three poems
by Tatiana Kent
homer, alaska, your twenty fourth summer
you wake up lying on top of your vibrator, it’s maybe 10:30, the sun is shining cruel and white, you take a cold shower, the Keurig rumbles, you always looked down on people who used Keurigs but, because beggars can’t be choosers, you choke down, salted mayo slathered halibut between freezer burned sourdough, you stare to the mountains, you are afraid to zoom out on Google maps and see how far away from pennsylvania you really are, there is water pooling at the door of your fridge, you scoop dishes slimy with bits of scrambled egg and boxed mac n cheese sauce out of your bathroom sink, so you can wash your hands and put sunscreen on your face, your mom says you look younger, when he dumped you over the phone you were sitting here, on the toilet, pissing out iced coffee (his words, verbatim: this is fucking insane, this is not what any normal twenty three year old wants to do with their life) you lived off Mcdoubles and green apple Kinky shooters for a week, derek says that that Mcdonalds shut down for a week for ecoli but you feel fan-fucking tastic. you let the cat in to purr in your lap while you scroll TikTok, your landlord’s daughters are screaming through the walls, you are not sure if your headache is a hangover or a purely a feeling made tangible, like
it’s starting to drizzle, and it’s always rainier on the spit than it is in town, you put on your new green raincoat and your green REI pants, thinking you must look like a little toy soldier from an eagle’s point of view, the dogs follow you out howling to the main road, little pieces of gravel fly up, settle on your back, your hair, rain means less midwestern boomers strolling along the path deaf to your bell, you amp the battery all the way up to 15 and coast past the planes on beluga lake, the fish processing center, the used car dealership, lupine’s dead, it’s nearing fireweed season. your hands grow clammy on the handle bars. you taste microscopic bits of shells in your mouth. the spit is grey, the spit is forgiving of transgressions and the spit is where youjustmaybeanothersmilingyounghappyblondgirl, instead of
you lock up your bike under the stairs and stomp inside, where perhaps there will not be so many dipshits trying to debate you over the authenticity of the damascus steel knives in the case today and perhaps annie will fill you in on how her dui case is going in between checking in the wildlife tour families and perhaps you and heidi will fold shirts together, singing megan moroney, she tried to help you find your lost bike key when it fell below the slats once and you never found it and owen had to come cut the chain off but she helped you look, long after the last roller derbyers had left the boardwalk, sun still shining on your gelato stained fingers, and you were so embarrassed, you worried somebody would come to take it away while heidi drove you home, a tidal wave, the hand of a giant, the hands of
heidi wants to think the guy she hooked up with outside that pizza place is as good as it gets, and i’m inclined to tell her the truth – yes, you will not be alone, you will not be left alone, there will be a string of them, brown eyed and tan, and in the end what do you have but the burn of cheap pot in your throat, the indifferent eyes of mother moose, she tells you
your tears have dried now so nobody can guess your unique flavor of malaise when they ask did you grow up here and you can say no, i’m just a vagabond. there is nothing in this place i did not find in my palm at thirteen.
Watching Pillion at the Philadelphia Film Society in early spring —
I saw a film the other night. My roommate asked if I went with my boyfriend, I said no.
I sat in the theatre in my work leggings with chocolate covered pretzels melting on my fingers. I began to recall that everything is sex except for sex and every man who you’ve allowed to hit you has a better understanding of you than god, your mother, or the cherry blossom trees dropping wedding-dress-white petals onto your aging face.
I used to be an actor. High school. Mostly male roles, on account of the pixie cut.
I was good at that, the old man told me, stinking of booze; a wrinkled, baby’s-ass-soft hand on my shoulder. Good at letting other people’s souls fill the gaping cups in my hand-me-down bras. Before I said, would you mind –
(I used to be an actor.)
– would you mind holding your knife to my throat in bed, lacey white nightgown flowing bright and strong into the night. It’s the only way I can finish. That, or an anvil dropped on my bleached skull.
“I would never do that to you.” That’s what they all say at the beginning, so smile and nose-kiss him and wonder if you could resign yourself to lives of katsup pie and bargain bin DVDs. Do you remember the first time you got into a car and seriously thought, this man might kill me?
I used to play virgin teenager baby and promise I’d dye my long hair copper for him. I used to be an actor.
Do you remember changing bras in front of the window in the old house and seeing that somebody was watching you? You looked at each other for a few rotten seconds before he peeled off onto Frankford. You felt it was a sign from god, of better plums ahead. If you’ll recall there was one window in that house. There was one reprise from your tender servitude. You would say, someday when we’re married we won’t do this stuff anymore. I used to be an actor.
Do you remember someone who may or may not have been you, or your shadow, saying: wouldn’t it be sweet to watch you moan psalms of devotion into some redhead’s pale veined ear, so that I may feel some great relief from being your only tether to reality?
Is there not some small joy in wanting a tenderness you will never have, miming only a sliver of the devotion you really feel?
“You’re unlike anybody else I’ve ever met.”
Babe, I guess I’m still an actor.
Epilogue
Lick sticky rice from grocery store sushi off your fingers and kindly turn your attention to the dishes in the sink, the cutting board with the stale hunk of Gouda tough and crumbling like plaster. In the den you may hear Pop turn on The Mentalist and cough, but you are not concerned; as it is no more deep and rasping than usual. In a few minutes you will tread out in sock feet to hand him his pack of Camels, and he will say thank you, Tanishka, and blink at you, slowly, like a cat. And many times, back to back with strangers on the trolley, you will be envious of those already in their wintered years. You will feel as though you should be kneading bread in solitude or writing letters to strangers across oceans. You will settle for reading besides him while he watches his Jeopardy reruns and the lamp flickers. But there are many things in his ninety one years, wouldn’t you say, that one cannot be envious of, be it his adultery, or his coldness, or his solitude, or his blasphemy, or his half moon truths. You see, my mother is bringing him borscht, with ice cubes melting in it to soothe his bulbous tongue.
I would like to be satisfied with the end of the poem. I would like to be satisfied with my unmarked skin. I am so drunk, and I will not be sober till November. I would like to be afraid again. I want to remember what it was like to feel Jesus through a peanut butter jelly and mushroom sandwich, and see pink elephants in burning bushes. But my rapist preferred the Eastern philosophy. Everything that kisses the dirt will rise again in a raw, pink body. Perhaps this is why his gaze could still meet mine, after the fact. He knew in some distant land, I’d be whole again. I would like to follow the instructions, and I would like to behave myself, and I would like to forget it all. As it stands, I am much like the kitten ripped from its mother too early, suckling at air for the milk that has dried up. Pop saw his mother being carried out of their apartment building with one shoe still dangling from her foot and perhaps its twin is still somewhere on the street, in the old country, wool damp with evening dew.
Photo of Tatiana Kent
BIO: Tatiana Kent is a writer based in west Philadelphia. She graduated from Ursinus College, where she was awarded the Prose Prize for her short story "The Men in My Life" as well as the Dolman Prize for excellence in creative writing. She has a forthcoming poem in Salt Hill Journal. You can find her on Instagram at @greenbannisters.