MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017—part 23)

Let's workshop this stanza sequence about masturbation, dill pickles, the NES game Mike Tyson's Punch Out, kidnapping, difficult moral decisions for the greater good, mannequins, dying young

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given over to hope each time

how mild was the worst dreamed of in those days

post-masturbation fingers at the fridge
sludging through the dill-pickle brine
for a slice or three from the family jar 

the heart-convulsing civic duty
to refuse paying the ransom lest 
blackmail culture go malignant

the saving force of a change in season

the meat-husk abandoned mid-transformation toward becoming a better man

out of the matrix, yeah—but underdeveloped, especially socially, because of it

he lived long enough to expect from his heroes the unexpected, even the terrible

ridiculing escapism in the youth before any need for it

in a culture of grievance, victims of grievance will voice retaliatory grievance 

he lived fighting back the feeling
that the ephemerality of things
spoiled their point and worth

looking away from the mirror reflection of her body
like how squeamish, or just plain kindhearted, people
might avoid even a side eye toward a highway wreck

we are the creatures who think we know why,
even if there is no ultimate meaning to our lives
it was worthwhile to have been born just as we were

if you have to purchase airline tarmac-noise-canceling earmuffs
to have on each long day at home, it seems you are not right
for the dog—yes, even if by fat chance the dog is right for you 

whispering “I love you” into the pillow, no one in mind

driving around with a mannequin seat-belted passenger-side

cruising city streets, today top down, with a mannequin copilot buckled in shotgun 

godparents hungover at morning baptisms

seeking out a template for personality

middleman markups

chefs now in the look-at-me business just as must as writers

but luckily he had other passions to love and live for
besides the drug that would have taken down a person 
who never discovered other passions besides the drug

those in that mega intersect between
trans and deranged can always just pin
their derangement on “transphobia”

identities might fracture along fault lines
of realness and fantasy, but roots remain—
accessible perhaps to parents and friends

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This is a portion of an ongoing mosaic poem called Made for You and Me. This portion is from the first installment: hive Being (Stanzas 2016-2020). More specifically, it is from the 2017 portion of that five-part work.