for daveydaddy9 and emily dickinson

my father once told me poetry is just
for people who are bad at telling the truth

on a fluorescent stage, twitching sighs
as i spit out lies like rotting teeth

like she kissed one of my thighs
pity dripping heavy from her eyes

like i’ve woken up sad for the last six months
like freshman year i wasn’t even angry

i just liked the way blood gathered
on pink sheets in a little girl’s bedroom

like the first time I felt shame:
you shoving a dry toothbrush in my mouth

all missing baby teeth and liar liar pants on fire
like how many metaphors until im convinced you were saying

I love you? until everyone stops thinking he made me
this way, they act like he’s a

God, have you ever held something that was warm
and not writhing?

exposing my tender underbelly to a stranger
swollen nipples painted like tulips

as if this false vulnerability is a feat
like faking a fever like paying a therapist

to validate problems i just made
up in the elevator shaft

it was just a nightmare,
maybe a simile

like if i line break just right
is committing perjury holy?

daveydaddy9, it is 8:56 am why does my father’s saliva
dripping down my throat like vinegar and acid

sound powerful to you?
what the fuck does elegiac even mean?

did someone hurt you when you were little
or do we both just have an affinity for fiction?

daveydaddy9, here’s the truth:
my father is five years old

and never burns Jewish eggs
is it as poignant

when all my ribs are in place?
daveydaddy9, i hope you know

that every poem you’ve related to
has been woven of golden sadness

like the emperor standing naked
does everyone know how full of shit i am?

i click your poem into the category love,
i click a caricature of you, pixelated and drunk

into some stranger’s brain,
he calls it red rose petals

he draws soggy molasses
from my bruised wrists

i realize i forgot
to say that i was thirteen

but emily dickinson, i’ve heard
the sweetest love poem you ever wrote

was truly about your rape
and if jasmine only means vile cum,

my teacher asks if it’s still a poem
about love? we fidget in  stiff chairs

remembering that it can only be poetry
before there is truth