I've been thinking about forms, or rather I'm
always thinking about forms, and this particular poem
was written as a series of notebook entries.
And I thought for myself as a queer person, the journal
or the diary was such an integral space for me to speak,
sometimes more fully, more honestly, than even to my loved
ones, and how that space, that journal
for so many people in the queer community became a refuge.
And I suppose I wanted to insist that this form of the notebook
was a form worthy of art and literature,
as much as the sonnet, the sestina, or the ghazal.
And so here we are.
"Notebook Fragments"
"A scar's width of warmth on a worn man's neck.
That's all I wanted to be.
Sometimes, I ask for too much, just to feel my mouth overflow.
Discovery, my longest pubic hair is 1.2 inches.
Good or bad?
[LAUGHTER]
7:18 AM, Kevin overdosed last night.
His sister left a message, couldn't listen to all of it.
That makes three this year.
I promise to stop soon.
Spilled orange juice all over the table this morning.
Sudden sunlight I couldn't wipe away.
All through the night, my hands were daylight.
Woke at 1:00 AM and for no reason,
ran through Duffy's cornfield.
Boxers only.
Corn was dry, I sounded like a fire, for no reason.
Grandma said, in the war, they would
grab a baby, a soldier at each ankle, and pull.
Just like that.
It's finally spring.
Daffodils everywhere.
Just like that.
There are over 13,000 unidentified body parts
from the World Trade Center being
stored in an underground repository in New York City.
Good or bad?
Shouldn't heaven be super heavy by now?
Maybe the rain is sweet because it falls through so much
of our world.
Even sweetness can scratch the throat, Grandma said.
So stir the sugar well.
4:37 AM.
How come depression makes me feel more alive?
Life is funny.
Note to self-- if a guy tells you
his favorite poet is Jack Kerouac,
there's a very good chance he's a douchebag.
[LAUGHTER]
Just personal experience.
[LAUGHTER]
Note to self-- if Orpheus were a woman,
I wouldn't be stuck down here.
Why do all my books leave me empty handed?
In Vietnamese, the word for grenade
is "bom" from the French "pomme" meaning apple,
or was it American for bomb?
Woke up screaming with no sound.
The room filling with a bluish water called dawn.
Went to kiss grandma on the forehead, just in case.
An American soldier fucked a Vietnamese farmgirl,
thus my mother exists.
Thus, I exist.
Thus, no bombs equals no family, no me.
Yikes.
9:47 AM, jerked off four times already.
My arm kills.
My arm, like all arms, can kill.
In Vietnamese, eggplant is grenade tomato.
Thus, nourishment defined by extinction.
I met a man tonight.
A high school English teacher from the next town,
a small town.
Maybe I shouldn't have.
But he had the hands of someone I used to know.
Someone I was used to, the way they formed brief churches
over the table as he searched for the right words.
I met a man, not you.
In his room, the bibles shook on the shelf from candle light.
His scrotum a bruised fruit.
I kissed it lightly, the way one might kiss a grenade
before hurling it into the night's mouth.
Maybe the tongue is also a key.
Yikes.
"I could eat you," he said, brushing my cheek
with his knuckles.
Some grenades explode with a vision of white flowers.
Baby's breath blooming in a darkened sky,
and across my chest.
Maybe the tongue is also a pin.
I'm going to lose it when Whitney Houston dies.
I met a man.
I promise to stop.
A pillaged village is a fine example of perfect rhyme.
He said that.
He was white.
Or maybe, I was just beside myself, next to him.
I forgot his name by heart.
I wonder what it feels like to move at the speed of thirst--
if it's fast as lying on the kitchen floor
with all the lights off.
Kristopher, with a K.
6:24 AM.
Greyhound station, one-way ticket to New York City.
$36.75.
6:57 AM.
I love you, mom.
When the prison guards burned his manuscripts,
Nguyễn Chí Thiện couldn't stop laughing.
The 283 poems already inside him.
Kevin, I dreamed I walked barefoot all the way
to your house in the snow.
Everything was the blue of smudged ink,
and you were still alive.
There was even a light the shade of sunrise inside your window.
God must be a season, grandma said.
Looking out at the blizzard drowning her garden.
My footsteps on the sidewalk were the smallest flights.
Dear god, if you are a season, let
it be the one I passed through to get here.
Here.
That's all I wanted to be.
I promise."