teeth and bone

The collegiate poets want it to be beautiful. They want the sunshine streaming through the blinds, or the delicate pitter-patter of that sweet, sweet rain. The flushed cheeks and the big eyes. The lazy laying in the aftermath of it all. The turning over, the talking, the not talking, the feeling, the love. And they use their pretty metaphors. And their sentences run on and on with their euphoria. And they want it all to fit neatly inside the stretch of one arm in a graceful, exhaustive arch; a movement you don’t even think about, supreme and lovely satisfaction.

That’s how the collegiate poets talk about it, in roundabout ways that make you smile fondly. That make you feel warm, make you feel like you could really be making love: not just fucking, but feeling something in that little soul of yours. And you want all of that. You want it so badly to be the sunlight, the pitter-patter, the late daylight where everything is safe and exciting at once. Because if it can be that beautiful, then maybe you are beautiful too.

The collegiate poets don’t like those mean words, the one that don’t describe bodies as soft and gentle and perfect-puzzle-piece. The raw ones, the ones that we read online when we were twelve, and we didn’t know what they meant but we knew they were something because we felt them inside of us. Gnawing at us. Determined to come out of us. And suddenly it’s no longer a happy cry of joy or a quiet laugh, but a scream, a moan, a guttural growl. And it’s full of sweat and scratches and blood and nasty, nasty compulsions— the teeming underbelly of that fragile poem has suddenly taken over like a demon. And you are not beautiful. You are not lovely. You are not lazy. You are desperate and you need it and you want it and you have never been so close to the border between Heaven and Hell in your whole god damned life.  

The collegiate poets want their soft sheet, their sweet love in the afternoon. It is the only thing that separates us from the animals. But their prose is weak, without teeth and bone. And without teeth and bone, we are nothing to those who come years after us, excavating the remains of our houses and trying to know us. 

O America, when you and I were young

America is special. America is beautiful. We make fireworks. They are pretty. They are red and blue and green. They are loud. We like to be loud. We have a flag. It has stars and stripes. We have songs about America. They are nice songs. We learn them in school. We learn a lot in school. I know we came here on a boat. We shared dinner with the Indians. We were nice to them. We gave them land out West to live on. Some of them died. We learn about George Washington. He was brave. We like brave people. We learn about the Constitution. It is long. The Constitution says that we can say whatever we want to say. That means I can say nigger. Yes it does. Yes, it does. We learn about slavery. It was bad. We learn about Abraham Lincoln. He was honest and nice. He freed the slaves and everyone loved him. We learn about Reconstruction. I don’t really remember that lesson. We learn about the Civil Rights movement. There were white people in the Civil Rights movement too. Everyone got along afterwards. We learn about war. We are the best at war. We have guns and they don’t. We learn about Hiroshima. That was bad but we had to do it. We always defend ourselves because we are the best. Sometimes we drop bombs on bad people who speak different than us. It is because they are mean to us. They are jealous. We are a melting pot. People came to Ellis Island. We have many nationalities and that makes us special. To be special you have to be a citizen. We don’t like people who are not citizens. They are not special like us. We learn about border control.

We learn about other things but I am too tired now. We watch T.V. We know that Americans have families and a backyard and a grill and a dog. That is why we are special. China is not special like us. We make t-shirts. They say “I Love The U.S.A” We ask God to bless America. He will do it because we are special. We are his special children. Everybody knows that. We are rich. It is nice. It is what makes us special. We can buy things like guns and medicine and oil. Those are things we need. Some people are poor. It is because they are not American. If everyone lived here they would be happy.

America is special. It is better than everyone else. If you don’t believe me, I will show you my gun. It is big. It is special. It is better than you. It is beautiful like America.