In the small and quiet moments 
i can easily reflect on all or most 
of our interactions. 

You might be just one person but 
easily you could melt into a series 
of other faces and bodies. 

You melt from my bedroom in Seattle, 
to the myriad of different rooms in New Orleans 
(including my dorm rooms a few times). 

The blending is a smooth stretch 
of mostly black/brown nuances.
 
Your collective arousal’s stir different things 
for me like a sense of pride, a sense of shame, 
a sense of hunger– sometimes i want and 

sometimes i need. 

In compact ways i feel jaded and removed 
from the situations; they are essentially past 
tense, other life times within my forward 

momentum. 

Sometimes i want to talk with you and see how 
life is and other times i curse this peopled memory 
that finds it hard to let go if a principle has been violated. 

I find myself touching myself with multiple names 
and they all mean something 
until they mean nothing. 

I have enough experience inside my mouth 
and below my belt to be grateful that i am clean* 
and yet still i am on occasion suspicious of bodily 
functions that seem to cast doubt. 

A tingly urethra after cumming or pissing, 
discoloration of skin near the groin on the inner thigh, 
a bump here or there, something akin to a zit in the jungle 
of my pubic hair– only to realize with another doctors visit 
that these are just awkward moments of my bodily composition 
instead of diseases or infections. 

My overly analytic mind is a gift but it leads me to stray 
into safety precautions in a fashion that perpetuates a feeling 
of potential infection haunting me. 

This might be a form of masochism.
I may be some form of a hypochondriac. 

My poems and words that are not poems 
could be addressed to you individually but 
i have enough to be universal and generalized like this. 

That is somewhat scary and a phenomenon that i never 
imagined would happen over the course of my lifetime 
let alone with four* years of sexual activity. 

I guess i am a statistic of stereotypical youthful 
and collegiate explorations. 

I have been with more than one person in a week, 
more than one person in a day, more than one person 
in a moment. 

I have been without condoms.
I have been without proper lubrication.
I have been in beds, in cars, in parks, outside.

I have been violated by your lack of active acknowledgement 
of my rights and desires. 

I have internalized that this is the way it’s supposed to be 
and i now still struggle with taking down this spiteful construction 
of other peoples pleasure over my own 
as the legitimate course of action. 

I have been invigorated by your lustful intensity 
to get inside me even if i have not wanted 
the penetration. 

I have had my heart elated to mountain tops 
and broken down to a car crash 
of scattered parts. 

I have had golden moments that swim around 
like coy fish in a pond.

I have been slapped in the face 
physically and metaphorically.

I have learned about myself 
and i have learned about time. 

So in the small and quiet moments, 
in the awkward and powerful, 
in the large and not always prolific, 

You are there 
and thus 

i reflect. 

Mar 6th, 2013 8:35:00am 

now. it’s also truly a time capsule to look at something that is a record that stops at before i went to JXN Mississippi which might be fine given that i became even less and less active as the years went by– definitely had something to do with that STD positive test, but that’s another story. anyways. i feel like there’s trauma in this selection of words and i don’t know that i’m ready to unpack it (further), but i also don’t want to keep things shoved away in closets and all that– it’s a theme, it’s a thing. once you leave that closet ya never really go back… unless it’s strategic and artistic. i’m at least processed enough to crack a joke here and there.

(i’ll have to think about the role of apps and general digital communications tho)

December 11th, 2021

family they she names

isa lee love jones rené