glitter-drenched & glowing

i resign myself to prophecy.

[argentophobic]

krav maga

after this piece

hook punch. my father tells me when i am maybe 13 or 14 that he would love to sign me up for a self-defense class, but he’d have to get me a personal (& concussion-trained) teacher. this is a fact of my medical history. cross-body punch. my father continues, you might be in college, at a party, and a boy might say—this was before i came out—and a boy might say, “do you want to go upstairs and look at my Marvel Comics collection?” straight punch. he might pin you to the bed and leave you violated. empty. focus not on what is being protected against. focus only on going through the motions. getting these moves just right. and you’ll have to go to the police and let them probe inside of you, looking for the damaged points. uppercut. this is why i need you to be safe with boys, with girls, with anyone, really. fix your stance. i can’t make a fist properly. he gives up on the lesson. i know he’s too fearful of what lurks within me to ever successfully complete a lesson with me, anyway. too worried about me to ever put hands on me, even in a lesson.

[argentophobic]

twin fantasy it’s like the moon when it’s up on the other side of the globe. i’ll leave y’all behind when you decide to let me self-destruct in peace. it’s not the actual self-destructing i care about, it’s that it shows me you care. i woke up and i was trying to kill you. i tell myself that it’s going to get better better better! but when i hit the ground i still won’t eat enough and i’m still too large and i’d still die to get away from my mother. it’s like when i love you loud enough that the whole world knows but no one really cares. except for not really, because i’m terrified and you’re uncomfortable most of the time, and so it never really works out like that. i’d pretend to be drunk or something when i display vulnerability, especially around you, but we all know that’s not going to work out. we all know i don’t drink and i’m too candid to fake my way through something like that. i just want to learn how to say “i love you,” without hurting anyone or myself or making things weird.

[argentophobic]

fireworks

this next year is going to be fantastic. glitter-drenched & glowing, & i’m speaking that into existence.

going to be the year i go back to california, almost six years after the wedding. i’m going to bask in the glow of the jellyfish & (almost definitely) end up crying at the beauty of the natural world—thank G–d for all the fish!

this year has been a bad one for most everyone who lived to see it, but this next year, i swear, is going to be my best one yet.

[argentophobic]

california dreamin’

have i ever told you? i had a dream in which i went to california & you were in the hospital (this dream was during the months you were Away) & somehow me & my now-ex & some other kids i can’t remember were trying to find you. i had a macbook, & then i almost lost it. there was a lot of running around, but no asthma. your hometown is somewhere i confess i have never been. i have family there, but i’ve seen them in santa rosa, in san francisco, but never There. never in their actual home.

in the dream we were running around the parking deck, trying to find you, & then we were in the hospital itself. i don’t remember how the dream ended, but i remember waking up happy, because i got to see you, even for a moment, even in a dream.

[argentophobic]

softness in terror

talking to someone from childhood— oh, a hundred, a thousand years ago— and remembering the sleepovers & the daydreams and the “these help me fall asleep” dreams. i’m asking if she remembers the time i dangled a caterpillar in front of her face,

the time i destroyed her fairyhouses, the sleepover/pajama party (elementary school innocence & how badly i wanted to kiss her, didn’t want to admit it to myself but it was there), the time she asked how

much i weighed, somewhere in all of this, and then we stopped being friends until she saw me at work, and recognized me through the tied-back hair, through the name change, through all of it.

she laughs and says “i don’t remember any of that.”

[argentophobic]

for @antigoneblue

my darling divya, you’re everything to me. you talk me out of all the things i could be doing (but shouldn’t ever do.) you’re the (intelligent, amazing) klaus to my reckless & daring violet. i’d bring you

flowers if you weren’t 8,000 miles away. (G–d, please don’t let me fall in love.) a server filled with ghosts & reserved seats for girls who hadn’t arrived yet was the start of our friendship.

someday we might meet, & i pray that i’ll be able to eat like a normal person if that day ever comes. i want to avoid being the cause of more grief for you.

i’m your cheerleader, and i swear on my life, divya, my love for you will last forever.

[argentophobic]

chapter titles: another heart, another love

1. the mares (1)2. classics major3. old news4. yvonne tells a story5. living with it6. feeling dirty7. myra gets sick

intermission: the deer have a conversation

8. the mares (2)9. medical student10. jackson hits mother11. homeless12. jackson is taken in13. house by the sea14. renewal

[argentophobic]

for the chapter titles - in which i love you. <3

PART ONE: ADINAi. adina meets mariii. homophobic remarksiii. hebrew school (1)iv. mari kisses adinav. adina tells her mothervi. what happened when mari told her mother

PART TWO: MARIvii. hebrew school (2)viii. how to tell an orthodox rabbi you like girlsix. keshet

PART THREE: TOGETHERx. three years laterxi. the weddingxii. birth

APPENDICESa. goldberg family treeb. goldberg family historyc. stein family treed. stein family historye. goldberg-stein family treef. goldberg-stein family historyg. goldberg-stein family mementos

[letterpoems]

May we present to you: the Letterpoems Project / poetic letter network 

This is a network for writing poems for other people. The way it’s gonna work is that you need at least 1 penpal and you write poems addressed to them, or with them in mind, and they write back. The poems can be about anything and in any format and the idea is that you use poems to communicate and tell each other things, so that you also get to know each other better.

This is an open project, so anyone can join! To join, you must be following this blog and you must reblog this post. Use the #letterpoems tag for those of your works that satisfy the criteria of the group, and we will reblog your work.

However, we will have a core group of members, for those of you who would like to be a part of the network and help contribute in more advanced ways. If you can post regularly enough and you are passionate about the project, we would suggest you join the core group. The core group will work as a model for how this project is to be implemented, and function as a backbone for the network as a whole.

To join the core group, message us at @autoenyo or @antigoneblue, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

[argentophobic]

you&you&you

1. i feel like i’ve known you forever, when really it’s been less than a year or four years, or “we haven’t met yet,” depending on which “you” i choose to make this about.

2. you (of the four-year fame): i love you and i’m always so scared to say it, because i don’t know if you get how deeply i mean it. how much it scares me, too.

i think—i don’t know, but—i think that’s part of the undercurrent of terror in our interactions.

3. you (of less than a year): i love you. not like that, no, but i do love you. i promise. and i know you love me too, and i know that it’s going to be the elephant in the room for quite a while, but that’s fine.

4. you (who i haven’t met yet): i’m going to feel similarly about you when compared to how i feel about the above individuals. and i’m going to know you, i think, in a way that will feel like coming home.

no judgement, no guesswork. just love.

[argentophobic]

buzzcut season

my body is a cage & i don’t want to sound like a statistic but i am trapped! ideal versions of me (or at least, versions of myself with more tolerable bodies) don’t look like this.

what, then, do they look like? NOT THIS! my body is a cage & i can’t do anything to make this thing (this cage in which i live) feel more like home. cutting my hair didn’t

work & growing it out hasn’t worked, &—

one of these days i’m going to snap & shave it all off.

[argentophobic]

it (2)

after stephen king’s IT

this isn’t fun, it’s scary and disgusting!

my body,  a feeding ground for the birds, the worms, and my mother. she says nothing happened, it was medical trauma but what she doesn’t realize is that the two clauses do not equal x. she could have hurt me, and there was medical trauma. it’s not an either/or situation. she crawls onto my bed & forces me to look at her as she whisper-yells, all in my face. she tells me i have no reason to think she ever hurt me, because she’s spent my whole 16 years on this planet trying to make sure i have the best, to make sure that i’m not dying. she tells me & my siblings that we make her want to off herself. i’m crying & she tells me to get over it because i’m just a kid & i don’t know what hurt feels like, anyway. a beat later she says you’re almost an adult take some fucking responsibility for your actions. people always get surprised when i say i don’t love her at all but what they don’t understand is that she, like pennywise, is a shape-shifting monster who feeds off of the fear of children.

[argentophobic]

confessional — a chapbook about soulmates (romantic & platonic). this chapbook explores themes of violence & its impact on relationships, as well as the shifting border between romantic and platonic love. it can be purchased here for $2USD.