4
" Reminiscing in the drizzle of Portland, I notice the ring that’s landed on your finger, a massive
insect of glitter, a chandelier shining at the end
of a long tunnel. Thirteen years ago, you hid the hurt
in your voice under a blanket and said there’s two kinds
of women—those you write poems about
and those you don’t. It’s true. I never brought you
a bouquet of sonnets, or served you haiku in bed.
My idea of courtship was tapping Jane’s Addiction
lyrics in Morse code on your window at three A.M.,
whiskey doing push-ups on my breath. But I worked
within the confines of my character, cast
as the bad boy in your life, the Magellan
of your dark side. We don’t have a past so much
as a bunch of electricity and liquor, power
never put to good use. What we had together
makes it sound like a virus, as if we caught
one another like colds, and desire was merely
a symptom that could be treated with soup
and lots of sex. Gliding beside you now,
I feel like the Benjamin Franklin of monogamy,
as if I invented it, but I’m still not immune
to your waterfall scent, still haven’t developed
antibodies for your smile. I don’t know how long
regret existed before humans stuck a word on it.
I don’t know how many paper towels it would take
to wipe up the Pacific Ocean, or why the light
of a candle being blown out travels faster
than the luminescence of one that’s just been lit,
but I do know that all our huffing and puffing
into each other’s ears—as if the brain was a trick
birthday candle—didn’t make the silence
any easier to navigate. I’m sorry all the kisses
I scrawled on your neck were written
in disappearing ink. Sometimes I thought of you
so hard one of your legs would pop out
of my ear hole, and when I was sleeping, you’d press
your face against the porthole of my submarine.
I’m sorry this poem has taken thirteen years
to reach you. I wish that just once, instead of skidding
off the shoulder blade’s precipice and joyriding
over flesh, we’d put our hands away like chocolate
to be saved for later, and deciphered the calligraphy
of each other’s eyelashes, translated a paragraph
from the volumes of what couldn’t be said. "
― Jeffrey McDaniel
6
" ...Turn our thoughts, in the next place, to the characters of learned men. The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, we shall find that priests had all the knowledge, and really governed all mankind. Examine Mahometanism, trace Christianity from its first promulgation; knowledge has been almost exclusively confined to the clergy. And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate a free inquiry? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.] "
8
" reining yourself in because why ruin a good thing? why make it weird? and then you say goodbye, with a hug, with a snarky remark, and head home. you climb into bed and imagine them with you. you think about how their hair falls in their face, about how they breathe when they sleep. you think about them waking up and nudging you into consciousness with soft kisses down your torso. you sit in bed and think of all the ways you could make their soul dance. how you know their quirks and it all feels so right, but why? why is this happening? why can’t you just be content with what you have now? except even now you have to control the urge to kiss them, even though it is in your nature, even just on the cheek, because what if it breaks the relationship apart at the seams? you may not even mean it sexually or romantically, but what if? and there’s always the chance they have felt this way too. but it’s only a chance. and why risk it? so you lay there in bed and twist the sheets around your legs and text them back about another person they have feelings toward and coax them into something healthy. you put their happiness before your own. you watch as they stumble and help them rise mightily. you gush over them and try to snuff out the selfishness that builds whenever you see them with someone else. it wouldn’t be fair to them to impose your own wants on them and take away a good friendship. it isn’t always about you. and yet here you are, writing this. writing this and thinking of someone specific the entire time. "
― Taylor Rhodes , calloused: a field journal
14
" When you ignore your belly, you become homeless. You spend your life trying to erase your own existence. Apologizing for yourself. Feeling like a ghost. Eating to take up space, eating to give yourself the feeling that you have weight here, you belong here, you are allowed to be yourself -- but never quite believing it because you don't sense yourself directly.
. . . I started teaching a simple belly meditation in which I asked people to become aware of sensations in their belly (numbness and emptiness count as sensations). Every time their mind wandered . . . I asked them to begin counting their breaths so they could anchor their concentration. Starting with the number one and saying it on the out breath, they'd count to seven and begin again. If they were able to stay concentrated on the sensations in their belly centers, they didn't need to use counting as a concentration anchor.
. . . you begin the process of bringing yourself back to your body, to your belly, to your breath because they -- not the mind medleys -- are here now. And it is only here, only now that you can make a decision to eat or not eat. To occupy your own body or to vacate your arms and your legs while still breathing and go through your days as a walking head.
. . . Meditation is a tool to shake yourself awake. A way to discover what you love. A practice to return yourself to your body when the mind medleys threaten to usurp your sanity. "
― Geneen Roth , Women, Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything
19
" For the record," I do not desire your body. Not that you're hideous or anything, far from it. Even with those scars, your chest is really nice, and I like your legs because they aren't scrawny, and you have nice shoulders and naughty bits, but I've never been one to put physical attributes ahead of more important things." " Such as?" He had his hands on his hips when he asked the question, which just made me want to giggle again. " Intelligence, a sense of humor, and oh yes, not being a mythical creature." I swallowed another giggle. " Not that it wasn't a cool form, but still. I like my men without the sort of baggage that must go with being a shape-shifter." " Is that so?" One eyebrow lifted. " Yes." " Then you will not like this." He pulled me against him, his mouth moving into place on mine, his breath hotter than I could have imagined. And then he kissed the very wits right out of my brain. "
20
" ....Oh, what???.... Can you repeat... okay... I will say I'm against every your though (What can yo do about that?) (Oh, oh you poor little kid, oh, oh you poor little man you can't do anything here is the story)...Once upon a time there was two women and one man,... they weren't let to go outside... they both were married to the same man... it was said to them " If They go outside they won't come back" , but the truth was who goes outside he will be slaughtered, every finger one by one will be cutted, then little pushing inside a knife in the body, a lot of blood goes outside in the same time the other woman also get punished if the one get's. She is punished to drink the other woman blood, when this process is going again and again the man removes the clothes and he start jerk off on their faces..., (Yeah I know you will try to kill him, but you can't), you are bound with metal and rope handcuffs your legs and your arms. On your head you have a mask, if you move it detectes and it explodes when it explodes your face goes ugly from ugly you goes disable you are dead because this mask kills the brain... The other woman is next to a trap which detectes if she goes out of one zone, it goes like this if there is so much pressure it won't happen this, but if there isn't it goes very bad... The man is above few meters and he jerkoff on their faces and he does what he wants... and so on and so on... YOu can't change it, once you are the killer (Very bad for you, ...man), once you are the victim wow that's very bad I few awful if I was a victim somebody will jerk off on my face and I'm not a gay....! If this happen remind me to kill my self, I can't live with the thought that I'm a gay... "
