four poems
by Heather Truett
Yesterday I had two orgasms
and three cups of coffee, but I didn't write. I sex
dreamed guilty, held tiny beads up to the light
and probably texted too many LOLs.
I am lonely & full & empty & other
abstractions. Book spines cell me in, movie carpet red
and my heart a sudden in-my-throatness. Want
leaps unexpected.
Fifteen, he called me
can’t wait. The body’s
first moments in aliveness, sex stirred
beneath my belly, the future held
locked between my thighs...
I'm still lonely in abstraction, still
a tiny bead, an extraneous LOL in an awkward
message that screams "like me" naively, as if my open
brokenness is not draped across
my breasts, no longer safe inside
my womb, birthed, born, toddling, teething, wet.
How do you… Human? Friend? Lover? How do we
connect inside abstraction?
Are orgasms and coffee and walks in the woods outside
of time? How would red carpet feel beneath
my knees, my back, our skin? Here is my aliveness
held up to the light.
Human Anatomy and Poemology
Don't ask me for atria or ventricles when you cannot give
me a tissue to dry my eyes or a single nerve not stripped
to barest thread.
I have no poem to write for you. I have
no poem to write. I have
no poem
I sliced into the hollow behind my knee, trying to bend
for you, but the bone didn't give. Slide the knife across
my palm. Trace the lifeline in perfect iambic pentameter. Press
the pulse to feel me breathe. You breathe swamp water and swollen
lymph nodes, abstract alliteration, an allusion to what you want
from me. The blade of my pen is brackish with blood, and I have
no poem to write for you. I have
no poem to write. I have
no poem
There is algae on the assonance, a metaphor of moss growing
lateral and medial, hanging from fingers, strangling
larynx and trachea. Don’t ask
me for poetry canals of fresh water when you cannot give
me capillary streams of irony or a page of flesh to hold
my words. Slip the knife into my heart, slit
the aortic arch and let me bleed the lines you need to flow control my free
verse. Break me apart bone by bone and stash the stanzas in the wet
lands of your rejection. The blade of my pen is stuck
in my spine, and I have no poem to write for you. I have
no poem to write. I have
no poem
They found alcohol inside a nebula.
I look for wine inside the glass
curve of my own body. Stars swirl
in eddies of vodka. Thoughts are
drunken, soaked, spiral
galaxy of absurd ideas, fantastical un
realities. Who drank champagne
in a thirty-year-old supernova, poured
nostalgia down her throat like
drowning? I am alone
in my forgetting and remembering
how the newness of nearness could break
all self delusion. No one
to nip the lips of novelty
alongside me now. I don’t know
how to swim. I don’t know how
to sink. I buoy above the under
tow, terrified and tantalized, terrifically
tempted to dive. Is it deep
sea or satellites? Is tomorrow
coming in? Low tide. Sea
shell. Space ship. Yester
day. They found alcohol
inside a nebula, ethanol
and vinegar, sharp tang of lowered
inhibitions. I am
alone in the glass cage
of my own body, the stem of spine
does not bend. The collarbone and shoulder
blades are bound to break
me open, break me
down the spiral, undercover enemy
is only me, only a bubbly drink. I celebrate
alone, inside an absurd supernova.
I Want You to Want Me Like Nic Cage Wanted Patricia Arquette
It’s dangerous to want like I want, like he wanted, to want
to be worth JD Salinger’s autograph and a wedding
costume from the Lisu tribe in southeast Asia. Here
is the list of what to do to prove that you want me.
I want to be wanted but not had, not entirely
caught. I want you to chase me like black
orchids, but this list is tattooed on my ribcage
in cursive script and invisible ink. Weave
your web, please. Buy the spray paint, flower
dark in my front yard and ring the bell, don’t
beg, don’t punch walls, just fly me
to Cuba while reading me lines of Neruda.
I want you to know I am a little bit broken, a whole
woman wanting someone to write verses in silk
across my flesh while I pour us into a champagne
story, or drive me into the forest and we can burn
by a cabin covered in obnoxiously large orange
blooms. Let your lips blossom on my hip bone.
I want to not want to be wanted, but I do. I want
to not want to want to be wanted, but I’ve tangled
wings in my own web, can’t read my writing. I could
steal my own Bob’s Big Boy, but the fiberglass
of desire shredding my skin is aflame. Water
my roots, please. Peel me on the forest floor.
I want no one to know how fake I feel, flesh
vibrating in vinyl, cat suit and claws, purple
wedding cake covered in orchids. Marry
the chasms I carry and call holy, call me back
to myself. Move into the house of me and stay
only six months. Stay six years. Frost
me in an airport bathroom and feast.
Photo of Heather Truett
BIO: Heather Truett holds an MFA from the University of Memphis and is doing PhD work at FSU. Her debut novel, KISS AND REPEAT, was released from Macmillan in 2021. She has work in Hunger Mountain, Whale Road Review, and Appalachian Review. Heather serves as editor-in-chief for the Southeast Review. Find out more at www.heathertruett.com.