MIDDLE CLASS FIST FIGHT
I hate these poems & you’ve been dead for so long now. I barely have any memories left of you.
The road trip // to Arcadia—
Where [thirty yards from the horses] we slept // amongst
Wild acid flowers. [The sweet earth everywhere].
Air with its fake gold dust.
I want to say that the dead // have purpose for the living—
But I can barely remember your voice // your face.
THOSE SUNDAYS
My father worked too many hours. He’d come home with his
cracked hands and bad attitude. & I’d rather talk about Rory now.
[His blond locks] How the sun would comb crowns into his hair.
Rory was my first love, before he killed himself.
My father hated faggots. The way my cock looked beneath a
dress. The mismatch of his chafed knuckles and my cut cuticles.
A scrambling of hands. I was always running. Mascara. Massacre.
My momma would wash the red paint off my nails and face.
She’d hold me like the frame of a house. No, the bars of a prison
cell.
“Mijo, your father is coming home soon. Hide your heels.” I’m
the donkey clanking down the hall. Click, Clack, Click, Clack.
Over Momma’s body [he’d grab me] & throw me against the
wall. My bruises dark as holes, he punched into the wall. His
hand was the hammer. I was the nail. & I want to talk about Rory
now.
That night, after my father smashed the television glass with his
baseball bat, I met Rory at the park. We made a pipe out of a
plastic bottle and aluminum foil. [He watched me undress & run
through ticking sprinklers]. I fell beside him then; beneath the
maple tree. & he saw my goose bumps from the cold. & he felt
my bruises, as they became a part of him.
Rory, I want to say that death is what you’ve always wanted. But
that can’t be the Truth. [This time] we can blame it on me. I’ll be
the packing mule, carry all the burden. & you, you can be a child
again; fold your church hands like dirty laundry [crease them tight].
Nobody has to know about us, not my father nor yours-
No, not even God.
HOME [CHAOS THEORY]
Home isn’t merely a physical space
But also a philosophical one—
Often defined by a feeling of security.
Here, it’s possible to [own] property
& feel completely homeless.
Here, it’s possible to be sleeping on a park bench
& know you are home.
The last time I ran away
[To San Francisco]
There was this police officer hassling
A “homeless” woman
By the Powell Street Station.
The officer was telling her to move
Move
[Move on].
& the “homeless” woman responded
“Where? I have nowhere else to go!”
& the officer was telling her to
MOVE!!
[Move on].
But what he meant to say is
“You are too poor & brown to be in this neighborhood.”
[When will we stop defining people
In terms of property ownership]?
[This is about the criminalization of poverty].
& the “homeless” woman responded
[To the officer]
“THIS IS MY HOME!!
I HAVE LIVED HERE FOR OVER TWENTY YEARS. I WILL NOT MOVE!!!”
…
…
& the tourists watched
[As the police walked towards her].
[As the police went to grab her].
[As she continued yelling].
“I HAVE AIDS, I HAVE NO MONEY, I HAVE NOTHING LEFT. WHAT DO YOU WANT
FROM ME?! I’M GOING TO DIE HERE. JUST LEAVE ME ALONE & LET ME DIE!!!!”
…
…
& the manner by which
The “homeless” population
Is [often] describe is
Extremely othering.
…
…
I’ve heard some of my closest comrades
Speak of the “homeless” population
[In grand generalizations] such as
“I don’t care
If homeless people
Spend my money
On drugs or alcohol.”
As if “homelessness” were a singular portrait
[A singular experience].
As if I had never been homeless.
[As if I were not sitting // directly beside them].
& it is hard for me
To imagine these comrades
Making such generalizations
& assertions about any other
Population [of people].
Consider the statements–
“I don’t care if black people spend government money or drugs on alcohol.”
“I don’t care if native people spend government money or drugs on alcohol.”
It’s a strange
Place to be
When your
Friends start sounding
Like racists
In the Democratic
Party. [When you
Remember
Such ignorance
Still exists].
& somewhere
There is a book
I want to write
Called “Anarchist
Island.” Somewhere
There is a zine
I want to write
Called “Gay Daddy
Loves
Cum Dumpster.”
[Gay Daddy & Cum Dumpster
Are alter-egos I created after
Rory died].
Never mind…
Let’s talk about the ownership of
Land as a colonial construct
& how the police state was created
To protect stolen property.
Or
Let’s talk about queer pessimism
& how to decentralize happiness //
[How we can still create lives of contentedness & meaning].
Or
Let’s talk about the night Rory crashed his car
Into the center divider of the 405 Freeway.
[We were so high]
With our hands, like kites
Outside the window.
Music blaring.
Tonsils clapping
In laughter!
….
….
When Rory crashed his car
The metal dented, airbags deployed
Smoke smoked.
Windows broke
[Into granulates of glass].
The cops laid flares
[Or broken hearts]
Along the concrete floor.
& TRAFFIC STOPPED FOR US.
For us.
We walked across // the paisley freeway
[Hiding a plastic baggie
Of mushrooms].
We called our fathers
For a ride home.
Rory went to his address
& I went to mine.
My father & I
Didn’t talk on the drive back.
[The space between us was a walrus
With sharp tusks].
& the home // my father brought me to
Was a million pomegranate seeds
Waiting to explode.
…
…
Rory [later] told me about the argument that
He had with his father.
[Such is expected].
& when Rory crashed his car.
& when Rory crashed his car.
& when Rory crashed his car.
& when Rory crashed his car.
& when Rory crashed his car.
& when Rory crashed his car.
[Too much changed].
…
We used to sneak out & sleep in the backseat
Of that car // every night that
My father would
Whoop my ass.
[So almost every night]
We’d sleep there.
Rory drove a green Subaru Outback
Which became my “home.”
My “refuge.” //
My “safe-place.” //
& when his car hit the center divider
Then…
I never considered myself to be
that kind of “homeless”
[Like the woman in San Francisco
With the rotting hands].
BUT sometimes
[When] my father would
Press me beneath
[The moon’s bottom lip].
& I had nowhere else to go.
& I had to leave his house.
& I could no longer stay with Rory.
& I was too afraid to call other friends // or family members.
&
SOMETIMES
When the church was closed.
& the park was being patrolled.
& I got tired of just walking around.
& I would hum songs to myself.
[The love songs of extinct birds].
& those days // I could never create ART.
[Just these shitty narrative poems].
[Just tangential thoughts, escapes, attempts]
Trying NOT to tell you—
Yes.
[I have been that kind of “homeless” before].
When the moon was
A broken headlight
& each star hung
Imprisoned by its sky.
[I was that kind of “homeless”].
I used to sleep in the prairies
Behind the fire station.
There was this old abandoned oak
Tree, with a tire swing.
& I made walls out of
Recycled tarp [I strung
From its branches]. & I stole
Plastic chairs from
The nearby housing tracks.
Then I dug & I flattened
& I swept the dirt floor
Where I laid my sleeping bag
[On top of the cardboard tiles].
There are twenty poems I want to write for you—
About tattered socks & cheap tattoos.
About dumpster diving for food.
[All the boys I kissed for a bed to sleep].
All the boys I wanted to be with
To bring “home”
[But couldn’t].
Christopher Soto (aka Loma) is a queer latin@ punk poet & prison abolitionist. Their first chapbook Sad Girl Poems is forthcoming from Sibling Rivalry Press. They cofounded The Undocupoets Campaign with Javier Zamora & Marcelo Hernandez Castillo in 2015. They’ve interned at the Poetry Society of America & received an MFA in poetry from NYU. They edit Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color with the Lambda Literary Foundation. Originally from the Los Angeles area, they now live in Oakland.