idontlikerattlesnakes

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

JORDANS

You left me nothing but your precious shoes

The ones you would weild

To leverage my insecurity

You’d let me wear them sometimes

On the condition I didn’t scuff them

Now I wear all the scratches and stains

Like battle scars

And badges of honor

From a crusade I never wanted

I earned them.

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

SAFE SPACE

What if we met in a different plane

where the windows weren’t foggy

from the remnants of our pain,

and every dream reachable

and every promise true-

What would you do?

I’ve stolen enough time.

Make me a restitution—

A haven to grow and heal

from the spark in those glances;

that familiar hurt

you also knew.

We could rise up, you know

as the vapor that engulfed us

and the unspeakable parts

would just dissolve into a whole;

gloriously unreal,

yet ever true.

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

small talk

“You know, I almost worked for SweetJames. Wouldn’t thadda been funny?”

“Yeah.”

——————

It was almost as if I knew—

I was reluctantly rushing

through the saccharine tang;

My layer cake of

“how’s the dog/the plants/the boyfriend?”

Before you said you’d had enough

Too gooey, too raw,

Too undone for your mountainous mold

Consuming me with firmer words

That cut like the wedding cakes

we’ll never share;

Now I am small and poor

but won’t stop talking,

for silence is starvation

under a disapproving glare,

And though there was always

much to talk about,

You revealed the nothing there.

——————

“Well, there it is! We drive the same car— isn’t that funny?”

“Yup.”

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

In defense of drag:

Drag is an incredibly important art form, as are all subversive forms of expression. However, this is especially important to a historically marginalized community of which I am a part, and I will not stand silently by as it is needlessly targeted and regulated by fear-based ideology.

Dolly Parton is Drag. Liberace, Eddie Izzard, Freddie Mercury, Elton John, Harry Styles and soooo many other cultural icons have played with society’s boundaries of gender expression with impunity due to some other asset they’ve offered or privilege they’ve been afforded.

Your local drag performer is no different. Neither is the 12 year old who secretly plays dress up with their sister’s clothes, or longs to express themselves in their own unique way. Their freedom to follow that impulse is just as important to the culture at large. The damage that is done by sending a message that their self-expression is harmful, unwelcome or indecent is far greater than attending a drag story time or being exposed to the art form in mainstream culture.

I’ll admit that I was once turned off by drag because of the discomfort it espoused. It was initially unsettling seeing men subvert the societal box imposed upon them. It seemed dirty and vulgar, and I wanted nothing to do with it. It evoked the shameful feelings of internalized homophobia that I felt as a child when I overheard my parents being chastised for letting me play with dolls or take ballet.

The very sight of it made the toxic masculinity that had been insidiously pressed upon me my entire life bubble up from my gut in a suffocating pall. I’m not ashamed to admit that I once felt that way so others who still feel that discomfort know that it’s okay to feel it at first - that’s sort of the point.

I’m eternally grateful that I had a dear friend basically force me to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race from the beginning, and to say it changed my life is an understatement.

It enriched it.

Becoming a patron of drag not only broadened my worldview but also enhanced my sense of humor, beauty, and whimsy. There is nothing like the awe-inspiring experience of seeing an exquisite drag performer like Violet Chachki up close and personal, or literally rolling on the floor in uncontrollable laughter from the brilliant comedic offerings of Jinkx Monsoon or Bianca Del Rio.

Drag fearlessly and fabulously plays with the foibles of this unruly thing we call society. In the words of the infinitely wise RuPaul Charles, it engages the “tenacity of the human spirit”.

I’m no longer ashamed to admit that I was that 12 yr old boy who made dresses out of blankets and strutted the imaginary runway in his bedroom. There was absolutely nothing sexual or pathological or perverted about it - it was innocent and pure self-expression. It’s also important to note that these harmless impulses arose naturally, not due to any exposure. It wasn’t until much later that I learned about the drag community. How much easier my adolescent years would have been if I could have seen society validate that, even in the smallest way. I no longer find it dirty or twisted or wrong.

All I can see now is courage and truth.

For those of you traditionalists who are still clutching your theoretical pearls I will leave you with this - I simply do not enjoy or connect with the great American sport of football.

I’ve given it the ole’ college try! I’ve gone to games, had friends and family members explain it, even tried to follow fantasy leagues and betting pools in order to understand the appeal.

After thorough investigation, I can pretty confidently say that it’s just not my bag. However, I can’t stop the fact that football is simply everywhere. It’s on TV when I go out to eat, it’s the daily conversation topic of my co-workers, it’s the event that completely took over my city a few weeks ago.

I can still acknowledge and respect how important it is to some people, not to mention the Herculean athletic stamina and strategy required by its players.

That said, if I were in some alternate universe where legislation was introduced to regulate the right to have tailgate parties, middle and high school football teams, and /or publicly celebrate this fundamentally American sport, I would be in full support of appealing it. I would fight for the existence of something that is important to a large swath of society—even if I cannot understand or connect to it.

To put it simply:

**YOU DON’T HAVE TO ENJOY OR ENGAGE WITH DRAG TO SUPPORT IT**

However, denying others the right to do so or attempting to eradicate/control it in public spaces sends a very scary and pointed message to people like yours truly. It also denies the simple fact that our society is a rich tapestry made up of many vastly different interests, tastes, and communities.

These things simply MUST be allowed to be expressed freely, otherwise we start toward a very slippery slope of a society where maybe something that you love and cherish will one day be deemed unfit for the mainstream culture.

I implore you to keep an open mind, and listen to those who are speaking up about this.

We are good, we are valid, we are important. So much of the culture you enjoy originated in queer/marginalized communities. Please allow us our freedom to keep creating - I can assure you that you would not like to live in a world without it.

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

The Fixer

I want to heal every sore

make me a doubting Thomas

or miracle worker so

when I lay hands on

that stark strange hurt

our wounds become calm,

and the dark spots

where chaos flowed

remain as nothing

but cauterized love

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

QUARK

In every form and every plane

Where matter and energy meet,

I will find you

In the morning of endless collision;

At the starting point’s expansion

And in heat,

And even in its crushing absence

Our vibrations will persist

Moving at impossible speeds

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

Self-love

It makes me feel

Like I want to grieve you

before you're even dead

Or to curl up and cry

Over something never said

I still can't figure out

How to hold you

So I guess we'll just go down

Together

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

BATON ROUGE

Speeding through

Baton Rouge

I almost told him

Would he have known

Enough to care

With windows up

We passed it

Why can’t silence

Be the Enough

Feverishly flipping

Through channels

Of Cajun country

Dreams,

What ally

Could he be

Here with me.

(I always hated the humidity)

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

To infinity:

We bonded

Over the futility of our futures

You told me of men in ancient Rome

‘Do they know significance’

Maybe not,

But I will keep what you inspire

Forever fossilized

So when the excavators dig us up

They’ll know we found something

Significant here

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

TRITE

That trite emoji looks up at me from the screen and it’s exhilarating that you will never know how I would rather support you than feed myself.

It’s lifeless, but I will also be statically joyous in death.

Let me go hungry all the time. Let me be free from the plastic binds and bootstrap lies that keep us apart. I would go naked with nothing just to see the look on your face.

Or rather, emoji.

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

I would run away for hours

Sometimes I’d take you with me

I didn’t care if you wanted to go

I would drag you

I was going to find a way through

And you were going to help me

A reluctant companion

And a water bottle of vodka

RuPaul ringing in my ears

I’d resist giving in to that sunshine delerium

As we stumbled through the rocks

Bloody knees, broken heart

It should have ruined us both

When I finally came to

We were on the other side of town

But you surely and steadily

Guided me back home

In that sick-sweet dusk

I found me.

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

https://youtu.be/xQ_yekyu8U0

28.

You’ll wake up when

you’re 28.

A breakfast of warm beer and rice-crispy treats;

you’re untethered.

You’ll hear him in the living room, though that happy clinking might as well be miles away.

Miles away

You’ll wake

with the overwhelming urge to alienate

yourself from everyone

you’d ever love-

you’ll ever love

matched with the desire to hold them so

so close

They don’t breathe.

Maybe then they would stay.

They’d be

“yours”.

You are numb.

You don’t own anything,

you don’t know anything,

but the cool air caresses

your skin

in the darkness and with

your bones

You’ll feel

The cigarette smoke is a nice distraction-

You’ll like how it burns your eyes.

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

Honey (a prayer)

I’m in your shoes now—no matter matters because we don’t matter anyway. I stand around in those goddamn short-shorts you used to wear, moping.

Those motherfuckers.

They told me I looked okay, and yet I feel like a lunatic. I don’t want to dance, I don’t want to bounce up and down with your asinine beats.

Feeling really small now.

I want to feel as dead as you feel alive. I want to feel as closed off as you are in your cell, so that I can pick apart those voices in my head.

Pick them apart like carrion.

Then I’ll go live with you in your pretty little prairie house away from the city. We can look for community events each weekend, and get involved in some club.

We’ll grow old together.

We’ll grow used to those apathetic silences. Let’s chug through life like it’s another chore (the faucet in the guest bathroom still needs to be fixed).

Honey, please fuck me.

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

Arizona Dreaming

Setting: Williamson Valley, AZ

Circa. 2009

Racing across the high desert

in my sunbeaten Sentra,

l am made of adolescent steel—

deceptively sturdy

but sporadic.

I let the souls of indie rockers

lure me on a safari

into nowhere.

A thrill in going as far away

from civilization as possible,

followed by the welcome warmth

of its eventual return.

How wise mesas

and fields of untouched life

whisper secrets

to the teardrop sky;

their peaceful stasis betrays

the calamity of living.

The mirage of

a crystal cool existence

beyond our atmosphere

is more apparent now

than a smoke signal.

Only the buzzing

hymn of cicadas

and the gentle nudge

of nooonday breeze

chimes in to the lull.

The engine devours

unkempt road

twisting far off

into a ponderosa oasis.

Smells of dirt and juniper

evaporate off the earth,

as the disturbed dust

paints pastels in the air

behind me.

I am limitless--

as inconsequential as a blade of grass,

yet hearty as a sandstorm.

Where time and chaos

come to rest.

This corner of a precious plain

my respite,

my joy,

my nirvana.

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

YAKASHABA

~The Yavapai word for the point where the earth meets the sky—the physical location of the horizon line. ~

I suppose as a kid I wanted to believe that I could go there, so I named my fallen pine tree that. It was almost at the top of the the steep hill behind our house and poked out of a thick brush into a clearing.

The branchless top section dangled over the sloped terrain like the pointed bow of an old ship (the waves smelled of soil, lilac, and juniper; my brother was the oldest shipmate). I could balance to the very end, the roots on the other side of the trunk beginning to lift slightly like a poorly designed teeter-totter, but never fully sliding down the hill. Just enough slip to pitch a quick thrill at my eleven year old heart.

I was an explorer as I bravely stood barefoot on the horizontal bark— surveying the new world ahead of me. I was on the back of a rocket thrust endlessly forward into the hyperspace of my imagination.

There were no trails to Yakashaba. Arriving there meant inevitable struggle—tiny cuts and scratches from the coarse foliage, muddy shoes, torn clothing. I thought of cutting out a path, but I didn’t want to. It was my secret shrine to share with the select few I deemed worthy to traverse to the end of the world.

The view was spectacular. It faced northeast over the small canyon ahead, and I could see the granite mountain and miles of rolling hills with burgeoning housing developments. I could look out over our cul-de-sac, spy on neighbors from above, and occasionally even see those mysterious far off snow-capped triplets—the San Francisco Peaks. They looked almost neon blue from this vantage, and I was deeply disheartened that upon intimate inspection they were just the same plain-old earth.

Distance is a funny thing.

I often think about how my tree saw the world. I wonder if it is still watching while glacially giving itself back to the soil. The natural order of things. I think of how it kept quiet vigil over our house, like a sage or spirit. For me, It bore witness to the spaces in between. Those long, drawn out moments of insignificance.

Yet I would often escape there after the most significant ones. The sound of my mirror crashing when I didn’t know my own strength was likely muffled and small by the time it reached my dear tree. I know it was heard. I would throw myself into the arms of this sacred space when I’d lose my temper with family, myself, or the world, because it was exempt from all three.

It existed in its own time and place; far away from my silly machinations that paled in comparison to the miracle of its precarious existence. I still felt guarded and impassioned when I was there—safe from the darker secrets it held in its weather-worn wood.

I know it heard her crack on the floor, and the horrified scream because I just didn’t know my own strength. It kept watch over that suddenly limp frame sobbing in the driveway, the frantic concerned neighbors jumping to action, the smash of the mailbox under the tires because I didn’t spot that patch of black ice. It knew and honored all of my shortcomings, and provided a majestic sanctuary for me to regroup and return.

It knew my strength, even when I was blindsided by it.

It felt the passing of her soul from the basement like a whisper on the nape, and saw the dogs in the backyard as they unexpectedly howled to the void that morning. It felt the pangs of 3AM teenage romance radiate from the corner of my room. It was an objective observer to all the fights, secrets, lies, dreams, and mundane motions that hummed incessantly from our home. It took it all in graciously and unwaveringly.

It just wouldn’t budge.

I’d like to go back there. I want to see if the distance between that frightened boy and this frightened man changes its appearance. That blue trick of the light might be all that is left. I’m terrified to think that all I would see is an unremarkable decaying log where once stood a monolith. I want to know that it still holds my distress, dreams, and secrets in trust. That somehow my presence was absorbed into its very fibre, and a flicker of my adoration for this unsuspecting ponderosa remains within its withering carcass.

Then again, I can make Yakashaba everywhere and anywhere, just as the earth actually meets the sky at all points—not just one.

[idontlikerattlesnakes]

Apollo

————

I didn’t know you well, but you sat on the couch in my living room.

Behind a thicket of dreadlocks, you placidly told me about visiting Costa Rica in a Rastafarian-adjacent drawl. I made my usual comment that pedestrians don’t have the right-of-way there.

If you’re hit, it’s your fault.

You were out of it, of course. Stoned for sure, but probably swimming in a cocktail of substance. Endlessly trying to find the elusive light at the bottom, like all of us. I can still sense your gentle spirit—docile and scarred like a retired greyhound.

John sat next to you and wanted to kiss you so badly. It was a contained force that hissed throughout the room like a smoke bomb, and we all gagged. I could have kissed you too, sweet man, but sometimes love works best when it’s hidden.

————

On Sunday night you took the hit, so by Monday your body was cold. Chest compressions are a false hope borne of panic. He had just left to go buy your cigarettes, only to return to this frantic task.

I wonder who eventually smoked them.

I wonder what John thought when he saw the burnt foil, your vacant face, the same one that would calmly call the dog, wrinkle in laughter or confusion. The face that nuzzled against him in reluctant platonic cuddling.

You must have been exhausted from happiness because your smile-lines were so deep—almost like the crevices of pain you tried to fill with your faulty spiritual Botox, Fentanyl.

I didn’t know you well, but I know that pain.

————

“Seee-dooo-naaaa”

You named your dog after a city of wealth and wellness. She was all the enlightenment you needed, except for that pestilent need to escape.

They said you wouldn’t let a woman touch you for fourteen years. They cut you open on that sterile table and you were still embarrassed from it. I know John touched you, though. He gave you more love than you could have gleaned from any manic pixie dream girl. I think you kept each other alive.

Symbiosis expresses itself in the most unlikely ways. It wasn’t enough for you to survive, but I could see the comfort in your eyes. You fed off the love of others yet it could never completely fill that restless gargantuan soul.

I think that’s why you fell in love with emptiness. I wish I could tell you that life is just emptiness in motion, though you must know that by now.

It is just a shadow.

————

I didn’t know you well, but we danced together in the desert dust.

Saturday, the last time I saw you. Our limbs were flailing wildly under the half-baked moon that fucked with the sky-view; they only stopped moving for long embraces and chainsmoking.

Usually you could see every star out here, you said, but it was still magical. At least we could watch out for rattlesnakes. Stars weren’t the only thing that moonlight hid. It shone so bright that you were blissfully unaware of the darkness to come.

The darkness underneath, beyond the very bottom.

Beyond the smile, the dog, the shrooms, the dreads, the cigarettes and weed and armchair psychology. Beyond the dealer who knew it could kill you, but that just meant it was good shit, bro. Beyond the needle’s sting and the burn of the spoon and reeling guts and pangs of pleasure. Beyond the dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and adrenaline.

Beyond chemicals and compounds.

————

I didn’t know you well, but I know that darkness.

I didn’t know you well, but I know that emptiness.

I didn’t know you well, but I have known light.

I believe you knew it too. I believe in accidents.

————

I didn’t know you well, but we’re not in Costa Rica and I know it wasn’t your fault.

[idontlikerattlesnakes]