"Emily Dear" or "This one's for you" or "Saturday"

The first poem I performed was written by a woman, a friend. She asked me to read it, then moved a thousand miles away. It dealt with love. It dealt with loss. It was a good poem, right? (Right.) I read it wearing eye-liner. My long hair. My young boy goatee.

The MC for the poetry contest tried inviting me back to his place; failed. He invited me to another poetry group. "For teens like you!" he said.

The MC read a poem about cold spunk splashing onto hot skin in a orange Louisiana night.

All in all, it was a good first poetry reading to go to.


I don't write poetry any more. I can't get the rhythms down.

Swimming, though: I can swim for miles, just my arms; just my legs, whatever, really.

Right now I'm practicing swimming freestyle with my arms, and not smashing my head into the water when I breathe. I know when I'm doing it right, because when I do it wrong my ego crumples against the water and it feels like I've stopped up short.


I have a cane because of swimming. Ironic, because I love boobs so much, right(? Right...) that the breast stroke is what's doing my knees in. All sorts of pulling things in the wrong direction. All sorts of bad torque.

So I have this cane: clear plastic-looks-like-glass and sometimes, for fancy dress parties or bars in Flint where strangers give me drugs for free and then I laugh and smile and forget their name; sometimes I take my cane with me, even on good knee nights like this. So it's me in a light pinstripe suit, with my cane, and a disposable eye patch with a big red X sharpie'd on, with people asking me what I did. "It's not nearly as hard core as you'd think," I tell them. Or I tell them I sneezed while putting in a contact lens. I always laugh: my eyes are thus far mostly fine.


Before that bar, I contemplated staying in, finishing one of the Narnia books. Or finishing "The Invisibles" volume six. Having a quiet beer and some loud food.