(march 13th pt. two)

a new mfa student comes up to the podium to introduce you, our second poet. she is mousy and flustered. she speaks too softly, looks down too often, praises, apologizes, offers a perfect portrait of oppression.

you fling yourself to the podium in a rush as if you’d been nursing your anxiety in your seat this entire time.

your face betraying any hints of confidence with occasional awkward lip tugs. your antsy voice drops an octave or two and hums through my veins. you taste your poetry.

i think i like you.

you are trying to make eye contact but it looks more like tics. you are too messy of a man, can only compose yourself in verses. your eyes are very kind, though. bright eyes. dark hair. i bet you tote around that “old book smell” on your skin.

i need to learn how to eat like you, how to chew my poetry before i speak.

you are too cute. scrambling the neurons around in your brain on the tip of your tongue. high functioning artist. (i was diagnosed the same way.)

you stutter when you’re not composing symphonies in stanzas or speaking Italian to my soul. i could find comfort in my neurotic tendencies, too, if i were as successful as you.

why do we all insist on writing poems about our fathers?

i initially thought it was just the masculine theme of tonight’s reading, but here we are, regardless of race, gender, class.

 here we are, tracing our lineage in line breaks, singing songs of the men who refused to love us.