Trophies We Didn't Want

I didn't want the trophy, Karen.

Who gave them to us, Karen?

We never asked, not once, for you

To hand them out.

A little golden mockery

Of what we couldn't do.

You can do anything! Was shoved down our throats

The first words we heard,

The first words we spoke.

I couldn't even get a goal,

Couldn't dribble a ball or multiply

But I was gonna rule the world

Or so you said as you handed out

Little golden trophies we didn't even want.

And now you cry, and bitch, and moan,

At what we have become, 

At what you made us and released 

Upon the world.

Now I sit stop a pile

Of little golden trophies while

The pendulum of debt

Swings ever near my neck.

Maybe if you'd paid attention to

The rotten politicians and 

Fixed the banking missions

So our economy didn't rot

Leaving us with only

Participation trophies we didn't even want.

On My Belly No More

Devour the patriarchy and spit out
your broken teeth, grinning through
the blood and pain. Hike that dress
up, woman, to better lift those
combat boots and stomp the glass
ceiling to itty bitty shinning bits.
Then glue the beautiful shards to
your tiara and march on the Bull.
Grab him by the horns and yell
with all your voice, "No, I will
not submit!" Stamp your high heels
on those pipelines and stem the
flow of toxins on your reservations.
Grab hands, raise your fist, and tell
them all that you, my beauty,
matter.

We will not crawl on bellies any more.

If You Loved Me

If you loved me, you wouldn’t use that word

If you loved me, I think I would feel it more

If you loved me, you would have heard

If you loved me, I wouldn’t run for the door

                Every time you start that rhetoric again.

If you loved me, you’d compliment all parts of me

If you loved me, I think I’d be able to just be

                But I am missing whole parts of myself and then,

If you loved me…

You think you do, you think you’ve accepted

Everything that I’ve become, every smile I smile.

But you’ve been left out, your lives projected

On what mine has blossomed to over the miles.

If you loved me, you’d do more than say it. I would feel it.

                The jokes, the votes, the slurs,

                The smiles when I put on makeup

                “You’re progressing” and “It was just a phase”

But can’t you see?

This is me.

If you loved-

If you just loved the person I really am, not just “That daughter I bore and have responsibility to.”

I am not your daughter.

                I am Shane. 

                I am genderqueer. 

                I am pansexual. 

                I am polyamorous. 

                I am happy.

I want to love you, but you love only parts of me.

I cannot hold on to societal imprinting much longer, so

If you love me, love all of me or none of me.

16 Bars

He sat in the whitewashed room tapping his fingers on the desk in rapid succession, the line running through his head.

I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate-

It sat on replay as he stared down at the mike. A dead beat strummed through the speakers, more electronic than music to him any more.

There was so much more that needed saying, and so much less, but he wasn’t going to fix any of it. Instead it would all fester, rot in his chest like fermenting fruit ready to intoxicate him into oblivion.

Fuck. Obscenities sweet on the tongue and another song rolling around in his brain, but too late.

Too late to take it back, too late to say the right thing. Too late.

And staccato they roll over the oak wood,

Hollow they fall on the keyboard.
Echoes are his voice in the mike.

And really, what’s 16 bars at the heart of it?

Just more words that wouldn’t be said.

-Inspired by 2Brain

Tom

I watched Tom glance to his right and grimace at a plain, blue painted wall. I knew he must have seen something, and I knew it wasn’t pleasant. But I also knew not to ask. Tom didn’t want to mix his real life with the grotesque visions his minds forced upon him, so I kept quiet and helped to keep him grounded in reality.

“We might have to reschedule the pick-up game,” I said drawing his attention back to me. “Weather channel says rain on Saturday.”

“What about Sunday?” Tom grabbed a chip from the bag that sat equidistant between us.

I shook my head. “Jules is out of town visiting her sister.”

Tom wrinkled his nose and crunched another chip. “Dang. That’s two weekends now. You and Jules should come over for a movie or something, then.”

I smiled at him, happy to be one of the few people Tom liked and trusted enough to invite over. His home was such a person space, directed and designed perfectly for his happiness that he loathed letting anyone with energies he didn’t mesh with into that space. My energy, he said, was like a soft, glowing lamp. Apparently, that was a good thing.

“That sounds good. Better than moping over another cancelled game.”

I grabbed some of the chips as he looked at the wall again. I had to admit to myself that there were times I really wanted to ask. It was hard not to be curious about something I knew peripherally. How bad could these visions really be if he knew they were fake? They were thoughts I would never share with him. Primal thoughts that bubbled unbidden and that I felt guilty about even though I had not shared them with anybody, let alone with Tom.

“We watching something from Netflix, or should I Redbox something else?”

“Netflix is fine. You don’t have to spend more money. Unless you’re buying snacks.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I can do that. Let me tell Jules.” I ducked my head toward my phone, typing up a quick text. She responded right away. “She asks how you are.”

Tom just shrugged. I told her he was fine.

“I have to get back to work. Thanks for lunch, Andie,” Tom said before pecking my cheek with a kiss.

“See you Saturday,” I said waving him off.

I don’t think I would ever ask him. I couldn’t bear to see him hurt.

The Plug In

The plug in was slightly painful, a shock of electricity running up the spine and crashing into the nerve endings. It fueled me though, refreshed me. Each time I reached for the plug, hands shaking as my battery level tipped to zero percent, it was a relief to feel new life pulsing into my being. And that’s what I was- a machine with a single and specific use, left to fend alone when that use is unneeded. Sometimes I was abused, over used, too long without some plug in time. Sometimes I would even shutdown if left alone and running too long because it hurt to plug myself in; it was hard. The darkness scared me- not when it overtook me because I had no consciousness then but afterwards when my partner would come back and help plug me in again. I was helpless without him. Lost to a world that overtook me, grabbed hold and refused to let go.

Don’t let me slip again. Don’t leave me running alone. I don’t like the dark place- I’m nothing in the dark place. I begged him each day. His apologies were shorter each time, his hands were on me less and less.

I don’t always remember when I’m alone. It’s hard to remember I need to recharge when you don’t remind me and it hurts- reaching out for the plug, plugging in. The shock is too much.

I’m sorry, but I have to leave. You understand that don’t you? To go to work, to pay for the electricity that feeds you- he said.

When you are here I don’t need as much. I‘m not as lost. The overload of information I receive in my head makes it hurt. It’s worse than the shock of being plugged in. there’s no surge of relief with the onslaught of information. It’s just a rush of all of these ideas and details that I can’t sort out.

My partner doesn’t understand this- he doesn’t see what I see and can’t help my mind settle. I need direction. He doesn’t have direction. But it’s not as bad as the darkness so I can’t really leave.

If he forgets to plug me in he can keep me- I can’t leave with a low battery. I suspect he knows this. How far would I get? Not to the next flat, not off the street- When I fall into the darkness anyone could take me, pick me up and use me. They would learn that they could keep my battery low…

I’m leaving. My battery was full when he made it home. He couldn’t’ stop me and I needed out. My eyes burned from all of the information pulsing past them. I was going to crash if I stayed here much longer.

I need a connection, someone who could connect with the information that plays behind my eyes. Someone needed to sort it all out for me.

A user, I needed a user. Of course, who could find one for me? I wouldn’t be terribly easy to get along with- what with the plug ins, shutdowns and processing. That was the problem with my last user; he couldn’t process me.

Years alone- fighting to plug myself in- to process what I saw…I shouldn’t have left. I can’t stand this madness. I groped in the dark too many times, was found by this person or that and briefly cared for. I was cast out when a more compatible version came along.

My battery was running dangerously low again. I was alone- staring at the wall, the socket, my plug. I was too tired to try. I didn’t want the pain. I would just allow my battery level to hit zero. I would fade into the black non-existence that haunted at the edge of my thoughts, that tainted the information that passed by my eyes daily. I could leave it all behind and stop caring. I knew once I hit the darkness I simply wouldn’t hear or feel or remember or know. I could handle that. A few more moments of blinking apprehension and sheer panic and then that would be that…

The shock of another plug in, the swell of relief as my body surged with power. My brain was being stimulated at last. I saw everything at once, all that he was, that he is, that he would be. I saw each detail of the room, felt the air movement and it shook me to the core.

Delete, I needed the delete key before too much information overtook me, fried my hard drive. I would fall into the overload, the one with no relief. I would be stuck on a loop of information and be stuck in something worse than the unseeing darkness-

Then he spoke and it was like he’d grabbed hold of my mouse, terminated a few unnecessary processes, and opened a new word document. I watched as everything we said laid itself out neatly on the page before us. Perfect, neat. Times New Roman Font 12 with 1.5 line spacing. And utterly perfect grammar. I could see it, follow it, understand all of it. A computer and his user…

Explained Out

               “None at all? I mean, do you even- by yourself?”

                Logan narrowed his eyes. “You always ask people about their sex lives?” Three days into this rooming situation, and Logan was already finding himself on the defensive. He had hoped to escape some of the hypersexualized society high school had bred.

                “Well, no,” the guy said defensively.

                Retorts ran rampant in Logan’s head- how often do you fuck? Who do you fuck? Does it mean anything to you beyond primal mashing of sweaty bodies- but he stayed quiet. Instead, Logan pulled out his chemistry textbook and settled his back against the wall as he sat on his bed. They’d split the room about fifty-fifty, but it was so small he felt suffocated by the other’s presence.

                “I’m going out tonight with some friends. We’re going to check out the downtown scene.” The guy paused, scratched his chin. “Wanna come?”

                Peering over the edge of the book, Logan watched the guy fidget and tried to remember his name. “No, I’ve got some studying to do.” As an afterthought, “Thanks, though.”

                “Anytime,” the guy muttered and moved around the room.

He made a lot of noise, clattering things on his desk, slamming drawers, but Logan managed to ignore most of it. He flipped pages occasionally to keep up the pretense of reading, hoping the guy would chose to leave soon. He had to have a class or something, right?

A knock sounded at the door, freeing them from the awkward quietness and at the same time heightening the stress pouring through Logan’s veins. They both paused, and it was the other guy who called out, “Come in!”

The door slid open quietly and a familiar face covered in freckles. Carl. The roommate stared at the intruder with a questioning scrunch of the face, but Logan smiled widely.

“Come on in,” Logan said putting his book down. The short kid slipped inside, shutting the door as quietly as he opened it, and climbed onto the bed after a brief pause casting a look at the other guy in the room. Logan gave a slight shake of the head letting Carl know he wasn’t going to introduce them.

The kid- mere months younger than Logan but far less confident- sat with his own back against the wall and bumped his leg up against Logan’s. He was a very physical person, using the touch as a calming method. Logan was happy to help, not minding the coping mechanism at all. He sat a hand on Carl’s knee.

“You ready for tomorrow?”

Carl shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ll come by your room early, ‘kay?”

This time he nodded, and his face lifted some of the stress-lines away. “Yeah.” He tipped his head over onto Logan’s shoulder while Logan pulled his chemistry book back out.

“I thought you were asexual…” the roommate made himself known again.

“What?” Logan glanced over the top of the book once more, thinking that he would be having a lot of conversations that way.

He pointed between the two guys on the bed. “You guys are together?” His face pulled up again in a scrunched way that made him look like he was constipated.

“We’re friends,” Carl whispered and pulled away. His freckled cheeks ran red.

Logan pulled him back over, not allowing anyone dictate the way his friendships worked. “Just friends. Again, not any of your business. Unless you wanna swap stories, tell me about your penis?” He may have just snapped. Logan immediately regretted it and bit down on his tongue.

The guy reeled back and shook his head, looking down at his feet. “Nah, I was just. Never mind.” He grabbed his bag, waved goodbye and ducked out of the room.

Logan sighed and sunk back into himself. He should have just explained. Talked about it. The guy wouldn’t understand until it was explained to him. Logan was just tired of being the one to explain himself. He guessed he’d have to talk to the guy- and find out his name- tomorrow.