At fifteen you tell me I will probably never be okay, Clueless, Phoebe Bridgers, and I were all born six months apart and that feels like it means something, & The poem I write after reading Toni Morrison’s Sula
Bleah Patterson
__________
At fifteen you tell me I will probably never be okay
in my dreams I cry, wake up drown–
ing in that river with cotton tied
ankle to ankle
sit up thunderstorming
until the tap runs from brown
to clear and you slap me wide
clink every tooth in my jaw until I’m spangled
toward the door I’d spent years closing
so long now and when I say
another sad thing couldn’t possibly permeate
this moment, I think about the way
fabric reaches capacity, cannot
hold more black dye, won’t cave
no matter how much longer you bathe
it. When I say I am just too full to convey
how tired I am you only laugh, hot
and I am so sure it’s kindness not an eye
for an eye, when you say I think my mew-
ing sorrow is the best sadness, no
I can’t argue, can only take your hand, ask
if you’d rather skinny dip while looking at the sky
or sink like stones, become something new
__________
Clueless, Phoebe Bridgers, and I were all born six months apart and that feels like it means something
I’m all wallowed out again
listening to Moon Song
and lusting after that yellow, plaid
set, after Paul Rudd
after
a girlhood so glamorous
whirlwind it had to be
yanked, screwed
in place by an allen wrench
tapped down three times
by one of those small hammers
to make sure we wouldn’t keep
wiggling we wouldn’t keep
canoodling that soft, boa’d edge
we wouldn’t keep spritzing
that cucumber melon
we wouldn’t keep wallowing
so that we
wouldn’t keep.
___________
The poem I write after reading Toni Morrison’s Sula
She loved me so sharp
Fanta for breakfast
before you’ve even brushed your teeth
and I was thick with it
that gummy, Hubba Bubba bubbling mouth
and the way she could so quickly say
I fucking love you
like it wasn’t brave like it wasn’t a risk
the way she scabbed me over and
over and picked away parts of me
she loves me
she loves me not the way
I licked the nickeled bleeding of my palms
didn’t break eye contact wanted her to know
that I was brave that she was worth the risk
and she, all those years later
grown said she’d thought it had been the boys
her own Mama, she thought she’d
spent her whole life missing them
__________
Bleah Patterson is a queer, southern poet from Texas. Much of her work explores the contention between identity and home and has been featured or is forthcoming in various journals including Electric Literature, Pinch, Grist, The Laurel Review, Phoebe Literature, The Rumpus, and Taco Bell Quarterly.
__________
To learn more about submitting your work to Boudin or applying to McNeese State University’s Creative Writing MFA program, please visit Submissions for details.