gina abelkop
2 poems
**
I Do Wear Flowers in My Hair
It took exactly the same amount of time
that it took for my burned finger to heal before I made it
back to Keith's apartment; I'd burned it the time prior
when using a glue gun to concoct a horned necklace-type-thing.
His floor had been taken over by unraveling mounds of plastic pearls,
synthetic hair and opulent fake flowers, all of which were put to use
or untangled or left molting on the little patches
of exposed wood. Hanging in maimed bunches
from the mannequins. The next time I appeared, directly after
the burned skin had fallen off into my bathroom sink,
his floor was clean: the bed moved to the other side
of the room, all tangled pretties tucked into a bag
big enough for at least three small bodies.
I jerked off a huge, thick dick that tapered slightly
toward the head but was grotesque in its freakish girth.
A bulbous, pulsing vein glowing along the underside;
he kept begging, "Won't you sit on it?"
He was a stranger. I said no, just
letting him cum in my mouth, really more on it
than actually in it. Afterwards
I stepped into the bathroom where my dog was swimming
in a giant tub; she'd been there all afternoon
during my monster hand job. I was grateful
she hadn't drowned but
she had shit in the tub,
a perfect pile of dog shit unbothered by water
sitting still on porcelain.
It was only fun. I wasn't making a play
for hydrangeas, sturdy meat back or silky retches
thrown aghast from beds. Body shimmering
with pot toffee and dancing alone in the kitchen
to Bow Wow Wow like a maniac. Right foot
feeling like rubber stretched to its thinnest. On the phone
with you like that, my stupid and stubborn belief in sanctity
of dancing which had recently been made clear
by a certain chasing-out-of routine: sweaty camisole top
held up only by the wet weight of a sturdy bra left over from 16.
I really just thought it so rude, the very sentiment! To say it aloud!
Over the candied fervor of my purring body, as if it were cardinal.
So instead you lay in the tub where the water is lukewarm
and wait until the lukewarm fluid has softened
the crumbly grey ridges that have formed in your scars.
They look like boogers and you wait 'til they're soft like that too,
then pick them off and don't even feel it. Sometimes a piece is not ready
to go and you yank, it still doesn't hurt, water softened the bond
between fresh new pony-pink skin and dead gray temporary booger skin
that has aided the new skin in its growth. These bits of dead, used up
flesh float in the tub which is getting cooler and cooler until finally
you get it over with and wipe your lipstick off with a bit of toilet paper
because your face wash doesn't move that sticky matte lipstick off properly.
It feels good to be in the tub, alone.
When I stopped dreaming about murdering strangers I began dreams of the murdered themselves.
How will it start? Will it be public and will I cry?
Will I smell it? Will a dream tell me of its commencement?
Will I become sexless and free? Will the knowledge and humiliation
carve out of me a single rotted plank
to be propped against an unused doorway? Will I feel shame?
Will it be deserved? Will I miss
what I'm missing, and will it slay me. Will I choose.
I found his stash of porn and it differed from its existence
in my imagination. I knew it would involve animals.
But the woman nervously laying in bed, two men
hovering over her poised to slide a snake headfirst
down her throat, that was a surprise. I thought
it'd go up her pussy.
Light came through the metal bars
around the Shell station momentarily
putting me inside a stop motion disco ball.
Remember the way it ricocheted in the multiplying space behind your eyes.
For example, the light that isn't there making a special guest appearance in your daydreams, walking to work at 7.30am in a gray coat. The light! you keep shouting at yourself, it's coming in from the sidelines like light!
A bolt of clipped fabric loosely thrown over the shoulder, hawking itself to passers-by because you're so hungry, and you can't help but beg for it. Unraveling from its cardboard frame the fabric sticks to you like orange juice. It smells good.
**
The Diary of a Girl Beastialist
February 2, 1673
I got despondent over dinner, all beasts laid in their reliquary.
Chipped bone china dirty from night before, frayed pinafore,
dust a downy matte on furniture..........I pray every night,
and every morning I wake holy as the flat, slivered moon.
..............wet...............................................................good
.........dear.........................
................................Only on this
morning I woke severed, jade charming against my spine.
I moved with an extra joint clicking like locks in my middle.
And when I walked, everyone stared, and when I clicked, everyone heard,
and when I took a boar for a lover, everyone nodded--
......there is something funny about love: first you are bled pallid, next
soaked through from hoof to snout; to tell you this behooves me. I sit here
alone with it and drown.
February 13, 1673
I tramp through pig yards kissing each pink face with my carmine mouth.
The neighbors say I look happier; I click with pride, work to stay
wet. Accomplishment rosies my cheeks:.........when satiated one beings to glow, some weird light reaching out of you and into the dusk:.....but days just keep passing. Willow trees give me modest gifts of their bodies, branches through my hair like jays caught and frozen. I hang purposefully.
February 9, 1673
......her in forced oak dresser by the side of the road---
--forked out spittle means of crawling, or to behave--
..................And this, my little one?
June 12, 1673
I found a tooth beneath the floorboards today
and cried. What disintegrating thing lost this cracked bit
of themselves yellowed and bitter in my bedroom?
I buried it in the yard, under the flower that looks like sky spewing entrails.
Do bones ever become dirt, or is there a trace of us
here forever?..........When I die, burn me in a funeral pyre.
Set me alight with her so we mingle and forge. Let us be
spires shifting and freed in their dispersion.
June 15, 1673
I'm scared I'll swallow my own tongue, mistake
town children for feed and cut their throats in a fit of hunger.
I can't eat from the kitchen any longer. Grass lines my belly
making me flutter when I heave. The tickle against
my insides is so much to bear;.....................I honk
at geese and they look away, ashamed.
August 2, 1668
I've swelled to the size of an orchard. By necessity I sleep
on my side, dappled thighs drawn tightly to gut. Hold
a pillow over apple trees to keep the mewling at a dull hum.
I asked, Can things live while still inside of you?
Things or children? she answered, and I dropped my head
.........quick as two legs would allow.
September 15, 1673
.........--red--
....for the sport of it--
.........if lost, pull one out of her............/
September 23, 1573
Fur, talons, feather, beak,
cloven, litter,
September 24, 1673
If I didn't feel tenderness I wouldn't let "darling" happen.
But night secures bravery for me with its dark harp and short
temper-- I will make a play for what I want. I will be loved,
eaten, and put back together in a soft hybrid nest amongst
slippery moss, amongst weightless carnage, amongst myselves.
September 26, 1573
hooves, wings,
legs, joints,
March 7, 1678
.....(...mother.......a monster,.....sure...............knees
.........goat,............and black lolling
..............teeth.
........................hid by the forest.)
March 25, 1678
....................................In what manner
do I exist-- an experiment in fluidity, devil's child, freak royalty,
perfect, polluted? At the very least, leered at by curious eyes, hands
slipped lustily in pockets after a glimpse of hide beneath tattered frock.
I struggle to want them in return......She hides under the bed while I attempt
brave and heroic fucking, pulsing my rare hips at blank ceiling.
Every man who's climbed into me has been offended to find
a listlessness that even their mangled pricks can't assuage or temper.
What's the matter, they say, Where's your fabled animal lust?
And my girl under the bed sobs into her deluge of dun hair.
October 30, 1573
aorta glistening
**
return to sawbuck 3.2
**
Gina Abelkop lives with a pug named Ava in San Francisco, where she edits the feminist literary & arts journal Finery and visits the ocean. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Encyclopedia: Volume F-K, La Fovea, At-large, DIAGRAM and 42Opus, amongst others. Find her online at: www.birdsoflace.com
**
I Do Wear Flowers in My Hair
1
It took exactly the same amount of time
that it took for my burned finger to heal before I made it
back to Keith's apartment; I'd burned it the time prior
when using a glue gun to concoct a horned necklace-type-thing.
His floor had been taken over by unraveling mounds of plastic pearls,
synthetic hair and opulent fake flowers, all of which were put to use
or untangled or left molting on the little patches
of exposed wood. Hanging in maimed bunches
from the mannequins. The next time I appeared, directly after
the burned skin had fallen off into my bathroom sink,
his floor was clean: the bed moved to the other side
of the room, all tangled pretties tucked into a bag
big enough for at least three small bodies.
2
I jerked off a huge, thick dick that tapered slightly
toward the head but was grotesque in its freakish girth.
A bulbous, pulsing vein glowing along the underside;
he kept begging, "Won't you sit on it?"
He was a stranger. I said no, just
letting him cum in my mouth, really more on it
than actually in it. Afterwards
I stepped into the bathroom where my dog was swimming
in a giant tub; she'd been there all afternoon
during my monster hand job. I was grateful
she hadn't drowned but
she had shit in the tub,
a perfect pile of dog shit unbothered by water
sitting still on porcelain.
3
It was only fun. I wasn't making a play
for hydrangeas, sturdy meat back or silky retches
thrown aghast from beds. Body shimmering
with pot toffee and dancing alone in the kitchen
to Bow Wow Wow like a maniac. Right foot
feeling like rubber stretched to its thinnest. On the phone
with you like that, my stupid and stubborn belief in sanctity
of dancing which had recently been made clear
by a certain chasing-out-of routine: sweaty camisole top
held up only by the wet weight of a sturdy bra left over from 16.
I really just thought it so rude, the very sentiment! To say it aloud!
Over the candied fervor of my purring body, as if it were cardinal.
4
So instead you lay in the tub where the water is lukewarm
and wait until the lukewarm fluid has softened
the crumbly grey ridges that have formed in your scars.
They look like boogers and you wait 'til they're soft like that too,
then pick them off and don't even feel it. Sometimes a piece is not ready
to go and you yank, it still doesn't hurt, water softened the bond
between fresh new pony-pink skin and dead gray temporary booger skin
that has aided the new skin in its growth. These bits of dead, used up
flesh float in the tub which is getting cooler and cooler until finally
you get it over with and wipe your lipstick off with a bit of toilet paper
because your face wash doesn't move that sticky matte lipstick off properly.
It feels good to be in the tub, alone.
5
When I stopped dreaming about murdering strangers I began dreams of the murdered themselves.
6
How will it start? Will it be public and will I cry?
Will I smell it? Will a dream tell me of its commencement?
Will I become sexless and free? Will the knowledge and humiliation
carve out of me a single rotted plank
to be propped against an unused doorway? Will I feel shame?
Will it be deserved? Will I miss
what I'm missing, and will it slay me. Will I choose.
7
I found his stash of porn and it differed from its existence
in my imagination. I knew it would involve animals.
But the woman nervously laying in bed, two men
hovering over her poised to slide a snake headfirst
down her throat, that was a surprise. I thought
it'd go up her pussy.
8
Light came through the metal bars
around the Shell station momentarily
putting me inside a stop motion disco ball.
9
Remember the way it ricocheted in the multiplying space behind your eyes.
10
For example, the light that isn't there making a special guest appearance in your daydreams, walking to work at 7.30am in a gray coat. The light! you keep shouting at yourself, it's coming in from the sidelines like light!
11
A bolt of clipped fabric loosely thrown over the shoulder, hawking itself to passers-by because you're so hungry, and you can't help but beg for it. Unraveling from its cardboard frame the fabric sticks to you like orange juice. It smells good.
**
The Diary of a Girl Beastialist
February 2, 1673
I got despondent over dinner, all beasts laid in their reliquary.
Chipped bone china dirty from night before, frayed pinafore,
dust a downy matte on furniture..........I pray every night,
and every morning I wake holy as the flat, slivered moon.
..............wet...............................................................good
.........dear.........................
................................Only on this
morning I woke severed, jade charming against my spine.
I moved with an extra joint clicking like locks in my middle.
And when I walked, everyone stared, and when I clicked, everyone heard,
and when I took a boar for a lover, everyone nodded--
......there is something funny about love: first you are bled pallid, next
soaked through from hoof to snout; to tell you this behooves me. I sit here
alone with it and drown.
February 13, 1673
I tramp through pig yards kissing each pink face with my carmine mouth.
The neighbors say I look happier; I click with pride, work to stay
wet. Accomplishment rosies my cheeks:.........when satiated one beings to glow, some weird light reaching out of you and into the dusk:.....but days just keep passing. Willow trees give me modest gifts of their bodies, branches through my hair like jays caught and frozen. I hang purposefully.
February 9, 1673
......her in forced oak dresser by the side of the road---
--forked out spittle means of crawling, or to behave--
..................And this, my little one?
June 12, 1673
I found a tooth beneath the floorboards today
and cried. What disintegrating thing lost this cracked bit
of themselves yellowed and bitter in my bedroom?
I buried it in the yard, under the flower that looks like sky spewing entrails.
Do bones ever become dirt, or is there a trace of us
here forever?..........When I die, burn me in a funeral pyre.
Set me alight with her so we mingle and forge. Let us be
spires shifting and freed in their dispersion.
June 15, 1673
I'm scared I'll swallow my own tongue, mistake
town children for feed and cut their throats in a fit of hunger.
I can't eat from the kitchen any longer. Grass lines my belly
making me flutter when I heave. The tickle against
my insides is so much to bear;.....................I honk
at geese and they look away, ashamed.
August 2, 1668
I've swelled to the size of an orchard. By necessity I sleep
on my side, dappled thighs drawn tightly to gut. Hold
a pillow over apple trees to keep the mewling at a dull hum.
I asked, Can things live while still inside of you?
Things or children? she answered, and I dropped my head
.........quick as two legs would allow.
September 15, 1673
.........--red--
....for the sport of it--
.........if lost, pull one out of her............/
September 23, 1573
Fur, talons, feather, beak,
cloven, litter,
September 24, 1673
If I didn't feel tenderness I wouldn't let "darling" happen.
But night secures bravery for me with its dark harp and short
temper-- I will make a play for what I want. I will be loved,
eaten, and put back together in a soft hybrid nest amongst
slippery moss, amongst weightless carnage, amongst myselves.
September 26, 1573
hooves, wings,
legs, joints,
March 7, 1678
.....(...mother.......a monster,.....sure...............knees
.........goat,............and black lolling
..............teeth.
........................hid by the forest.)
March 25, 1678
....................................In what manner
do I exist-- an experiment in fluidity, devil's child, freak royalty,
perfect, polluted? At the very least, leered at by curious eyes, hands
slipped lustily in pockets after a glimpse of hide beneath tattered frock.
I struggle to want them in return......She hides under the bed while I attempt
brave and heroic fucking, pulsing my rare hips at blank ceiling.
Every man who's climbed into me has been offended to find
a listlessness that even their mangled pricks can't assuage or temper.
What's the matter, they say, Where's your fabled animal lust?
And my girl under the bed sobs into her deluge of dun hair.
October 30, 1573
aorta glistening
**
return to sawbuck 3.2
**
Gina Abelkop lives with a pug named Ava in San Francisco, where she edits the feminist literary & arts journal Finery and visits the ocean. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Encyclopedia: Volume F-K, La Fovea, At-large, DIAGRAM and 42Opus, amongst others. Find her online at: www.birdsoflace.com
Labels: 3.2, gina abelkop
