TAKE THOSE HANDCUFFS OFF OF ME. All I hear. I am a penniless billionaire. I am the granddaughter to a squandered fortune. What would she say? She would say to not be so lazy today, tomorrow you can be lazy. She would say to walk clear into the burning fields.
{ X }
AND THEN. IT CHANGED… Became too quiet between us, what was left for us to trace went unfulfilled. The need to not speak too soon is the need to survive as prey. Cursed us all but not on purpose. Those are nice shoes! Oh no make no mistake, I was definitely flirting with you. So we’re both too old for this. At least me. All purpose flower. Black tea on an empty stomach kind of seasick.
Make believe. And later, ropes them in.
{ X }
DECIDED NOT TO CHUCK IT ALL AWAY AFTER ALL. But, the offer
may still stand… And…sometimes, it’s good to let yourself be bad… She smiles.
Paper sails mean paper moon.
Can you picture it? She sits at a desk, and then
she gets up from it, the desk, smiling, identifying the source
inside her, both old and violent or nostalgic and haunting inside as a river or jukebox or when pharmacies still sold ice cream, yet on the outside, all you see
is something timeless. She cannot see this. She feels she is vanishing
before them, before herself.
{ X }
WHEN I LIE, EVERYONE BELIEVES ME. Because that’s what they want to hear,that’s what they’ve always. wanted. to hear.
THE SUN WAS INHABITED BY A THOUSAND FOOT HUMAN SKIN, spinning charkha and bottomless teeth. My father a baldness in cotton tents, spun orange. I stole a wild tire gum stick flavored with artificial liquor squeezed from a plant based gelatin. Pictures of a green skinned parent cursing an awkward smile, a fork in both eyes. It’s radish stew for dinner. When I was 3 I kissed a stray cat inside my mouth, my father fished out a dog spirit from the garden hose, yellow udders in pimples of charcoal areolas. My first dog was called Tommy and he was sold into slavery before the malignant carved a C soup inside a bald man.
Mother, mother, I yelled, there’s a plastic tub swallowing bouquets of pubescent flowers on my laptop. Mangoes are humming between tart gums and threads of nature are lost like kites in a midsummer god race. Mother, mother, if you have a face, feel free to breathe on splendid carpet, the stove is your mecca taught in Farsi script. Mother, mother, your mother is hanging out in the bathtub of the 70’s, silk blouse and cashmere saree in red velvet icing, her hair is an allspice fashion and the doctor said she can rest no more. Mother, mother, save me, your sister said I stole her lips, she’s feeding me shrimp pasta and her skin burnt in the sun for money.
Parents manufactured in 4 inch hands, a logo of far east on the wasted back. Flash off. I lost them ‘rents and now a silhouette by Michaels gel pen is all / I found a mouse in my closet with my 4 inch hands, it had pink ears and its tail was a 40 year old janitor, I left it there and closed the door. It’s been years now and I swear it lives under the false promise of my mirrored gush, neat and fallow like the names of me before me.
AMERICA’S LONGEST-RUNNING WAR? /the Civil War, my lovelies
anyone who thinks otherwise is misinformed by #fact
*overheard at DUNKIN’ DONUTS this morning* i hate when people do things, and they work out it makes me feel like i should do things
someday the robots will do the Civil Warring for us until then, history falls down the stairs carrying a tray of shoes for lunch
=========>the Civil War franchise, mansplained as your dad eating Pepperoni Combos—
in the original movie the Confederacy lost then put up bronze participation trophies in all the parks
B. like Star Wars, all the sequels are the exact same movie, just played in reverse
i like my Civil War with cheese you prefer yours on a Kaiser bun
America is loath to let a profitable franchise go, but sometimes not-dumpster-fire life events
do happen:
your dog barks into an Amazon dot™, buys you a Prius
—or, on an evening when you see ghosts turning in the snow outside your window,
a wife/husband/lover/stranger
turns
a key
/key that only they can see
I TRY TO TELL MY BRAIN, you are an organ, luminous in your undulating layers, and like a comet, you are not a dirty snowball of space, you are made of dust (my trauma, my moments of star bones, love that combusted my life, on repeat, a recurring dream i continue to pirouette through), and dust, dirt can glitter if the light of the night hits it just right. like a comet, you have brought water to my most deserted, desiccated parts. i try to tell my brain, you are a little girl in her first chiffon, and when you spin, you set the earth aswirl in possibility: the softest wisconsin green grass of a dream, a field of lavender, spreading, and the blood-jet of sylvia or every poetess who preceded both your grace and your pain, or those slippers, ruby made into a dress, reminding us all that home is the heart we all seek. brain, often, you cry. often, you must find a moat to make certain no sailors make way through your lake of ache. brain, your skull is simply one big bone and bones break easily and often, brain, i do not always handle your structure, or even your waves of sea with all the love the ocean deserves, but here is my promise today, right now: i will hold you as my mother did when i pushed out her womb and was held at her breast. i will kiss your bloody body. i will be unafraid of the grime, the slimy guts. i try to tell my brain, you are an organ, but you are the life of all that makes me a life of my own, and i will claim you as my own. i will sob at the life of you now out of me and now all of you. still, i will do my best to protect you as a wolf does; come for its kin and it will kill. and the bones of the hunter, the mother will lick as clean and as pure as the moon.
21THE MOST BEAUTIFULEST SHIT in the whole world can
be the ugliest shit at the
same time/ like toilet paper
& black plastic bags
hanging from a cherry blossom
in the spring/
or the smile of a wretch as you
put the dollar in his cup &
he says god bless you & you walk away/
or the wrath of a mother’s
love/ beaten into her
through generations/
or the son’s tears as he chokes
the doctor who cannot
save her/
22 when was the last time we
dreamed? what did
we dream of?
23 it gets hard to think with
all that laughing in
the background/
24 it gets hard & you think
that shit will never
change/ & the desire
to pass through
life like a shadow becomes
greater than the desire
to raise your voice in vain/
25 plus all everybody do is talk & take
pictures of themselves/
so you can see why folks might
just save their breath
when you see everybody
huddled up crying on
the news/ asking why/
& you see so much beauty in the world
& you wonder how much
of beauty is really real
From our Winter 2018 issue, “Sycorax Martinez is a witch from Corpus Christi, Texas” is a spellbindingly brilliant poem by longtime contributor Luis Galindo.
{ X }
TELL ME, SYCORAX, of the time your heart was broken.
How it almost killed you.
How love itself decayed overnight like filet mignon
Left out on your kitchen table.
How flies gathered to buzz your rotting meat
Your heart meat
Your love offal.
Tell me of the bottomless pain in your chest
The razor sharp scissors of reality to your center.
How you turned to magick and witchcraft
To transform you out of your misery
To exact your revenge
How you sat for months in the botanica backrooms
With more seasoned Latinx brujas
learning, honing your abilities
Your plans for revenge.
Tell me of the spells you wrought
The hexes you spawned
How you drew your own blood with a flea market switchblade
The crimson rivulets that flowed from wrist to chalice
On those Mariachi midnights.
The thick burn of mezcal on your wounds,
Your tongue fat with chanting and prayer
With Marlboros and songs.
How it singed your innards
On those Summer nights in Texas.
Your body and soul engulfed
By the melancholy flames of forever.
Creating sigils, mixing tinctures
Conjuring saints, spirits,
anyone and anything to help ease the pain.
Tell me, Sycorax, how you conjured
The ghosts of Selena and Ophelia
How Selena, with electric wings and voice
attempted to ease your sorrow with songs
and held you, her broken sister
And sang, “bidi bidi bom bom” in your ear.
How Ophelia (who was taller and more powerfully built
than you imagined) appeared
In her diaphanous gown
drenched from her descent from that willow branch
How you said to her, “I thought you were fiction?”
How she replied, “I thought the same of you.”
Tell me, Sycorax, of your bruised heart
swollen and bleeding, nailed above the blue door
Of your consciousness
Like some throbbing crucifix
Your whole impossible existence hanging from a rusty nail
Tell me of your attempted suicide
How you drove to Matamoros and jumped in El Rio Bravo
How you wetbacked your spirit into damnation
On the banks of despair.
How your Americanized pig-sty soul
Was drenched by the river your grandmother crossed
that eventually led to you, wailing and crying
In the gringa nurses’ arms to here
now, wailing and crying again
The Mexicana- Americana tears of lost and unrequited love
congregating, flowing, dividing two countries
dividing your will to live and your longing for an end.
Tell me, Sycorax, how Selena and Ophelia
Cried and pleaded with you from either shore
Watching as you bobbed in the water like a cinnamon stick
until they sensed your will to live had won
how they pulled you to the Mexican side
and held you, wept, howled, laughed and chanted with you;
a triumfeminate coven of tragically wounded witches.
How they whispered and sang in your waterlogged ears
“Bidi bidi bom bom bidi bidi bom bom
And I of ladies most deject and wretched
That sucked the honey of his music vows
Blasted with ecstasy, oh, woe is me
T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see,
Cada vez, cada vez que lo veo pasar
Bidi bidi bom bom.”
Tell me, Sycorax, how you woke at your altar
wet and muddy, dazed and mumbling
how you opened your book of shadows and wrote,
“We are the dreams of the All, falling in love
with one another’s magnificence in spite of
our limitless capacity for avarice, violence and cruelty
and that, my sisters, is the real miracle of life.”
How you tore the page from your book
and set it aflame atop your black candle
and began writing again,
“Ovum, sanguis, cerebrum, aenima
Behold the girl, the woman
Being born again and again.”
This can refer to swiftly unfolding events whether unintentional or intentional (tarot.com). Just see
those staffs through the kitchen sink
or a little bit of
coffee. Things are not okay,
but it’s not too much
for you to eat.
III. iOS X Predictive:
Lizzie Borden hurt my face and now I feel better.
I think it’s a bad thing but that’s what happened last night
so I’m going to call her tomorrow.
Face the way of your life and then I’ll be there.
{ X }
KAILEY TEDESCO‘s debut collection of poetry, She Used to be on a Milk Carton(April Gloaming Publishing) will be available this winter. She is the editor-in-chief of Rag Queen Periodical and a staff writer for Luna Luna Magazine. She also performs with the Poetry Brothel. Her work has been featured in or is forthcoming from Prelude, Phoebe, OCCULUM, Yes, Poetry, and more. For more information, please visit kaileytedesco.com.
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