starbardic

[starbardic]

My mother says she wishes she never had children. Every time she looks at the news, she cries. She blames herself. This world isn’t one she wants the people she loves in. It isn’t fair. It isn't fair.

My mother wishes she never had children. She tells me to never be in a relationship if I don’t want to. Promises me she loves my dad, but she wasn’t really built for marriage. She wasn’t really built for kids. I am congealed from her leftover scars. She will not let me make the same mistakes.

My mother does not let me cry for her. She tells me the news and we do not talk. I am in a hotel room pouring her a glass of wine and we do not talk. I am in a dimly lit bathroom dutifully scrubbing blood off of her chest with a baby wipe and we do not talk. 

My mother says she’s sorry and that she does not understand why I cannot let myself be held and she tells me to run with a knife and shave the side of my head and never get married.

I wish my mom wasn’t sorry.

I know she knows what she did.

[starbardic]

holy flesh

i could refuse to eat for days,

exist off the permeating, the intruding,

the way the cloying smell of air conditioner coolant seeps into my skin and dried blood stains my undershirt.

i could baptize myself in the mold-sick humidity of my bathroom,

devote white knuckled prayers kneeling on the laminate.

i could make you kneel at the altar.

i want you to watch me decay. 

trembling fingers on your cheek, holding you in place.

the water you’re pressing to my lips is cool and clean and tempting

and i could still turn it away. bind your hands in repentance. this is not your communion to give, angel.

i could promise myself to something smaller than the sum of my parts,

hold reverence to cracked mirror over the sink,

choke down hymns on every pill i cannot take.

i could memorize the way my transgressions percolate under flesh,

spill myself upon whatever god lies in the folds of my bed sheets.

[starbardic]

want to

I want to be soft and tender.

I want to walk down the street and feel the rays of sun kiss my face

the same way you kissed my cheek.

I want to drink sencha green tea and revel in the flavor,

I want to eat food for the taste.

I want to catch inchworms in my hand.

I want to hum along to music with the windows rolled down

and I want the wind to stir up the hot air.

I want to find the perfect outfit first try

and spend my days with friends and family and lovers

and never once want to run away.

I want to laugh and I want to make you laugh and I want to laugh at you laughing.

I want to sit at coffee shops and read old books

and dream of every life I could have.

I want to go to bed and rest.

I want to wake up to birds and cicadas and orange and pink and blue.

Honey, I’m tired of running away from sunshine

cause it hurts my eyes to adjust from the darkness.

I want to want to live.

I want to be sick with want,

inundated with pests in my chest.

I want to scream out my love for everything until it becomes poetry

more than the nights I’ve spent hiding from desire

and pretending that the lack of any feeling could keep me safe.

I want to open myself up to kindness.

I want to want.

[starbardic]

wedding vows i'll never write

to any hypothetical lover,

i’m sorry i can’t read this to your face.

i hope you know i can’t mean it.

there is a life where i love you.

where i love the way you kiss my eyelids every morning.

to make you coffee,

to dance with you, to care for you.

to hold myself under the sink and know you’ll always reach for me.

i want to talk about the life we could have had,

where there’s rings and music and kisses,

where the meaning shares the weight of the gesture.

and we sing and laugh and cry and fuck and rinse and repeat

and the water in your eyes cools the burning in my chest.

somewhere you (i) are (am) loved.

at least that’s what i tell myself in the reflection of the fireplace

when all the wood turns to carbon

and all of my past apologies turn to entropy.

i’m sorry for the empty pit in my chest.

i tried to fill it with you and only spilled you out instead,

like the wax from every altar candle i knocked over in my wake.

i’m still picking my dreams of you from the carpet.

one day i’ll let it burn the house down

and i’ll leave the rings inside.

[starbardic]

close your eyes and dream of nothing.

the sky is draining itself of stars.

your blood is draining itself of iron.

faintly you notice the hands clasped in prayer,

the fingernails chewed to the quick.

open your eyes and stare at the starless sky,

watch the water reflect pitch black.

douse yourself in the pool and pretend to feel the chill.

close your eyes again.

dreams come in the same dull flashes as consciousness

forget the faces

forget the names

forget the phases

forget the game

push against your eyelids and catch the flashes of light

they’ll suffice for stars in the absence.

[starbardic]

birthday

the face in the mirror doesn’t look like my face.

if i pull on the skin, i feel it acquiesce.

if i talk, my voice comes out of it.

his hair curls the same way mine does and the scar on his lip is the same as mine.

his stare is as wide as mine is.

tomorrow i will wake up and there will be cake and balloons.

tomorrow i will call my relatives and thank them for the kind words.

tomorrow i will sit on the porch until the dry heat forces me back inside.

tomorrow i will wake up and time will pass.

the face in the mirror has the same mole on her shoulder.

it blends into the freckles dotting her arm.

i’m sure her mom used to poke at it nervously the same way mine did.

tomorrow there will be food and decorations

tomorrow there will be words and heat and time

these things will happen tomorrow.

the face in the mirror looks sharper.

they have features i’m sure i have.

they make expressions i used to make.

they have the memories i don’t.

tomorrow one of us is known.

[starbardic]

Hi! Do you enjoy my writing? Consider supporting me financially! My laptop just died, which was where I made pretty much all of my income (video editing + voice acting). Anything, no matter how small, would be insanely appreciated. My kofi is https://ko-fi.com/starbardic ! If you’re a mutual, you can DM me for other apps, but they have my full deadname on them, so I’m a little more hesitant to give them out.

[starbardic]

june

i’m always just biding my time.

the decay of spring is the rebirth of summer.

heat prickles on my skin,

the sun begets freckles.

i trace the purple blotches under my eyes,

wipe off old mascara.

press fists into eye sockets

and pretend the blinding light is something holier than human.

i’m never just biding my time.

i scream until my throat is raw,

curse the sun and it’s proximity,

mark my calendar for the heat death of the universe.

i put on and take off my makeup.

i dream fitfully of my hands around your throat,

wake with no air in my lungs.

sometimes i bide my time.

the hot months make the animals drowsy.

and i hate the part of me that longs for sleep.

smear the blush on my cheeks,

soften my gaze.

nighttime is the only respite

when the light doesn’t quite reach the mirror.

we both know i’m the stag here,

it’s just a question of if you’re the headlights or the car.

[starbardic]

Issue #2 of New Riot Inc is out!

This issue focuses on Disability and Chronic Illness. You can download the zine here

I am extremely grateful to all the contributors and to Eevie of eevie echoes for the interview. I hope you will all enjoy it. Also many thanks to everyone who reblogged the call for submissions!

Submissions for Issue #3 are open, any and all art and writings are welcome. We're going back to Punk rock and riot grrrl for the next issue, stay tuned! Email any submissions or inquiries to newriotinc@gmail.com

[ID/ first image is a banner in red with yellow writing that says New Riot Inc.

second image is the cover page, the background is black and there is red and black flowery washi tape on two margins. The title says 'New Riot Inc.' in golden letters and 'Issue #2' beneath that. There is a drawing of huge steps with a gathering of very small faceless figures trying to climb them. Some are helping the others and some seem to be looking up where a massive set of legs is visible, easily skipping two steps. a dialogue box leading to the legs reads 'Keep up, guys!'. The drawing is set on a background of newspaper clippings and below it the theme is given as 'Disability and Chronic Illness' /end ID]

[starbardic]

carvings

trigger warning for mild gore + autocannibalism

your name is scratched onto my ribs.

i search hungrily for the letters,

bite chunks out of my flesh,

study the bone in the reflection of water.

there is a river bed in a forest

and i am digging at clay with my nails,

shaping earth into your form with my teeth.

my canines know you better than my hands ever will.

the taste of iron hits my tongue,

i write poetry in the ichor and search for your signals,

peel the skin around my nails,

bite down on the collagen.

every fluttering pump of my heart is a compass

an organ tuned on my irascible hunger.

i plunge my face under the water,

hoping to ease the flames inside of me.

some days i think you’ll eat me alive.

most days i pray you will.

[starbardic]

transsexual intentions

i was made transsexual for the same reason i was made a storyteller:

to create and expand.

my body is divine, ever fluctuating,

my soul is constantly beginning anew.

i was made transsexual to flourish,

to tangle my roots and my limbs with humanity,

to face entropy with radical joy.

every day i will choose love and community

and live in solidarity with the body that has been given to me

piece originally written for a zine centered around trans community support as an affirmation for transnesss. because of the internet's lack of penchant for media literacy, i want to acknowledge that my relationship to transness is not going to be the same as anyone else's. this is based on my experience.

[starbardic]

poem about coming home from new york city in elementary school and realizing you're queer

the sun has long melted into orange by the time the train arrives.

the train is by far the worst part of the ordeal.

shake the hairspray from your curls,

tell your dad the kind of passive stories a 7 year old tells

and try to ignore the dried gum draped near your shoe.

you clutch your father’s arm as you find a seat.

you realize with a start that you’re sitting across from Her.

technically speaking, she’s a stranger,

but she’s the prettiest lady you’ve ever seen and that’s worthy of capitalization.

she has long, shiny brown hair

and perfect dark eyes

and her red lipstick is perfectly applied.

she’s beautiful in the 1950s way;

you could see her in an evening gown drinking a cocktail.

you could see her taking a drag of her cigarette on the arm of a tuxedoed man.

you could see her shooting you dead.

it’s only when the bullet is lodged deep in your chest do you question any of it.

the sunset painting itself on her face

or the way it made you feel lost,

like orpheus when the sun hit his face.

and maybe she’s eurydice and maybe she’s the snake that killed her,

and maybe she’s the reason you turned.

[starbardic]

watermarks

it’s not the end of everything,

but it’s the end of one thing.

the end of the dock is a quiet finale into the water.

rotting wood has to mean something, after all.

you once dreamed about drowning, when diving meant the end of the silence.

you imagined hitting the water to the sound of violins

and she’d catch your lips and it would all be okay.

maybe it was the end of the dreaming, of the not knowing.

searching up your symptoms

scouring libraries, feeling ill to your stomach,

gazing up at her building and never finishing the question stuck on your tongue.

you haven’t found the answers yet.

‘what ifs’ hang in your gut, gripping on the edge of the toilet.

was it absence that cured the abscess

or were you drawing these scars on all along?

textbooks yield no tonics,

if this is just platonic

then why does it hurt the way illness is supposed to?

there is a cavern in your stomach.

the pool is warm and so are the hands you’re supposed to hold

and it hits you when you watch the way the water’s reflections tangle together

that it isn’t just the end of one thing

but multiple tiny things

and maybe a beginning too. 

[starbardic]

who are you?

Hi there! I'm Juno, a disabled, queer writer and performer.

Some things about me

❧ I use any pronouns, including neos (the only exception is it/its)

❧ I am halfway through earning my BFA in Theatre Performance

❧ Classic Lit is a big interest of mine

❧ Poetry is my writing form of choice, although I am currently working on other projects you're welcome to ask about!

❧ English is my first language, but French might pop up occasionally. Be warned.