lucky

Well, I received my first rejection notice today. But I'm actually okay with it. I didn't want to go there anyway, for real.

Anyway I checked out a book of poetry by Olena Kalytiak Davis, called shattered sonnets love cards and other off and back handed importunities. I am in love with it. I resonate with her SO MUCH. This is part of a poem called "keep some stuff for yourself." do yourself a favor and read it.



i have never told anybody
about the time i i i
slept with three guys at once

cause it never happened

but why o why
did i say anything about
the ping-pong table, the slits
that were his eyes, the river that now runs
backwards, and about the o! o! o!
meadow?

how it was
crossed and recrossed
and crossed

out the grass turning to sea
to wallow

how i crossed my heart and hoped
to finally and decisively

live but died o,
so young and so hard, killed

everything was resurrected
into somebody's mother, somebody's (x?) wife

did i mention my first kiss was extracted
by someone who never should have been that
lucky? and how much later i threw
my virginity and, later still, my vanity
away?

probably

how now i'm wearing them again, like a strapless
backless dress and a powerpuffs backpack?
like a pinkblueyellow hand knit woolen cap?

i have not told anyone, but,
like marty running, i too have shat my pants

and do you recall when X called you unamunam-
unambitious?

you told many many many tales about that
except that maybe you are, were

when will you learn to keep it
quiet
for god's sake

don't tell anyone
you sent your son flying
into a jamb, it was a door he was up against,
it was this hard as a board this life
his my eye
and the blood in it, for you

excuse me,
i have laid aside or betrayed

every one and thing you have ever...
owed
owned
sown
thrown
wanted
got

sometimes do you have to step outside your life
or, at least, outside your house, when it was (nay, is) late late
late at night to see how bright
and warm where you live is, was
how right?

and even then you didn't and don't believe it
because you are and are not right
is was and is wasn't
and it ain't

wrong or right

singing: honesty

is a luxury

will you spare me

the gory details

go ahead, sell that stupid old soul, but, please, mind your step,
your mind. please
please,
pletase!

keep some of it
some of this (shhhhhhhh...)
some of... iiiiiiitttttt
for yourself