SEVEN POEMS by KIMMY JOY
disposability culture
you could walk through a park and find
knifey shards of burned cds glittering in the grass
all the broken-ups of the early oughts
oughta remember this specific perfume
top notes of freshbent plastic heart
note of blood where it cut deep base
tear-mucus note soft in the throat
you could fling feelings like a frisbee from
the window of your ford explorer, 75mph
never looking back at the crash site
disc skidding on gravel, scratching
chris carraba’s voice to a silent halt.
shit, man. kids these days just don’t know—
takes two clicks to delete a playlist
not just for you but her as well
fuck you, babe. no subtext
for later study. nothing exists
offline, in hard copy, in handwriting
you can cut yourself smashing your phone
but who would?
the ancient ones are wearing lace panties
shot through with holes
and thinking of how easily
they could be torn from their bodies.
Love Song for Dean Young
You men with your sentences dizzying to a pinnacle,
spinnerets with fine steel thread
to cut me a new one, step right this way.
You make me want to fall backwards and
slice through time and smash my phone,
to become devout and holy, cloistered in page
after page, vow of poverty of celibacy of ecstasy
of the mind. I'm sorry for every moment
I spent playing Oregon Trail II
or making my Barbies make out. I am wasted
sober and foggy, bloated with story,
my vocab lessons slipping like soap in the shower.
I've been waking up for too long. Pillow dented
I'm indebted falling off the wagon and shopping online,
begging the birds to be my penpals
and spending too much time on stamps.
The greatest lie I tell myself
is that the unwritten songs are the most beautiful.
darling, you exhaust me
first, i’d like to point out
that i cleaned and refilled the fountain pen
without spilling a drop; it was only after
wrapping up the whole process
that i found the fault on the inkbottle cap
and ended up with purple fingers.
we all lose bands in breakups—
songs stained sickly with lover’s breath
left in the yard for the sun to bleach white again.
it’s about time you returned my shoelaces,
quit drinking, worried your tether,
slid giggling into nervous naked dreams.
after all, everyone’s right after all. i have
been standing under windows, making noises
like an owl, making up and out, making things
right. and i meet silence when i ask questions,
so i’ve stopped trying. you know this,
you know.
suicide note #32
a tuesday, february
sunshine all day
a cupcake with my coffee
and a french dip for lunch
my boss had me work from home
because of yesterday’s headache
and i received a nice letter in the mail
with some cute doodles enclosed
i watched a good movie
and chatted with some friends
it was the worst day of my life.
not what you’re thinking—
nothing went wrong
i’m not even particularly sad
or angry, or bored
i know this. i know it was a good day
but something in me
refuses to believe
and repeats and repeats:
this was the worst day of my life.
i have never felt worse than i do now.
but i don’t! how to express this, this
fake news on a loop in my brain
boldfaced headline proclaiming
lies i know are lies but it’s me telling them,
a part of me believes that i should kill myself. tonight.
and i don’t understand. i don’t understand it at all
i don’t know why i can’t get a grip
and murder the part that wants me dead
i fistfight you, motherfucker, like four days a week
(more like six, in fucking february) and
i am so tired and where is my knife. why
can’t you shut the fuck up when i’m
working so hard to get things right,
why is today the worst why. explain yourself.
because i know i won’t.
i haven’t yet. i won’t ever. i promised
and i promise every day, i recommit,
i renew this vow, even today,
worst of all days, a wasted, failed day
in which i am myself a failure
except when it comes to the one thing
the one thing that matters:
i will live to fail another day.
amnesty for bill callahan
no man can redefine my body
but, as my mood today is charitable
i will concede that recontextualize
presents certain problems of scansion
and it’s a powerful thing when someone
(however poorly) gives voice to voiceless
knowings
let’s not call this a problem let’s call it
an equation and let r stand for that thing
you felt in the darkness. easier to redefine
than to read where the spotlight hits. i was
never invisible, merely unlit. and still
you would not look. would you like
a photograph of my tongue, of my toes? you
never asked.
it’s nice when it rhymes.
you wanna seek but not be sought—
i returned unmarked, the scars
you saw must be your own, blinking
lights playing tricks on
faulty eyes.
set the equation aside:
the problem, i think,
is that redefine is the word
you would have chosen
even with a full thesaurus,
even with proper context outside
of the context of scansion, meter,
rhythm and rhyme, redefine called,
oh love, don’t you see?
you too can redefine,
split and stacked like firewood, if
you tried.
i wanna do right by you
i’m finding out that “right” left me cold
and at odds with myself angling
for unknown quantities. do you
feel equal to loving, or are you
outnumbered? are you
redefined?
on the moment of realization that you might miss me enough to ask me to come back to you
i could have put a leadlined wall between us
and still my love would glow green on your skin.
you were easy to love, too easy, and you could deny
that our proximity buoyed you. perhaps it was
slow-acting poison and you’re finally vomiting.
you wake up sick. suddenly you need me again.
in the absence of love we see all of the jaggedness
softened by a smile. a fledgling understands
gravity on the first fall from the nest and flails
terrified in midair, hollow bones unready
to carry its small weight. i gave you all
of my breath and still you would not sing.
you understand, don’t you, why i couldn’t
get out of bed, bent double against the wind
forcing steps toward the atom you split? it
was never a choice between two men—
it was a choice between you and me again.
love poem for a modern man
before we touch i must say
i love that your body is damaged,
identical to millions of others
with teflon blood
and cerebrospinal fluid
studded with microplastics.
i swoon over your use
of obscure vintage emoticons,
favoring, as i do,
the semicoloned parenthetical
over hideous clownish emo-djinni.
and we both grieve the Zune. and
we both have alts for admitting,
under the pretense of anonymity,
that we are, for all intents and purposes,
down really bad. and we have both
used Excel and excel at being used.
i can imagine sharing unslaked thirst
on the parched ghost of a former pond
somewhere in arizona. i can imagine
our bodies consumed by california wildfire.
or bloating, floating, drowning somewhere
off the coast of what used to be miami.
we sigh and dream of kinder climes.
i could have the my adorations
stamped, perfumed, and delivered
to you to unfold to inhale,
but why bother? you live
never more than a foot away, alight
in the pocket of my sweater
or on the pillow next to mine.
i have forgotten more lovers
than most of my ancestors have known
but i will never forget your birthday—
i’ve set a reminder to ring loudly
and joyfully, on every infernal machine
i will own until the day this body dies.
Kimmy Joy is a multidisciplinary artist from Grand Rapids, MI. Her work has appeared in Reflex Fiction and Moon Cola Zine. Her books of poetry, "MESSY" and "mattress dungeon," are available online. Her Twitter handle is @fauxshizzle.