Pantry Boy, Sect. 01
〰️ - 〰️ -
〰️ - 〰️ -
I. [untitled]
When your grandmother says she always wanted to be white,
You will want to cry, but you won’t.
//
I noticed recently that when the light shines through the back lot trees
Just right
It feels like I’m farther south again.
//
Great Aunt Edna fed six diseased, wandering cats the leftovers of every meal.
Grandma Eiko (mom’s side) once scolded us for cutting at her bamboo thicket to make a fort.
It took four years for Grandpa Clarence to accept his daughter’s marriage to a brown man.
//
My life had been twenty years proffered and elapsed in each shaky concert of breath.
And whatever footing I sought as a voice for the crumbling world was largely theoretical,
Based in the dramas of surrounding parties, all of whom fancied how things
Ought to be.
//
By this point, all I knew was that I’d never met a cop that didn’t hate a nickel because it
Wasn’t a dime.
//
And that each race tacked on rendered me that much more of a spectacle.
//
And that there were several types of pretty that I didn’t want to be anymore.
//
When, after twenty years, your grandmother says she always wanted to be white,
Tell her you’ll pretend she didn’t.
//
Tell her that all the time you spent hearing that you weren’t enough of either
Made you sick in a way that you haven’t seen replicated since.
That learning to love every piece, even the ones no one asks about,
Has been, perhaps, the premier undertaking of your life.
//
Tell her that there is truly nothing so intimidating,
Or so freeing,
As being able to become
Whoever you want to be.
〰️- 〰️-
〰️- 〰️-
II. Tumor
There is no way of knowing when our dead will finally touch earth.
Boundless energy’s now brittle vessel, all laid up in wood like a tumor.
Far be it for sod and loam to beg for something easier to digest.
//
Please never build me a casket.
Whip me up a pyre. Sink me in the sea.
Help me return to the world.
//
Whether I am welcomed in the firmament,
Or I simply learn to speak dirt,
//
Treat me as a possibility.
//
Bleed my scars to spite the vain.
Fill my pockets with fish food and flower seeds,
And leave me to become something new.
〰️ - 〰️ -
〰️ - 〰️ -
III. Ignominious Dale
In a cruel trick of the light,
Or through my wayward soul’s own matchless display,
A gallivanting pantheon of spirits twirled
Through the streets before me.
//
They pass through, unabashed and unknowable,
As I learn to lose all that I am
Once,
Twice,
And again.
//
That they could,
They might leave me
Some peaceful wit or word.
//
For now,
I am disaffected, malcontent.
For now,
There is only the danger of
Becoming something more.
//
So, light in step,
Full flush with some scarlet rage,
I rise to the nearest rooftop
And speak as God
In seven languages and three voices.
//
Hark! O city of lecherous lovers and ends untied!
Name me Ignominious Dale!
//
I wish to be known for all I am,
And despised for the very same.
//
And what reticent wave or tragedy
May carry me away will do it,
//
But I will never have been just a passing ship.
