Poetry fraxiom has feelings

an ode to dionysus: commentary on gender dysphoria, growth, and the god of wine.

i.

twice-born and set in marble launched
from thigh of thunderer atop the
crested clouds bundled in vine and

valour leering down at the fools
who deem themselves brave enough to
challenge the fruit bearer the giver

of ecstasy the madness and mischief
maker the last god to make it to the
table but never the first to leave

ii.

the child considers the legend
they’ve heard the word in whispered tones followed by
a track of ventriloquist’s ghosts laughing
they look at the statue and wish
to be born again
to be loved enough to be hidden

iii.

who are you then — god of the grape vine;
harbinger of hysteria; suckler of femininity
from the treacle nymphs; exile recast in
golden mould, challenger of the periphery, god or man-
iac; the last place at the celestial table; drunkard
who fucks and roars and curses, tangled
in green manacles; survivor of the cuckoo’s wrath —

iv.

”all of this pain must have amounted to something, yes?
something good?
it must have been worth
something?”
the child — now a man — thinks of the statue
of the years he lost in marble
and shuts his eyes, and speaks:
“it was worth nothing, but it belonged to me,”
 
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pests: a reflection on shame and self-flagellation following a bereavement, and the treatment of grey squirrels as murderers to their more placid red counterparts

In a churchyard, after everything that can be said
has already been spoken in tearful eulogies

I sat down on the bench, five years after the guillotine

fell
and waited for the punchline.

That was when the squirrel appeared, looking up at me.

She was small and grey, her tail pointed up to heaven,
her eyes glittering like she knew full well
that her kind had been deemed a scourge,
and didn't care an iota.

I recognised those eyes, beads salvaged from the ring
of a black hole, eating and eating and
eating

Why did you win? I wanted to ask. Why did you survive, and not the rest?

Her head tilted too fast for me to see it happening.

A bird chirped; a warning.

They were kinder. People liked them more. It should have been you.

Her tail twitched. Overhead, the leaves on the trees
whispered to one another.

It’s been a long time, I suppose. I forgive you, said I to the squirrel. For surviving when the others couldn’t.

Satisfied, she ran away.
 
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superstition: i don't like gnomes, and i have a lot of bad dreams.

I struggle with the thought of living only once.
When I fared well that first time, the men on the lawn were arranged
like a congress, trapped in debate until the news of my return.

I think that stars are really just the holes we’ve poked into the heavens
with the goal to see inside — to look the unknown in the eye —
and the crescent moon is the print of some god’s luckiest horseshoe.
Maybe you don’t believe in that type of thing.
Fortune, I mean.

I keep having these dreams where you die and my teeth shatter,
and I’m stuck there, grieving and gummy. In this dream,
I lie down next to you and starve.

Then I wake up, and you’re not dying anymore, I am —
but at least I can eat now. I mean, it’s not that bad. I mean,
it’s going to be fine. I mean, it hardly matters anyway.

I think they’re waiting for me,
the men with their lines and bait
and smiles twice the size of their faces,
like they’re in on a joke that’s still waiting
to reach the punchline.

Poised and prepared: They’re hungry,
they’re always hungry, they’re trapped forever fishing but never catching.
If I stay here, I’ll dream of our ending before it happens.
 
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in the beginning: a lot's happening here. frantic, disjointed lines follow a reflection on love as the first flame; fire destroys, after all, and as we traverse each sentence we find comforting imagery nested in with terror, death, and a fear of the future.

A caveman turns to another caveman and says I am scared of the dark. They are in love with each other, these two cavemen — long before the poets defined what love is — and they are scared of the future. The second caveman says I know. Here, watch this. And thus strikes the first flame.

I love you: Then what? My dead hands come to life. I plead with time, who is adamant and remorseless. We can begin in earnest; what then? Heartache? Tears over an old friend’s grave? The pipes in November clanging on with heat, the window left a little open in the evenings. We know the score but we fracture on fact. Our letters come disguised as life — I’ll remember you forever, even if I don’t — morning gently rises on the sea; the sun peeks out from behind the clouds. So I set out to read for signs of imminence, the same lake twice drowned in. One way or another one of us is going to leave.
 
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butterfly: the formatting for this one is sort of weird, but please bear with it! a quick explanation follows, but please read the poem first: butterfly ends with 'before i become another name on the list of the dead', and to reflect the ending the poem is written with two lines per word; like a forename and a surname.

I’m not
interested in
history anymore.
All it
cares for
is ghosts.
Breaking news -
I’m breaking
up with
my obsessive
shame. I
have dates
on my
schedule saved
for crying.
I do
this between
my doctor’s
appointments. Hello!
Yes, still
sad, thanks!
I’m louder
than I
often seem.
I’m a
scared child
in an
adult suit.
At a
protest, a
woman calls
me so
very brave.

I nod
politely and
don’t smile
at her.
I do
the job
so well
I outcry
the eagles.
I outrun
the loneliness.
I crush
my body
into a
blender and
hand out
glasses. My
mother holds
a butterfly
net to
the sky.
She catches
a white-
winged, quivering
mess. Someone,
please, touch
me before
I turn
into another
name on
the list
of the
dead.
 
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a toast to magnetism: written for my boyfriend. one day, i might let him read it.

i.

When he enters the room, this stranger, I am convinced that I’ve seen him before.
All of his pieces align into something I recognise.

I know you. Do I know you? I swear, I’ve met you somewhere before
It turns out that our paths have never crossed. Silly me.

We meet a few more times in the company of other people and the familiarity
he carried falls away from him. He becomes another face in the crowd.

I do not know him and I will not love him. We pass, ships in the night, and
then we go our separate ways, alone.

ii.

When he enters the room, this stranger, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.
His face is something new entirely.

It’s nice to meet you. Dance with me. Here, have some of my drink
I sip it. It's water. He laughs, and if I could hear it over the music, I'd recognise the sound.

We cross paths a few more times in the company of only each other and slowly,
I realise that I’ve known him all my life. I knew him before I remembered him.

I loved you first. I say, years later.
I said it first, he points out.
No, I mean...

I mean...


I loved him before I knew him. I loved him the way that newborn birds love the south in the winter,
and I loved him the way the archaic flower loved the first-ever stroke of springtime sunshine.

I just can’t remember where I've met him before.
I hope, in the next life, I do.
 
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from the sidelines: a revelation i had one night in springtime as i watched my friends, whose lives have been wrought with sadness, dancing like they hadn't a care in the world. a message about healing, and listening, and the trust of strangers.
All the clubs where you stood alone,
cheering your friends on from the sidelines
as they kissed another stranger
as they butchered another ballad,
whilst you were approached
by another shadow who
shared a light with you,
heaved a sigh,
and never bothered to learn your name
before breaking
into a long story about injustice,
and pain dampened with spirits.

While your bore your souls,
your friends danced,
their troubles forgotten
in the amount of time it took
for a fifteen-year-old pop song
to exalt the room.

The sky was light when you left,
dizzy, drunk on giggles, tottering
into an apprehensive driver’s cab.
The clouds looked like smoke
against that shade of blue.

Those were the nights we cremated
the sorrow. We overtook our anger.
Those were the nights we started
living in the blue parts again.
 
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