Fag spelled out sounds like effigy.
The poppet full of my stubble.
A slur sewn inside me
Rhyming. An exponential function
Is a never-ending climax. Child me
Cutting caltrops from tin cans:
Grandma’s gentle consequence
Of unboxing the war stories.
None of my adolescent weapons saved me
From the inventions of my failures:
The poem that I refuse to write. The library
I make in its absence. The boats borne back
To the ocean. A destination far from myself–
I stood on that dock. I jumped and did not fall.
I milled the memory in search of a lesson.
All I learned was that I lived. With myself,
I told myself something else. Something
Promising. A tale where all the hurt
Meant something more. It didn’t. I did.