My dad, the killer
select poems from upcoming chapbook
horses
have you looked into the faces
of people on the morning commute, as
we make our way to glass towers and yoke ourselves – horses –
into someone else’s carriage for the next eight to nine hours?
and you know the tragic part? the tragic part is that one day you wake up
and your face, your face, suddenly is
void
in the same way.
your pain stowed away just so, in the overhead bins, your smile—
crafted to hold above your crisp collared shirt.
worse—
you’re no longer there to notice.
you take your kids to work on the one day a year
you’re allowed, so when it’s their turn
to strangle themselves, they find it less upsetting
because you fed them mac’n’cheese
and promises from the cafeteria.
have you seen the faces of people on the street?
god, have you seen their faces?
have you, god?!
oedipus
oedipus, oh oedipus…. i love you.
the one who brings the air
its suffocation, the man i loathe,
i moan for you, i hunger…
you’re the dangerous kind, i give myself
to you, i am bite-sized, i want you
to want me like you want
your mom – salacious.
we’re all seduced, o king.
we care not that thou art killer, for
thou art—
Father.
how
could we not exalt our own
sire? salvation
foams
in the left corner of his lips.
without him – we’re orphaned,
with him – spared
from seeing.
father us, o sex-god, our prophet.
we lust for
our
king!..
honest
it had never occurred to you, father,
that sometimes it’s not about greatness.
sometimes it is about giving it my best
shot—
that I can be happy because I am
honest,
because I wake up in terror and do
that which I can, I look into
my belly for signs of life and excavate them
out.
I was not touched by gods at my cradle
like you’d wanted me to (but had I been
you would’ve killed me long before sixteen
when you laughed in my face
because I was not—)
and so I was not
what you wanted, so
till your very last breath, you held down mine.
but my pursuit is honest,
father.