the universe's nappy dugout. I can b/earth a baby. male? female? trans|rendered.

you've come to me before, in fact, with these same late-term papers on fiction: phrenology, eugenics! how many times must i bash skull, break bone and dismember ignorance? abort you overboard a slave ship? drown you in an Atlantic vision? give in|sight to your blind-spot; four-eye can reflect on degrees of dualities – keep dividing me like you do, and I'll compound, cell your memory away to c|ancers of questions never thought to be asked. dislodge you from the dis|ease of forgetfulness.

a rainbow can comprehend the spectrum of sex, its combination of shades, potentiality. eye bet all the colors of my life.

put this in blood red on my wombstone; “He grew bigger, longer and harder than our soft, limp understanding could withstand – She opened a wet canal that swallowed us stillborn.”

you are dead in me|my intuition: a bellyful of beasts.

Not that there's anything wrong with that
is the same chickenshit

side step as
no disrespect intended
or
I swear not to come in your mouth,
no homo.

Hip hop just has the balls to drop

onto the palm of the modern lexicon, no homo.

At some point every man learns you

gotta be the biggest dick in the room to not get fucked, no homo.

Gentlemen, you cannot let a sound run over your lips

that does affirm the rock hard nature of your identity, no homo.

Erect
a panopticon
in your throat

as if the world had a flashlight up your ass, no homo.

I am the last person to tell you

that it is safe in a man's skin, no homo.

his lighter drowns in the river so we practice kissing

instead of smoking. he talks as if

he is starving but i'm not sure what he's
starving for
,

food or words, water or my
touch
. i eat meat

with every meal, he says,

& i say, i'm vegetarian. he laughs.

he understands the need to move, the way i spit

on anxiety by walking until 3 in the morning,

when the full sky & my heartbeat are finally calm,

even if he doesn't understand my gender

or the tiny hairs on my chin & between my eyebrows.

the moon is
bright
the way my sister looked

after she started taking meds,
glowing
,

her eyes don't jitter anymore, & they don't cry either. he takes off

all his clothes, trips on the ankles of his pants,

& i almost laugh at his
cock
, not because the last time i touched one

my hair was down to my waist & my name belonged to a girl,

but because of how smooth it is compared to the wet sand

clumping between my toes. i say

i hope you know this makes you a fag. he says nothing

& keeps kissing my neck.

there are bubbles of hard cider in our stomachs.

flat chests confuse me. i am
looking

for something to cup & hold on
to
with my hands but his body

is like the river & it is slipping away

through my fingers.

i didn't sleep very well last night.

he is drunk on my cum & in the morning

he will
forget
that i am a boi.

tomorrow i will sigh & my friend will ask,

why are you having trouble sleeping?

& i will shrug
a
s if my shoulders are mountains

& say i don't know & start talking about the weather.

it feels so
strange
to fuck someone but never hold their hand.

i can hold his hand with my breasts or my cunt

but not with my fingers.

fingers woven together are too fragile & intimate.

fucking is easy. fucking is easy?

i pick at my skin when i am anxious.

You call me a fruit,

and I agree,

say

a fruit is ripe,

promising seeds,

bursting with juice.

You call me a fruit,

as though a vegetable

and I recite a litany

of fresh attributes:

a fruit is rich,

remembers its roots,

nourishes, quenches,

makes a display of any table.

I say,

I am the apple

that announces the gravity

of a given
situation
;

I am the pomegranate

whose gemstones teach

of the burden of possession;

I am the fig

our ancestors couldn't resist.

You call me a fruit

and I agree:

soft, round and sweet.

I dare you to peel back my layers,

take a look at my pips.

Full as a melon,

sharp as a lime,

come over here

and bite me.

My mother always asks if I'm eating well.

I don't worry her. I say

work late, soup for dinner, normal.

I tell her you're visiting and she asks

about the soup.

Sex
is the unsaid thing, lone animal against the wall.

A silence passed down like heirlooms
and
knotted-up
gold
chains.

Valuable, I wasn't made from lust, but from necessity.

A secret: the place between my mother's legs

where absence bred
and
clung

to the hairs on me as I descended.

What do you tell a woman who defines passion by security?

How do I dare measure against her life, fingers full of water,

flour-creased, a child on her hip when she stood before

the man she loved and said choose,