No actually the first word emerged
Deep in the bowels of the human throat
& forged in loathing & envy, has now attained majority
& like a Christ is rising, gagging, pointing to its second wound
The better to distract me
All my life you’ve taught me to mourn the son
Nevermind that this isn’t even my religion
Then after stealing my children you hacked
Away my reproductive organs
You never believed me capable of grief
On behalf of my own immensity
And caused to orbit all about my head the mouths
Of those white women rich enough to fatten
Their lips with silicone. And bade them shape
Woken syllables on the accumulating apps of your fortune
Natural beauty dies the deaths you innovated for it
It was catastrophe you wanted
For only catastrophe could arouse you now
Me & my sisters, slick in the semen of your eye
*
And even at this late date I was astonished
To find that for all that you’d left my throat intact
Having recourse now only to gagging
We realized in horror in the midst of our protest
That we were STILL causing you pleasure
*
The gigantic endlessly-whipped mysticism of women
Is the single most misunderstood phenomenon in the universe
Preceding the original man
We fasted but could not starve it
Corseted it, shat out babies & gave them suck
Lost our will to live, stayed in bed with the soaps
Or burned ourselves on the pyre of your psychedelic awakening
And your sexual revolution, after which, pregnant
& needing to make a living, we decanted our pussy
Into strenuous yogas & increased purchasing power
Mindfully causing gentle kales and gem lettuces
To revolve in your guts
And, our every feeling now the fodder
For a robot that would better understand how to bring you joy
A joy you would perfect just a few days after our death
In the polyps & viscera of a pain you will never understand
It took you all of fifteen seconds to come inside us
And still we believed there was hope for you
Meister Bluebeard, Lord Google, Father Time
The balding egg of your skull, brined in celestial juice
What, it’s just a cup of honey
What, it’s only money
*
What a stupid situation
In which to be becoming more & more beautiful
Look I didn’t make the law
Plumped & slick with spit
I’m stuck in the same prism you are
Seeing my way around you
Like a solitary citizen squinting around the girth of the Bastille
So high you can’t get over it
Like the taut belly of a Pierpont
So low you can’t get under it
Polished Q-ball drumskin she gonna blow
When the planet rises to the level of its mothers
Pleasure will have a new name
It will no longer be this bastard you
It will no longer recognize my lord you
Sea boiling with drowning men
Estrella del Mar
When the tip of my tail split in two
I bled
You told me I had the right to remain silent
*
I have just received unsolicited pics
Of myself as a girl
They were sent by a woman who once babysat me
On one I find the unmistakable look
Of lechery on my fat Jewish little face
The second I see it this look becomes a book
And flies up before I can stop it into my scar
To nest there, with all the self-importance
Of a plump little rook, settling its feathers
Under itself in the attitude of “It’s a fact, bitch.”
Copulation brought me into this world
Sex is apparently the selfsame power my culture
Still cannot comprehend, blaming the parody of inner
Knowing that is the weeping eye of your dick
On us. What a bore. TITUBA
TITUBA TITUBA TITUBA TITUBA
TITUBA TITUBA TITUBA TITUBA
The puritan gallstone has not passed!
The scarlet letter is unredeemed!
*
No sir
No sire
I was attracted to what you’re calling the sacred
Because it was trash
And you’re the man who trashed it
And because it could be accessed online free of charge
And without initiation
And because I too was the refuse of this world
Monopolizing only profit you collectivized
Your true wage
The shame consternation and self-disgust
Proper to you has washed up at my door
YOUR WAGE YOUR WAGE YOUR WAGE
Asshole, I have come here to return to you YOUR WAGE
Ariana Reines is the author of A SAND BOOK, winner of the 2020 Kingsley Tufts Prize, and the Obie-winning play TELEPHONE.
Today, September 17, is the Feast Day of Hildegard von Bingen.