The Girl With No Name
He says, She climbed on and rode me but I don’t remember
an invitation coming out of my mouth. I don’t remember much.
He says, I was 16 and my clothes were off before I could think, and she was so rough
and everything hurt, and I could plainly see the pain still bursting like firecrackers.
He chokes out, I was crying so hard and I wasn’t even hard and
I kept crying for her to stop but she wouldn’t stop she wouldn’t stop
His face crumples, he tries so hard not to cry he stops breathing.
I don’t know how old she was. I don’t even know her real name.
He says, Boys aren’t supposed to cry. Boys aren’t supposed to hurt.
Boys are supposed to want it no matter how much it shatters you.
And it shattered him, ten times over. And I held him close to my chest
and cursed the girl with no name until he fell into fitful, haunted dreams.
And when the sun bloomed, he did too. The pain subsided, and he locked away
his tears, his memories, until the next time they come to visit like hollow, wilted ghosts.
Poem for winter
once, in the dead of winter, a dog pushes
my brother into the pool. I am six and I
watch him flounder and sink until my
mother runs screaming to drag him out.
once, in the dead of winter, I teach myself
to do a scratch spin on a small, muddy
patch of ice in the middle of downtown
phoenix. there are dozens of people around
me, shrieking and stumbling and gathering
fake snow in red hands. i spin so fast, the city
goes quiet for one sliver-sized second. i spin
so fast, the world flickers and shuts off.
once, I wake up to this state’s shivering,
the heat sunk back to hell with its tail tucked
between its legs. my phone tells me it’s
barely 60 degrees, but my fingers and toes
wail louder and wither like old grapes, like
anniversary flowers. I want winter to feel
more like a hallmark movie, like frosted
windows and unattended fires and my house
asphyxiating in snow. I want hot chocolate
pouring sweet and scalding down my
desert-parched throat. I want to rub these
tender tongue-burns against the roof of my
mouth for days. once, in the dead of winter,
I wrap my body in christmas lights and sit
in a dark room to get into the holiday spirit,
until each color sears itself into my brain, until
red and green smoke wanders out of my ears.
I blink at the lights and they blink back at me
to the tune of a death march.
Delicately Misshapen
my body is ruined city / is a dump truck lit on fire
and swerving wildly / the odd shape my skin makes / like
it forgot halfway through just what it wanted to be / flat,
misshapen ass / and breasts like baby yellow jacket stings /
not twins but distant cousins that avoid each other’s
uncomfortable gaze / I am watching lithe girls move
delicate as if floating / like clouds catching rain in the silk
of their hair / I hate every one of my movements I watch
closely in the mirror / awkward, hesitant, stumbling / sky
taking bites out of my body with each step / I dress not like
a girl flowering with life / but as if I’m already adorning
this body in its body bag / every eye must be following me /
must be thinking / look at that dumpy, drooping, disfigured girl /
look at that body, lopsided and bloated and too immense to avoid / I am
sucking in my breath so hard / my ribs threaten to bend in half /
I am pinching off the pale, flabby flesh covering my belly / that
turns bright red and then purple but never quite melts away /
I am feeding my organs more loathing than sustenance / how
they beg beneath my fingertips / while I weep at the way I only
grow larger and more lumpy / one day I will eat this body like a
bland, too-chewy hors d’oeuvre / gnaw away at the fat growing
uncertain in every wrong spot / I give rough hands secure places
to hold onto / I am making myself something worth looking at /
something beautiful to the touch.
mind / mouth
everybody loves the smart girl / paper-sharp tongue / and thick librarian glasses / the boys you love leave their homework for your doing / you tell yourself just this once / as you rush through math problems and essay questions / misinterpret their rushed o’s for tiny hearts / carelessness for a little appreciation / everybody loves the smart girl / but not when she keeps her mind to herself / and her mouth always running / you learn to coat your pointed edges in sugar / play sweet and velvet-soft and dumb / break your glasses in two and stick contact lenses in your eyes / play coy / touch boy arms and toss your hair / you tell yourself this is fun / somehow convince yourself your dainty new image / doesn’t rely completely on their flitting attention / first you roll your tongue in honey / then in submissiveness / then you cut it straight out / fold yourself in half and then in half once again / over and over until you take up no room / you strangle the smart girl in her own melancholy / leave this makeshift, photocopied paper doll in her place.
Wanda Deglane is a queer capricorn from Arizona. She is the daughter of Peruvian immigrants and attends Arizona State University. Her poetry has been published or forthcoming from Rust + Moth, Glass Poetry, L’Ephemere Review, and Former Cactus, among other lovely places. Wanda is the author of Rainlily (2018), Lady Saturn (Rhythm & Bones, 2019), Venus in Bloom (Porkbelly Press, 2019), and Bittersweet (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2019). twitter: @wandalizabeth