TW: r#pe culture

anxiety-riddled,
my head is a constant battle of sounds
and feelings crashing
like waves into each other;
interference scares me.
as does being out of rhythm,
missing too many beats — i am
conflict-averse but i am also
realistic:

i know that
sound travels faster
through solids and liquids
than through the air,
can be distorted
and interfered
into oblivion—
that when
push comes to shove,
whisper networks
can only reach so far.

scores of screaming matches
between metoo advocates and r#pist apologists
crescendos of nails
scraped across a board
feel a bit too familiar
like listening to white noise and broken records on repeat
while scrolling through toiletpaperworthy nonapologies
witnessing victims collectively crying in an orchestra of agony
and then be blamed for attention-seeking at best,
of causing their own suffering at worst.

although it pains me to listen to these tragic tunes,
it is amusing how so many mishear this collective choir as
survivors celebrating with silly receipts in cancel parties
serving blistering hot tea sweetened by revenge - no

all this is anything but
cathartic.

it’s to make people aware
that the same melodies are sung or screamed
  by those who suffered similar pains
and so that those of a similar frequency know
there are those who listen
that their voice matters
and we are not alone.

- 20210315

i swallowed the sun and
washed it down with a little inky night.
now wildflowers bloom in my heart
and light fills my mind. these
words are solar flares of a
fallen petal.

the price of it all--
welded lips of unspoken words.
now other people mishear
and believe i am speaking,
but it is only the wind
whistling through
my teeth.

now i find that,
being alone is silence,
but it is never quiet.

say cowboy.
say hot dog.
say ice cream.
say baseball.
see, the step into the sound booth is an awkward height,
about 6 inches off the ground,
and i find myself raised on a pedestal,
sealed in for you to inspect,
watching you and an audiologist
through a glass window,
watching you decide my future
as you face away from me
so i cannot read your lips
and you cannot see me shouting stop.

say airplane,
say sidewalk,
say you might hear static in your right ear
but i know i will only hear a tone,
an electronic beep going on and on and on

say conducive hearing loss say sensoneurial damage say surgery say it might be permanent this time,
like it hasn't been permanent for the last ten years,
say there's a new technique say we can fix this,
say negative impact on social life, say poor classroom performance,
say we just want what's best for you,
say try hearing aids try CIs try cued speech,
say you need to be fixed.

it's been a decade since i first entered that sound booth,
noises not echoing off these walls that take a little more from me with every test.
it's been a decade since my hearing slipped away and
i am done mourning it but i don't think you are.

persistence is a valuable trait but stop trying,
stop putting me under with an x on my right cheek so the surgeons know how to lay me out on the operating table,
stop refusing to turn on the captions because i need the practice,
stop talking to me without tapping me first,
stop screaming at me when i mishear.

i am done mourning my hearing and i don't know if i ever grieved in the first place but you are still stuck in the stage of denial,
hoping against hope for some ******* miracle.
i don't want a miracle, i don't want anything god can give me because i am not lacking, i am whole, i already am the miracle you were looking for and i don't need to be fixed.

but you don’t believe that, do you?

so the audiologist can open the heavy soundproof door but i am still trapped inside this box,
the walls swallowing my words as you decide my future for me because
no one wants to listen to those who cannot hear.

say stop sign,
say hairbrush,
say push the button when you hear the beep
and i hold it down with my thumb,
gripping the clicker like the handle of a gun
until you tell me to let go.
but i hear deserts stretching away from me,
flat sci-fi dreamscapes where there is only one sound and i can hear it too.

say tinnitus,
say psychosomatic because you don't believe that i might hear infinity where you tell me i shouldn't.
say hole in the eardrum say the surgery might have accelerated the deterioration,
say we can try again but
i gave up ten years ago and i think you should too,
and i'm here in this sound booth screaming for you to stop
but you will not look at me,
will not even attempt communication.

no one wants to listen
to those who cannot hear.

I think of the men I've exhaled
Salty and in charge,
They swirled around in my thoughts
Entrancing me with shadowy shimmers
Cosmic vibrations and mystic visions
Enveloped across my soggy sore soul.

I ate my own soul for lunch today.
I am my own and my own angel
Programmed and primed not delicate enough for words
I wish I could entwine my pragmatic, cutlass wisdom
Into the sticky, soggy, sore soul.

Carol Ann Duffy could write for trillions of years
About me, about her, about every one of the millions to be heard
Exhausting is the useless, their one *****, soft and shallow pierces
It's a story we all may very well know
However it's another thing to drop this muted partner
Dump it into the Indian Ocean, let it go
Continue forward, marching on.

I loved myself more every yesterday
Seems my youth is draining with age

"Wasn't I beautiful, fragrant and young?"

Perhaps, but no one said the Queen was built in a day.

Wisdom should entwine my soul, not listless lovers
"I refuse to give up my obsession"
But you mishear, somehow my obsession is ME

ME ME ME

My sticky, soggy, sore soul.
The girl with unkempt hair and a messy soul.

The bearded man in the forager’s cap rode in on little sorrel that night.
Lee had called a council of war to game plan for the coming fight.
The Northern aggressors were on the move but they might be vulnerable on their right.
It was a bold audacious plan to divide in the face of the foe.
The Calvary screen was key to the scheme to find where best to strike the blow.
The battle would be called Lee’s masterpiece; ******’s men broke and they fled.
but the battle would also be Jackson’s last; in just a few days he’d be dead..
In the dark of May second, men rode the plank road, Jackson rode at their head
Did they ignore the Sentry’s challenge? Or did the sentry mishear what they said?
They took Jackson arm, the saw-blade did sing, but alas it was to no avail
He crossed over the river to rest neath the shade of the trees in the hero’s vale

my space against the ravages weather can wreak
is full of saints and angels taking it easy-
just sitting around waiting for me to speak-
if I wish to ask a favour they all perk up
crowding round so as not to mishear me
and I whisper prayers just to keep closer
closer to the love they all bare me.

Speak thou you’re so spoken of
Reek of truth so that all your love
Doubts you enough to call you a liar
So beautiful, this sound from above
That always reaches out
When the heavens drop wildfire.

Angels fall,
When they face the night sky,
And be that as it may, they call
For the one and only track
That will ever call them back,
And so did I.

Time was to no avail
And so you’ve spent yours
Watching these petty lives of ours
Laughing at our ending hours
While setting sail
On your path of imortal lore

Whenever you found our tendency
To misplay with the time we’re given,
To misjudge our own misery,
To mislead those who led us to wisdom
To mistreat those who care for our freedom
To mishear our life-ending song,
You found us, where you now belong.

Hear thou you’re so heard of
Reek of lies so that all your hate
Doubts you enough to call you truthful
So hateful, this sound from the ground
That never reaches out
And whether it's lower or higher
There will come a date
When the heavens drop wildfire.

H. Aleixo

Your presence comes hand in hand with this pressure,
I cannot phathom the words to say or the expressions to place.
I feel this inescapable uneased.
This inenscapable thudding of my brain as it tries to figure out how best it can open a fragment of my heart to project onto a floor for another to
Mishear
Misinterpret
Misread
Or simply ignore.

It is a war of constant.
It is a run for miles.
It is a search for what doesn't want to be found in that moment.