9.10 / October 2014 Queer Issue

from IRL

I tell Muse
Leave. Me alone, Muse.
[…]
Muse is finally giving me
what I want. My hard won
sense of self surrenders thru
the sieve of yr attention
every time What I mean
is for fifteen years
I give all of myself to every
man I meet, mostly bc
I have nothing worth
holding I want
to get lost, to merge and b
someone else. I look into
the water, a rolling exact
me I promise to find
or make something worth
holding onto. I’m giving
it to you. What I mean
is guard yourself. Erect
fences. Crop a mound
onto the bald land
sing a Beyonce song
at karaoke w/yr friends
Envision consequences n make
decisions loose needles
of light from the dark
tent within Who is “everybody”
in the sentence “Everybody
Hates You”? Find
the song. I flush
at the prospect
of getting to know you
bc one of us will die
first n I develop
a taste for sparkling fizzy
rosé Great big bottles
of incapacitation. I run
until dark stars
I run hard until dark stars
blast away Tar Sands, Pine Ridge,
Ferguson, the Tea Party, stolen
Nigerian school girls, gay marriage,
Gaza, Kim Kardashian, Tim
Dlugos, fundamentalism, plane
shot from the sky over Ukraine
the bodies in summer sun
rot for days 6’3 white Australian
fitness buff asks do I feel
connected to nature bc I’m
NDN—I haven’t learned to live
with everything yet
much less myself,
so I’m sorry for texting
@ 1:30 in the AM
I meant that for me—
Come over, Teebs.
I can’t, w/anyone
until I find something
inside worth holding
and guarding and time.
Muse: Your ideation of me
is scary bc I’m a con-
struct of your imagination.
I’m afraid when you get
to know me, you won’t
like me—Not bc I’m
unlikable, but bc I’m
not you.
Lol. Never tell
a secret to a river.


Tommy "Teebs" Pico is the author of absentMINDR (VERBALVISUAL 2014), was a Queer/Art/Mentors inaugural fellow, 2013 Lambda Literary fellow in poetry, and has poems in BOMB, Guernica, and the Best American Poetry blog. Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he lives in Brooklyn.
9.10 / October 2014 Queer Issue

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