MADE FOR YOU AND ME 2: hive Being (Stanzas 2017—part 12)
Let's workshop this stanza sequence about praying away the gay, the earthly origin of superstitious rules, black supremacy, hunchback luck, Native American football logos, alcoholism, couch potatoes
rubbing hunchback humps for good luck thinking, became praying, you would grow out of gay fearing the very persona, proven invasive, you had planted to handle the fear to stop boys from popping paper bags in the house, just say doing so is unlucky (spells death) to be king is to reign supreme, but we never—never ever ever—mean to suggest anything close to black supremacy when we say “Black—capital B black, of course—is king” banning, in a “heartfelt session of white apology,” the football logo as “racist” despite it being based on a Native American hero is like— no, it is worse than—chastising someone for calling the lady “black” Jesus jam band a cat drowning in a landless sea medicating away the superhero dying is like being owned, root canaled: nestle into that one speckle of the ceiling tile not knowing what the truth is, having told so many stories having to pay for your own house-arrest ankle-monitor no one to look for you, to realize you are missing arm around the dish circumference, eyes vigilant for sibling grabs lovely it can be around psychopaths—all their stories, effusive care, sweet talk that cruel circle of blue sky too far above you, hoarse from shrieking up toward the well’s stone mouth vodka in the lunch thermos lungs invigorated by the deep coughing of a chest cold one last party on the drive to rehab there was natural selection before biology silence gives an air of wisdom, and the old lack stamina must every success yield lit eyes of envy among our friends? tenderness, which his own children had never known, flowering in the grandfather cruising night streets with her cabbie boyfriend, hand tucked behind his back pain a tree’s ultimate coherence despite branches reaching in various directions all these old people in the waiting room, understand, have lost their Beyoncé failing at digging a roadside grave with sticks and fingers a need to hear every graphic nicety before even deciding whether you could bear them in the first place the mob hates the most excellent like a fat couch potato hates those with an ebullience to run and climb ropes and lift weights: cheers to the many unseen artists too excellent to stand a chance before you kill yourself (or otherwise end it all), bring intelligence to the table: consider posing as a preteen to lure in child predators you can then slaughter in the good conscience of collective cheer
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.
