Badb Queen

22. queer poet. she/her.

[badbqueen]

VOTE

we knew from the start that

it was a long shot

a far, far shot

from victory

we knew getting into this we

might not make it out

we knew that all the fighting

might go to waste

but we fought and fought like

hell and we made it out

we did, we were worse for the wear

but we god-damned did

they told us we didn’t stand a single chance

but we dug our fingers in deep

and we grabbed every

damn chance we could

and we took them all until they were spent

and now we’re spent too

but we knew that from the start

and we’re still here

we took those awful chances

and we rode them through to the end

and they told us we could

never finish this

but we did and we’re

still here, we are

don’t ever let them tell you that

we didn’t fight till the end

they’ll try to overshadow us

don’t let them

we fought like hell and we

damn near made it

we pushed them further to the edge

than they’d ever been pushed before

and let me tell you

next time they’ll fall right off

and we did it all for you

-Badb Queen, 2018

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[badbqueen]

Curse

"my curse?" she laughed

"my curse, my love,

is that i am gifted

with all the right words

but never the courage

to say them"

-Badb Queen, 2013

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[badbqueen]

The Watcher

you always said you would never quit

but i always knew you were full of it

you sat and watched as the walls came down

so i sat and watched as the truth came out

you always said you would stand by me

and you promised me that we’d both be free

but you sat and watched as they took me away

so i sat and watched as helpless you lay

on the ground you were tortured, beaten and bleeding

begging for help and begging for relieving

but you sat and watched as we all fought in vain

so i sat and watched as you tasted that pain

the fire consumed us, growing by the hour

but you only cared of harvesting its power

and you sat and watched as we took up the fight

now i’ll sit and watch as alone you face the night

-Badb Queen 2015

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[badbqueen]

Not Without

listen child, here’s what to do:

do not let your anger fuel you;

it burns bright but it burns out—

power comes from within, not without.

-Badb Queen, 2013

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[badbqueen]

Let Bi Boys Be Bygones

for Luke

Your mother’s parents crawled across the ocean floor from Havana to Miami and your father grew up on the rez by Eagle Pass. Had to run away at sixteen when meth grabbed his brother by the balls and drove his dad crazy enough to put a bullet in his mouth. Used to send his mom a check every month signed “you can leave whenever you want. get out before it kills you too” but till this day she’s still stuck up in that stuffy old trailer you used to visit once or twice a year. She’d show you how she made the tortillas and said she wanted them perfect for when your tio finally gets home. She never caught your dad rolling his eyes but you did and he told you never to tell her because her poor old heart just wouldn’t take it. So far as you know she’s still there but you haven’t seen her since the funeral. She probably wouldn’t like the way you are now anyway. So full of rage, so much more a beast than a boy. You’ve cut wounds in your mother and your brother with that rage so deep they’re still bleeding and picking at the scabs today. One day when your brother got you pissed about something and told you to stop being such a baby you had the nerve to say to him “he wasn’t even your dad.” That got you a split lip and double Indian burns. You’ve never seen him that mad since, not even when your mom took away his car keys and made him walk to school for a month. Maybe came close the first time he heard one of the gringos at school call you a faggot. He gave the kid two black eyes a broken nose and a chipped tooth for that. You still haven’t thanked him. Of course the kid got to play the victim after. Probably gonna write about it when he’s applying for a full ride to Berkeley with all his other white boy bastards. Took two years of changing in a bathroom stall by yourself till they could finally relax around you again. Thought maybe you’d grown out of your boy-loving phase because you finally found a girl to kiss. Her skin was honey-brown and you remember her lips tasted like sweat and cigarettes; only took a few more kisses till she got bored of you. Didn’t matter. Girls grew on trees down there, grew like weeds. Wasn’t long before you found out what pussy tastes like. Wasn’t long after that you got to feel what your father felt the second before he died, because some party had gotten too loud and of course the cops assumed it was all you. Underage drinking, possession of illicit substances, might as well slap on an intent to sell for good measure. You’re young, they’ll go easy on ya. Could use a little discipline anyway. No need to take into account any past traumas. PTSD is for soldiers coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, not for little boys mad that the cops shot their dad. All that feels like centuries ago. Now you’re lost trying to figure out the difference between love and lust, you can’t even tell the difference in your own damn body. All it takes is one boy—no, man—with his hand on the inside of your knee for you to realize these kinds of things aren’t phases and you’re just going to have to live with yourself like this. Maybe one day you’ll learn to like it like this. He certainly likes you like this. Likes the way you melt like chocolate when he shoves you against the wall and kisses you with his whole fucking body. Nobody calls you a faggot now. You still don’t know what love means. You know he loves the way you hiss and cry out and moan around his fingers like no one has ever touched you before. Loves the way you get jealous, loves it when you drag him into the bar bathroom and get down on your knees in front of him like he’s an altar and you’re about to make an offering. Maybe it’s not what you imagined but it’s better than nothing. He pulls your hair so hard you think he might just rip it out and you know he loves the way you gag and choke on your own lust before he even comes. Maybe you’ll learn to like this. Maybe you already do like this because it’s better than nothing. The way he’s standing above you like some Poseidon or Odin or Jupiter: how does it feel to be concubine to a god? He cradles your head in his hand then sticks his thumb in your mouth just to make you feel a little more used. He might not love you but he loves the way you do things. So much, so desperately, so thoroughly. Loves how you gasp Jesus when he shoves your head into the pillow. Loves it so much he smiles so hard he doesn’t know what to do with his own teeth except sink them into your shoulders so sharp and hard he almost draws blood. Actually does once or twice. He asks you about it one night and you tell him you like the pain. Like the way it makes light explode behind your eyes and the way it makes you feel like your whole body is coming apart at the seams. Helps you feel the pleasure more. Better than feeling nothing at all. This is what you are, after all. Always the object and never the subject, always the whom and never the who, always the one being done to and never the one doing, and always always always more beast than boy.

-Badb Queen, 2018

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[badbqueen]

Love

love come begging to your door

love speak your mother’s tongue

love make kingdoms crumble

love blow all your secrets open

-Badb Queen, 2019

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[badbqueen]

Garden of Eve

    i can hear my heartbeat thrumming in my ears

         and i think about how i would love for her to

 bleed me dry lick every last drop off her fingers she

       is exquisite i imagine she tastes like rhubarb and

   honeysuckle i imagine her teeth biting at my neck

             peeling me open and i burst like a grape we are

  just children and children like to break things it’s

        how we learn i wonder if eve ate every last seed

of the pomegranate if she could feel the tree of

               knowledge blooming inside her i’ve never been

  scared of snakes but i am afraid of fathers i can

        still remember watching snakes walking through

      my mother’s garden i picked them up and stole

   their legs before they could run away i wonder if

the pomegranate was really a pomegranate

            and if the tree was really a tree and if eve too

     craved another woman’s touch i imagine she did

-Badb Queen, 2019

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[badbqueen]

Gone Girl

their wings beat like

war drums you can

smell the blood

dripping from their

vicious mouths stingers

poised to kill their

claws rake across the

walls they dig and the

first wicked head bursts

through you billow like

smoke from your home

the trees lash out with

their talons snag your

hair your clothes they

plead for you to stay

they don’t understand

the danger the ravens

scream above hurtling

through the air the

storm clouds rumble

the wasps still hunt you

flying faster you’re at

the cliff the ocean

roars below there is

nowhere left to run

turn and face them

-Mel J, 2018

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[badbqueen]

Epic

They’ve already tried to kill me once. The

  hangman shaved my head and dragged

    me along on bloody palms and knees as

 the crowd hissed and jeered. I had been

their hero once upon a time. I did all I was

  told a hero was supposed to do: I slayed

    the beasts, I resisted the temptations of

 evil, I laid down power and fortune, I found

a great love. But all it takes is one devil

  among men and the whole bunch goes

    rotten. They came after me in all their fury,

 with their torches and pitchforks, and

wrapped a noose round my neck. I

  escaped, I did, but not without casualty.

    Now I sleep with the vultures and wolves.

 And if they don’t want me as their hero,

then I’ll make myself the monster instead.

-Mel J, 2018

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[badbqueen]

Flowers for Ella

Here’s what I know: a poem is like a wasp

stinging you under the band of your swimsuit

in mid-July. Don’t think about it, just listen. A

poem is the place between your bed and

the wall. Not in there, just there. It’s your mother

shaking with rage after you stayed out past

curfew and didn’t answer her calls. It’s your

hands, digging, digging, in the garden, in your

closet, finding searching making. A poet is

a mortician, turning a corpse into a

centerpiece. Turning your grief into curiosity.

I was nine when my grandma died and I’m

nine still when I remember her. I make her

corpse into a centerpiece in my poems. I

hope my poems haunt my readers the way

she haunts me. If you want to be a poet,

you already are. Tell us your life as it is. Take

us to the places you are afraid to go so that

we can hold you up when it becomes too

much to bear. We write poetry not to make

ourselves more knowable but to become

illusive, incoherent, fictitious. Of course the

poem isn’t real, but it is indeed true. If you

ever read one of my poems and ask me,

Is it true? I will assure you, Yes, the truest thing

I ever wrote. What reason would I have to lie?

Can you see what I’m saying now? I used to

hate Shakespeare because everything I read

of his felt like a lie. I realize now he had tricked

me into believing it was a lie. I forgive him for

deceiving me. I hope you’ll forgive me for

deceiving you. I told you that’s all a poet is. I

am not a witch or a soldier or a gardener. I simply

hide things so that you can see them more truly.

-Mel J, 2018

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[badbqueen]

Why Do You Keep Running Away From Home?

-Mel J, 2018

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[badbqueen]

I Am No Man

Girls like me don’t get happy endings;

    we fight monsters, brave the strange and

  wicked. We storm the castles for our kings

and when it’s done we perish on the battlefield.

They gave me no funeral:

    I built my own pyre, lit the flame.

  My lament was sung by the forests

and the rivers; the skies wept for me.

I climbed the mountain alone

    and tossed my ashes towards

  the sea, and they drifted like seeds

for the girls coming after me to sow.

-Mel J, 2018

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[badbqueen]

She Is Fire

her lips taste like ash

and she uses her teeth for a spark

when you kiss her you feel the heat

and you know she is fire

on her voice is the whisper of destruction

in the creases of her palm is written “danger”

but you want her blaze like

an overgrown forest craves a volcanic eruption

you write her name on slips of your heart

and tuck them in crevices between your lungs

hoping one day the words will slip up your throat

and slide along your skin to erase this corruption

you think her fire can burn away your shame

and leave you with a clean slate

and though she may blacken your skin

you wish only to write in white

you want her forgiveness for

sins you did not commit against her

because in her eyes is written “release”

but on her chest is written “fear”

when you were young you were told

not to seek destruction

you were to build over what was already there

but now your crowded skin barricades your heart

and it is then you see

that she will burn down the cities

that crush your ribs

and in the new space forests will grow

she is not danger, she is allure

she is not fear, she is resolution

she is not destruction, she is resurrection

she is not fire, she is light

-Mel J, 2014

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[badbqueen]

Strangeland

i am a stranger & i know

i am strange & they know

so to the motherland

i’ll go, my terra firma

but there’s the badlands now

we can’t grow there

so this is where i’ll always be

strange land & stranger me

-Mel J, 2018

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[badbqueen]

The Hunt

13 signs from the gods

I was given;

7 visions of you with

the knife in your hand.

I should have known you’d be the

one to cut the deepest.

I should have known you’d be the

one to betray me when I was at my weakest.

But you were the enchantress.

Everyone and anyone was

in love with you and

I thought I was lucky.

But the fates do not deal in luck;

They deal in trickery and treachery.

Zeus did not steal the skies from his brothers

with luck.

Sometimes you can still hear him

Whisper to his mortal lovers,

“You are mine

and I am yours.

As I live by you

I’ll die by you also.”

What a world,

what a dream,

what a farce.

But I shouldn’t compare you to a god.

It doesn’t become you.

More of a devil, I’d say,

with your wicked games

and still more wicked mind.

And every devil has their reign

as kings and queens on earth.

But it’s witch-hunting season;

here come the flames.

-Mel J, 2016

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