MCMXCVI

Writing by a guy named Joss Fontenot

[jossfontenot]

Self-Preserving

Each time I feel okay again I realise it’s just another lie I’ve sold myself I take the same old ideal A future with you And package it somehow I always find a way And make it seem conceivable But it’s all mist I’ll realise soon And not be okay once again

[jossfontenot]

Prodigal

I hate to tell my friends about it It’s been hard to even write about it I’m a brittle shell I’m a breaking dam Cast out into lonely space and regressed into the past Way before that time I went to Amsterdam

I come forth I admit it I’m a raging mixture in a cauldron Bursting bubbles of sad laughter

I’m a walking confession Please set my failure on fire Let it shine ablaze

Maybe my circuitry’s just overheated Maybe all my fuses are simply blown But I’m beginning to believe I’d have never started anything If I’d known you would break my heart

Conscience, let me speak

[jossfontenot]

Friend Activity

I can’t falsify You’ve been on my mind I’m barehanded chasing a butterfly As I tail your activity on Spotify

The songs Battle cries Rattles of snakes Moaning

This is the closest I can get to you in the morning

I need more than Froot by Marina We’ve had a good record, so why let it go to waste? Your records aren’t enough to allay The playlist of worries in my head It’s all just a mess I’m scared that whatever the outcome You’ll be silently missed

My sweet pumpkin pie The most sensible guy What’s made you turn so cold?

[jossfontenot]

Following

I don’t want to be the first to speak Even if it’s through my red wine teeth You don’t seem to realise that I’ve spoken first a thousand times

I cross platforms just to see The transient prints you left behind And even if I find you there Your stone-cold tongue won’t move a bit

I'm crazy to still stand here, on the shore Arms outstretched, my organs in hand Dripping red that sinks into sand By the transient prints you left behind

And when your boat pulls in You won’t even flinch You’ll pass me by and assume I’ll follow To the house I built

And I’ll repackage myself, I’ll toss my pen in the sea You’re right, I will follow, God damn you

[jossfontenot]

You Know Me

I don’t open up A part of me dislikes me The guards stay put, encircling my tombs You can hate me for their axes

But you opened up my caskets Snakes twisting around your ankles Mannerisms and accents All stripped back, you got access

Stay back now, just a while Don’t add more words in the mix I need some time to reform my troops Because you pushed me away

For who I truly am I quartered myself for your viewing pleasure Divided and conquered You cast my particles to the side

[jossfontenot]

I’m Sorry (Kimye)

I’m sorry I look a lot less like Jason Statham in Transporter And more like Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor

I can feel your guard as you inch away from me On the parched grass Is there something I should ask?

And I’m sorry my sense of humour is a lot less Dave Chapelle And a bit more Amy Schumer

I can feel your guard as I take the photo Laughing loud in the crowded diner You don’t want them to know you couldn’t bag something finer?

Well, that’s me, you said you liked that, maybe I believe you Oh well

I thought I could be your prince Biracial sparkle Meghan Markle I could jump through your hoops, do parkour But I’m not the fairest of them all

Or even fair at all It’s unfair Maybe I’m just a useless fairy A lot less desirable than the guy you met at the fair

Kanye said “everything I’m not made me everything I am” Well I’m not Kanye Jong-un’s my only Kim resemblance Serving bombs over buns If I’m not hot, I’m gonna need Candomblé

“Everything I’m not made me everything I am” Well I’m not Kanye And everything I’m not overwhelms everything I am

[jossfontenot]

Incomplete

Heard it all again and again Sort your issues first How can anyone love you If you don’t love yourself

I thought they were talking shit It turns out I just had no idea Now that you are far away I can see it so much clearer

Minutes turn to hours Hours turn to days Time dilation thinking about if I should text again

Each elongated second A separate doubt A separate spark I’m burning in a flame of insecurity

[jossfontenot]

My Boy

My boy keeps his distance He doesn’t like it when I touch his hair His aloofness would be a problem for most He takes for granted how I don’t care

My boy’s not how I imagined He goes ghost for hours on end A spirit keeping me warm A poltergeist bending my brain

My boy thinks I throw like a girl I wonder how he’ll like me after I hit the gym I know he must appreciate me, yet still My boy doesn’t miss me as much I miss him

[jossfontenot]

My Love Like Missiles

My love like missiles I know no moderation I'm either spread too thin or in clumps Like cold butter on bread And you, in your quiet disposition, sink under

The water overwhelms you And my pull is nowhere near enough to pull you afloat You see me for all that I am and am not Especially now that I'm so far My force field's too weak to span the miles

[jossfontenot]

This Lake

This lake looks nothing like before It's still In the heat And I'm in it, weightless, floating

Thirty-six degrees But I'm far from melting Maybe only figuratively Dissolving into the water Becoming one

All the bubbles have risen, burst, blue There's no more, they were cold, fully depleted No more silicone tension I'm released

Far gone are the days I mourned by the beach Full of "love" It's warm enough to take a dip now It's real now Only thing I think now I would love to show you this lake one day

[jossfontenot]

It’s easy to darken the world To write poems about cold beds and black dawns Don't take the easy road Illuminate the world Make it light in spite of gravity

J. Fontenot

[jossfontenot]

Sails

You made me forget myself Caution, inhibition back on the shelf And when I saw how I had let down my sails I thought it was true

[jossfontenot]

Blue Bubbles

Blue bubbles Plumes of disinhibition Letting myself be known Even though I told myself I’d keep the gate closed

Blue bubbles In response to grey bubbles The cool and the calm How did this happen? I started off careful and now I’m the hungry one

Now that the blue bubbles are growing bigger and bigger Every time I press send it’s like my finger’s on the trigger

The grey bubbles, so fine I want to pick the pixels apart I think there’s something hiding behind those letters, man

Did you go to his that day? Did you lie down on the green-and-yellow bed? Was your conversation something that you’d like to share? Can you describe your feelings other than just “weird”?

Blue bubbles Rising and falling, splitting, transforming Like soap bubbles in Rome that day - Oh what I’d give to be in Rome with you

And it’s so far away I’ve got to hold that gate shut with my teeth I’ve gone from nonchalant to meek as a mouse Damn, I can’t believe I might lose you to an empty house

[jossfontenot]

100 Years of Solitude

100 years of solitude is what boys like us must expect Endure it Being fed ideals of love and serendipity Only to discover a world full of incompatibility

100 years of solitude and nothing to show for it Just dreams Planning Elio and Oliver, so utopian We want picture perfect, get Marquezian

Where are all the beautiful promises? Where are all the mid-February springs?

Dances? Germinations?

100 years of solitude is what boys like us must expect Grow in patience It’s a ride, a lesson, an unforgettable thing A core that remains when you strip back the petals

Of the flower that finally blossoms

[jossfontenot]

He’s Like That

Some would say there’s nothing there But I know what I saw, I know what I felt And worry not, I’m self-aware enough to hear the obsessive notes in that So to the melancholia of it all You can add the much-dreaded sense of losing my —

Now that he’s all posted up on my feeds and my timelines Just like everyone else, but it feels like he’s on billboards And to know that we’re not going back hurts far more Than it pleases to remember the way he went down (he was new to that, but he was good at that) The way he glanced up, his head, his hair, his lips Christ, thinking back on it, I’m so cut up Yeah, he may be lost, but he’s so damn pretty

And he’s too beautiful for me Yeah, he’s too beautiful for me Two, three, four times my score on the out-of-ten scale His eyes are too blue His imperfections are too few (and he knows how to go down like I said, he knows how to go down)

He’s too beautiful for me But more importantly he’s too far From me And from himself

[jossfontenot]

Exoplanet

I want to see the edge of the world But the world revolves around me What I’d give to be a shooting star To shoot behind the horizon

I’ve always been a Gatsby But now don’t get me a ticket I won’t be coming To the parties, balls, birthdays, games Not even floating in the pool I’m nowhere at all I’m social death in absentia Always on the move I’m navigating carefully Campus like a minefield Unless my foot slips and I see you in the street You’re not hearing from me at all

Friends don’t believe me when I say it’s a catastrophe That night Hearing voices like Moses Frustrated and turbulent I lost my composure Now my bridges are burning along with my bushes

My reputation’s looking worse that Taylor’s So I’ve got to be Swift and shift like Gulliver But how can I go remote in this world When the world revolves around me

[jossfontenot]

Enemy

I had way too much port, man Now I’m going Aronofsky’s Portman Getting handsy with a sportsman Blacked out, hungry, forgot my game plan

I want to blame the liquor that's acting like shaman it Departed my spirit like DiCaprio and Damon - but that’s just Cartesian imprecision I always bring sabotage with a clear-minded decision

Like Adam, Mr Hyde, Black Swan, the id The enemy within, the guy that can’t be hid Burning through reputation like barbarians through villages Wine, guts and secrets - I’m an expert at spillages