You can tell by the way
her mouth forms and pushes
out the word, with what
violence and crude art, that
her entire being is mimicking
the word itself
A scatological term swirls
in her center, then gets pressed
up, compressed more, forced,
then up and out, onto the tongue
and into the air
With the frustrated rage of
intent, with the empty thrusts
of anger, with the then still,
if a little rosy, face that waits
for a rejoinder.
Trembling and loose arms
of the willow hang over the
habitat of my teenager self,
more than a decade ago, now
approaching middle age
Reading Bret Easton Ellis,
along with Pasternak, along
with a dozen others, and
trying to write in broken
David Mamet dialogue
I did not know then, shaded
in the willow embrace, who
I would meet, who I would
become, just as I do not know
now, listening to the drizzle
of another state, who I will be.
I am the scammer,
but the scam is over.
I am not the one who
promised a velvet
paradise of belonging,
then took it back
like snatching a baby’s
blanket, just for kicks.
I am not the one who
says and does not
mean, whose voice
changes depending
on who’s around, who
has a different outfit
to try on for each
occasion. Not one
who says, today I am
a helper, tomorrow I
am a fraud, I am not
the false identity, not
the fake passport,
not assumed by others,
a mask or a clown,
a cloak or a clandestine
meeting, or a meaning
hidden between verses.
JD DeHart is a writer and teacher. His chapbook, The Truth About Snails, is available from RedDashboard.