FANZINE

Even tho we share the same pain body let’s get clear on our differences
ok I was born by Caesarean section while you were a vaginal miracle
I was air-lifted out by a latex chopper manned by my lover-butler,
a golem in a mock turtleneck his voice was loamy/farmy
(sometimes I feel like a motherless stubborn believer of yonder)
pleuritic, he left me with the nones in Strega Nona’s coven
blew me three kisses so the snakes wouldn’t strike me
What do you call that? I called it love, I mean, it felt like love
say, remember remember remember back when
the naked ladies were wilting in a coastal town
we/I caught wind of their bubblegum communion
found feathers and shit amongst the flowers
wearing Miracle of the Ascension bikinis
(glow in the dark phosphorescent camo for the ocean-cauldron)
I was out there by the sea, timeless on the path to further solitude
a means to get away from the collective pain body / but no dice
no painted cakes of churches and rites of worship and all that
I went there to scatter the ashes of my imperfect friendships with
some ex-selves, those furled husks of an ongoing denunciation
the rays are dazzling, unceasing, that narrative of feral orphanzzzz
sister it’s true, I vacated my post as ally for premature spinsters
pox on their linty lucky charms spiritual squalor gastro-doom
stagnant Chi and affairs with blotto bugbears, forget it!
I’d saw my arm off for the sake of boundaries now but
I remember when it was otherwise like I remember when
extinction wasn’t a free pass for perennial despair
we heap virtue on ourselves by pleading incapacity like a vow
self-cossetted, the crisis is the journey is the destination
whoa! and now i-know how the story of Love in Our Time
is called I NEED SPACE AND CLOSURE
gimme a minute, ugh! and don’t forget:
the erstwhile epoch is like the Bible or a menu
you can rewrite it as many times as you want
there’s no difference do you feel me

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_{Charity Coleman is the author of Julyiary (O’clock Press, 2015). Her work can be found in BOMB, Dolce Stil Criollo, Joans Digest, No, Dear, and elsewhere.}