FEAST

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Let’s talk about hunger. 

The first kind of hunger is an impulse. 

It says hello and goes away, like a check-in text. 

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The second kind of hunger comes slowly, and builds. 

There is a term in French called “jouissance”. 

Roughly translated, it means: “the shattering of the self”. 

I used to think my body got cold and my hands shook before a grindr hookup because I was nervous, not because I conditioned myself to push through trauma responses. 

As if PTSD could be poppered up and pushed out like the rest of me. 

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Jouissance. 

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To be shattered one must first be rendered object. 

He fills me, says thank you, and exits; 

leaving me to reassemble my pieces, somehow fuller simultaneously more empty. 

He fucks me on the floor because even my bed knows that this is less than a

dream, masturbation with more steps, a fuck. 

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You must rest in order to dream. 

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The third kind of hunger is a rumble. 

Language is repeatable, 

so once something has been turned into language,

it negates the singularity of the experience. 

Rumble. 

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Language never truly captures the thing. 

Language shatters the subject and 

renders it into a repeatable object. 

Rumble Rumble. 

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For so long, I felt as if the vessel of my body was not fit for purpose. 

As if I could carve myself into the person I wanted to be. The pen is mightier

than the sword but the wrist is softer than the blade. 

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I was a cutter who 

became an alcoholic who 

grew up to 

become a stoner, so, obviously, now 

I’m a poet. 

Rumble Rumble Rumble. 

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When you swap blackouts for green-outs; that’s not getting sober, it’s just

changing the lighting. 

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The fourth kind of hunger is relentless. 

Rumble Rumble Rumble. 

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You think you know me because you know where I’m from, 

but where I’m from has been gentrified so where I’m from 

doesn’t even know I’m from there. 

Rumble Rumble Rumble. 

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If memories could stain bricks then 8th and Elati would be crimson like the

bloody sunset of a forest fire day. 

Rumble Rumble Rumble. 

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When you grow up seeing the ugliness of your father, 

you quickly learn to see the beauty in other men. 

Rumble Rumble Rumble. 

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Trauma is emotion trapped in the body. 

Emotion is exactly that: energy in motion. 

Rumble Rumble Rumble. 

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When you’re lost in the dark; even running into a wall can provide clarity. 

Rumble Rumble rumble. 

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Like how I sometimes forget my name until I hear someone else stumble over it. 

I don’t know how to articulate all the ways I don’t love you, but I do remember

a few of the ways I used to. 

I’m just grateful that I’ve grown into the person who can reclaim all the parts

of my body that used to belong to other people.

And now I’ve been fed, steadily, consistently, transformatively, patiently. 

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I’m not vain enough to think I’d be good for you if we’d stayed together. I’m

not hungry enough to look back. Because I can’t recall your feast, but I do

remember the taste of blood.

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COMEDOWN

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A haiku has a 

specific set of core rules. 

Lines: five, seven, five. 

Haiku

A relationship 

Has a specific set of

Core rules: agreements. 

Haiku

But When you treat your 

partner like a spinning plate, 

One thing must shatter.

Haiku

You cannot re-ass-

-emble a shattered vase and

Expect water hold

Haiku

A dry vessel yields

No bounty. Sooner than thought, 

One of us must go

Haiku

I met you with a 

Lighter in my hand and fresh

Stitches in my heart

Haiku

But you broke the rules

So the form blows apart

 

I have not been kind to my mouth lately.

I have made it spit venom that burns on exit.

I have forced things into it in the name of fun. 

A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue--

 

Most of the time I’m crazy, but today I’m mentally ill. 

I sit and read the greeks, with their seven different words for love. 

And yet I think if Plato had Pozole he’d had even more to say.

I stopped cooking for you. I lost the impulse. 

You stopped nourishing me too. 

You were a pinky promise that became a finger gun. 

I still feel your echoes in the thrusts of other men,

But I should have known that when you love a broken boy you have already lost half the battle. 

I only seemed to love you on the days I didn’t love myself. 

You made me feel like I could write infinite poems. Turns out, you were good for about 4. 

 

I keep plants even though I can’t take care of them. Sometimes they wilt, but they are here. 

I don’t take care of myself. I am wilting. But I am here. 

I stretch towards the sunshine and beg for the rays to give me life but they dry me out. 

They tire me out. 

You tired me out. 

You were a love borne of convenience, of boredom, of lockdown. 14 months in a tunnel of headband sativa heart-quakes until one day the keef ran out and 

the vaccine went in and 

suddenly there was the possibility of everybody else and 

we both woke up. 

Sober. 

Tired.

Wilting.

In the sun. 

I felt your love die inside me this morning

And no amount of 2AM thai or toking and touching will fix it

I felt your love die inside me this morning and no elevated language can pull my visage from the fetid stench of your rotten performative affection.

I could only offer you the love I wish you would’ve taken from me. 

 

Just because trauma ages you doesn’t mean it wisens you. 

Loving you was a sneeze that never came. 

Loving you was to flirt with rescue, having no intention of being saved.

Loving you was being surprised when you let me drown. 

I felt your love die inside me this morning and no haiku can re-form it. 

 

No seventeen syllables can 

synergize to revitalize the 

tenderness that necrotized inside 

my chest this morning. 

 

Five syllables for how your cheating made me feel

 

Seven syllables, one for every week you fucking lied to me

 

Five syllables to bring it home and emphasize there is nothing

You could do that would fix how i feel

 

And if you’re hearing this poem, know that I don’t have to hate you to leave you.

 

And if you’re hearing this now, then I’ve already left. 

 

So, haiku:

 

I woke up today

And made space for love that lives

I’m happy I left.