I appreciate how positive they are and that’s unusual
with poems my friend says of my poems. So here I am
thinking about radiation in the shower, how we call out
elements by the count of their positive subatomic particles
like Adam is cue the organ! Hydrogen and Eve is his
electron and all she needs to become a free radical
is a little beta decay and I’m not positive at all
about the science but I know that we’re still testing
bombs on people we’re supposed to love and leave
that bit out of the history books and blockbuster
films we keep naming after Great Men and posit
is a word that doesn’t fit neatly into this poem
but belongs here anyway. With the rest of the world
I’m over the requirement for neutral facts to build
an argument. I know when you grow up with an ache
you can’t define because you believe everybody else
is feeling it there’s catharsis in witnessing a bruise
develop from the negative of your own flesh. So yes,
I seek soreness that calls me back to my bones, covet
injury that can articulate how it’s growing me, hunt hurt
to carve those excess electrons from my centre and turn it
stable. Someone said there’s nothing like returning
to a place that remains the same so I went home
but Cook County finally put some of that corruption
money into resurfacing the roads: the on- and offramps
weave different and it’s a safer change but I get lost
in my own neighbourhood. I am positive this Starbucks
used to be another Starbucks. My friend has a child
who won’t need to crack the shell of a hardened neutral
heart to pour themself into a good mirror, who won’t
chisel at their petrified cuticles twenty years from now
then beg a stranger to bore into the raw bed
of their thumb to stay the detonanion in the nick of time
and there you are. I’m positive you can’t call it a journey
without a destination but if anyone claims I’m using
The End to justify anything you misunderstand
what I mean when I say destined: I had to board
the first ship
out of Ithaka.
I appreciate how positive they are and that’s unusual
with poems my friend says of my poems. So here I am
thinking about radiation in the shower, how we call out
elements by the count of their positive subatomic particles
like Adam is cue the organ! Hydrogen and Eve is his
electron and all she needs to become a free radical
is a little beta decay and I’m not positive at all
about the science but I know that we’re still testing
bombs on people we’re supposed to love and leave
that bit out of the history books and blockbuster
films we keep naming after Great Men and posit
is a word that doesn’t fit neatly into this poem
but belongs here anyway. With the rest of the world
I’m over the requirement for neutral facts to build
an argument. I know when you grow up with an ache
you can’t define because you believe everybody else
is feeling it there’s catharsis in witnessing a bruise
develop from the negative of your own flesh. So yes,
I seek soreness that calls me back to my bones, covet
injury that can articulate how it’s growing me, hunt hurt
to carve those excess electrons from my centre and turn it
stable. Someone said there’s nothing like returning
to a place that remains the same so I went home
but Cook County finally put some of that corruption
money into resurfacing the roads: the on- and offramps
weave different and it’s a safer change but I get lost
in my own neighbourhood. I am positive this Starbucks
used to be another Starbucks. My friend has a child
who won’t need to crack the shell of a hardened neutral
heart to pour themself into a good mirror, who won’t
chisel at their petrified cuticles twenty years from now
then beg a stranger to bore into the raw bed
of their thumb to stay the detonanion in the nick of time
and there you are. I’m positive you can’t call it a journey
without a destination but if anyone claims I’m using
The End to justify anything you misunderstand
what I mean when I say destined: I had to board
the first ship
out of Ithaka.
K Angel (they/them) is a kinky, neuroqueer, trans/non-binary writer, performer, and researcher from the American Midwest, with words published in the Tin House Open Bar, PANK, new words {press}, and elsewhere. A two-time participant in the HBMG Foundation’s National Winter Playwrights Retreat and shortlisted for the Virago FURIES Competition, they live in London, where they co-host the playwriting community Pages & Pints and sometimes appear as the singing country drag king TrucK. You can find them online at @someimpropernoun.