Falling in Love with Fellow Prisoners

by Gwendolyn Zepeda

  their loved ones. Shitty bitchy words just tumble on

  out of their mouths. Their parents did the same to

  them. To make them hardy. Made them hard.

  The lady on the news says there’s a phone application

  that helps you remember to think of your kids. Download

  it now.

  The lady on the news says there’s a teacher who won

  an award. This teacher is at your daughter’s school.

  She seeks to undo all the lessons you teach her.

  I Had a Job I Hated

  A Man Needs a Woman

  A man needs a woman even if he’s strong.

  A woman to help and support and admire him.

  A man needs a woman to be there beside him.

  Even when he’s much more

  powerful than you.

  Sometimes a man needs a shoulder to

  whine on.

  Sometimes he might need a

  wife on the side.

  Sometimes a man just needs

  someone to blame

  or a thing to think thoughts of when

  he’s feeling small.

  A potential container for all his

  small thoughts and feelings and

  bodily fluids.

  He’ll let you know and you’ll be there to

  do it.

  And if you can

  type fast

  then that’s even better.

  They told me that when

  I applied for the job.

  I needed the money so I said

  okay.

  I Ruined My Work Shirt with Jack in the Box Taco Sauce

  How are we living if

  our nutrients corrode us.

  How are we living when

  one dot of brown

  makes a difference in how

  we’re perceived.

  Strongly Felt Sensations of This Morning

  The parking garage is a video game. It takes skill to apply just the right press of pressure to the gas and the brake. To swirl up and up, reflexively avoiding the beat-down pedestrians, the unseeing SUVs failing to yield. The big Robot Bass throbbing hard in your ears as you kick this game’s ass and collect your high score. Wait, there isn’t one. Oh, well.

  Outside it’s beautiful and green. If you don’t like warm Marches—warm Februaries, Januaries, then get out of Houston. Don’t complain anymore. While you’re whining your mantra, “I miss snow! I miss seasons! I miss Kansas, too, Toto!” I’m silently thanking my gods for the warmth. Thank you, Sun. Thank you, Spring. Thank you, God. Thanks, Equator. Thank you, Sweet Plastic Jesus with paint-chipping smile, under the Christmas trees, here where it’s warm in December.

  But I get beat down as I walk inside, to the cold, beige womb of a money-grubbing mother. The deeper I go, the more the walls filter the sunlight to dusk. To spore-ridden nothing, asbestos-y substances burning my lenses. Bleaching and leeching the everything out of my face.

  Will lipstick help? No. Will a coffee break help? No. Will Monster.com help? No, not so far.

  A gift comes: the privilege to carry some paper far, far down the hall to the world of my betters. And then! I linger in their doorways. I’m using their windows to look at the Sky. I joke with myself in my mind about running and crashing right through them, no, not to fall all the way down to my death or to rescue.

  Oh, no. But to shake off the glass shards and then fly away. A medium-sized Black Bird flies over the grass and the fountains. To the vine-y-webbed bayou that’s right there for both of us—for him and for me—to be wild in. It’s holding the trees that will hold me so tight when I sing. Oh, wait for me, please. I’ll be free for you later, at 4:45.

  No matter what happens inside the beige walls, it can’t make me stop loving Spring. And I strongly suspect that Spring loves me right back. So there, take that, Beast of Money, Cold Hell.

  The Elevator’s Tight Squeeze

  The smell of hate or tied-up

  something burns the dregs

  and smolders. Hard-forced

  Air vibes push from

  you to me. Your

  chemistry is broken,

  Sir. Your tie/shirt/money clip/

  pedigree do not

  obscure your scent.

  Like a Baby Doll

  Blank-faced I sit in this

  window. Pretend not to see

  the men spraying and sweating

  outside, that they’re looking

  at me.

  Or else I’ll watch over their

  work like a mami, will

  pantomime questions or fear

  for their safety. The rough ropes

  look brittle, the rusty hooks

  liable to break.

  But most days I pretend not to see

  them while they pretend that they

  don’t ever see me. (At least until

  they peek.) (I see them when

  I peek.)

  I pose, poised, bored tease in

  a building that gleams.

  The Homeowner

  Drive back and forth

  a rush-hour tide

  I strive to regain that feeling I felt

  when I thought that this was worth it.

  The drive is gray.

  I cry. I think of everything we’ve gained. Paint chips and

  blonde and white children and clippings

  and trash days and swimming pools and

  girls on the Pill, fresh-faced and vacant

  not girls on the corners with babies

  in wombs in their swollen tight jeans.

  No, that stuff’s far away now. We live

  in a paradise of our own making.

  We’re making a living and paying our

  taxes, becoming Republicans up by

  our bootstraps and living the good life

  now, living the fucking American

  Dream. So why am I crying. It’s

  just that the drive is so gray and

  the faces insipid. The tide is receding

  but never can rest and I’m driving for

  ever. I’m driving toward something

  I sure can’t complain about, something my

  parents could never have had so it makes them so happy

  to see me like this now, driving

  and driving and wipe away tears now. I’m

  laughing because it’s so dumb. The whole

  thing’s so laughable, isn’t it?

  I put on some music.

  It helps.

  In the Parking Garage

  This morning, I wanted to interrupt her

  fierce concrete stomp.

  Look into her auto-pilot eyes and say,

  “Did you know you’re the prettiest?

  the prettiest girl in the building?”

  As if my approbation is a prize

  better than catcallers

  down on the street.

  I wish she was only a flower or a

  shell on the beach.

  I’d look silently. Still now, I do.

  If ugly words stopped flowers’ blooming, would

  you say all your best words to bloom them again?

  And does that make you selfish?

  If flowers could hear, would they need us

  to point out their power?

  A Bad Feeling

  Something almost as bad as loneliness is boredom. Especially boredom you can’t escape.

  The walls are beige, the carpet’s dark beige, all the metal and fake wood are beige and brown. The prints on the walls are beige. And brown. And taupe. And gray. And gray-ish, brownish purple.

  This, after the expensive repainting and re-carpeting and general renovation. This was what they came up with.

  I know my job but no one cares. It really doesn’t even matter if I do it well or not. Or if I do it quickly or not. Or if I do it cheerfully, or distractedly, or hatefully, or with any feeling whatsoever, or not.

  There’s not
hing else to do. Nowhere to escape to except into more nothing-colors and nothing-ness. Go drink some coffee if you want. It’ll only keep your eyes open bigger when there’s nothing to see. Go joke in the hallway with people who feel the same but can’t admit it. You’re caught under water with them all, and nobody’s going to yell for help.

  Count the minutes—count the fucking milliseconds—until you go home. When you get home, you’re too tired to do a goddamned thing.

  Your dreams are all colored. All drama, all violence, all sexy, fast fast fast and so very interesting, all night long.

  Eula in the Bathroom Stall

  I’ve got to go

  and so I make my way

  into the stall

  but find I’m not alone.

  I hear a groan

  and know she’s there.

  It’s Eula there

  who makes that groan

  and oh, I wish I were alone

  inside my stall

  because she’s way

  into her story, started long ago.

  Her monologue goes

  on, no matter who is sitting there.

  She tells the way

  her breasts have grown

  so swollen, or her ovaries have stalled.

  She says her family’s left her all alone.

  And if she were alone

  she’d still be talking, just the same. She’d go

  on for hours, no shame at all.

  And yet I’m pinned there

  by her words. I groan.

  I cannot get away.

  I want to get away

  because I need to be alone.

  I’ve grown

  aloof in my old age. I go

  insane when Eula’s there.

  She has no shame at all.

  I’m an animal

  in Africa. I feel the way

  they do, so vulnerable, crouched there

  silently listening for all the lions who’d love to suck

  my bones

  ’til Eula goes

  and makes a scene with jumping, shrieking, plumage,

  groans.

  So we have grown

  like animals, we hide in stalls and silently go

  insane with vulnerability. Ashamed, afraid, we

  crouch there all alone.

  Unless loud Eula awaits us,

  inside her bathroom stall.

  9-to-5, After Noon

  Under glassed-out hot sun

  you’re boil-in-a-bag

  or sinking your head to

  plywood stone.

  Nothing here is handsome

  and you’re crowded but alone.

  No one here can hear it

  the pressurized bore-hate

  that holds us taut.

  And you’re caught up high

  in the catbird seat.

  Or your stick in that window.

  Looked at, boiling hot,

  alone.

  His Son Is His Everything

  His son’s always hungry and he lives through

  his son’s appetites. A flint’s struck in

  his eyes as he tells me, inserts into

  my head the images that must rock

  his body to sleep. A deer’s head

  nailed to the wall, glassy-eyed, sniffs at

  the filmy pink panties adorning its

  horn, its antler, I mean. “A trophy

  on a trophy!” he tells me his son said.

  He says with a head shake, pretending

  chagrin. He describes the pink-panty

  girl who beat on his front door and

  cried, and he tries not to snigger.

  Next comes a vision of anonymous

  Muslims sweating and running in fear

  at the sight of the particular insignia

  emblazoned upon his son’s breast.

  He sweats, himself, maybe, telling the

  vision of brown men beat up in the

  hot bloody desert.

  So proud.

  I feel a bit dizzy at my desk now.

  There’s too many bodily fluids

  especially testosterone and bile.

  I see his stories, his smile, and smell

  the fear. My own. I’m afraid of his

  son. Of his laughter. Of the fact that

  my whole life depends

  on satisfying this man’s needs. I’m

  afraid for my spawn to get mixed

  up with his spawn because my

  own son is my everything. He’s the

  only reason I’m here now this

  afternoon listening to this man piss

  into my brain.

  His son is his everything. His son is

  the sum of his rutting and antler

  butting. His son is his reason for standing

  here, telling me what to do.

  Falling in Love with Fellow Prisoners

  Words for Nerds

  The sexiest men

  are the sexless men.

  I want to wake them up.

  The inward face

  that holds itself blank

  is begging to suffer in love.

  If you’re secretly a warlock

  don’t feel guilty, it’s just fine.

  If you’re secretly a monster

  then I think you should be mine.

  Unrequited

  I like it when I’m loved, she says

  but can’t love in return.

  That feature got burnt out

  she said, but go ahead, I’ll

  let you love me, first.

  Okay, he said. Of course.

  Zombie Maker

  He knows you’re the kind of girl

  to throw his love away.

  But he still loves you so, and he

  says it all on his guitar and he’s

  on stage so sad, and all of the

  other girls listen and

  sway.

  But you look away and laugh.

  And I look at you and say,

  come to me now, oh come to me,

  you wicked girl. You

  vicious thing.

  Blondes, More Fun

  Gold girl run

  on through my head

  One day I’ll be

  your winner.

  You may never see

  it’s me here

  striving struggling

  hoping

  You may never see

  it’s me

  fighting monsters

  for you.

  Or you may see and

  still not care.

  You’re just a pretty face.

  There’s nothing behind

  your face when I

  see it in my head.

  Be Witch

  What are you doing? I

  like to picture you in

  five shiny leaves that

  make a flower on your ear,

  frolicking in the woods,

  a messenger bag full of

  fairy dust or a

  cobbler on the stove,

  a quieting baby on the

  hip and pine trees in the

  window. A black cat on

  the window sill and

  either way, your spells

  are all unbroken. Your

  magic’s all in working

  order, potions in the

  cupboard. Bubbling’s

  on the fire. A twinkle

  in my breast imagines that

  you might be happy.

  The Flower for December Is Narcissus

  The weather outside was frightening and I wore out

  my welcome when I

  locked you inside and made you hold up

  constant mirrors of me.

  Don’t act cold. I need your face to

  face my fire and warm me. Or go ahead and say

  goodbye. I’ll find myself another man to thaw.

  Fishing

  The dysfunctional conversation


  over, he says: Let me let

  you off the hook

  now. Let me cut you loose.

  He laughs.

  Isn’t that funny, he

  gives her permission to

  go?

  She thinks it’s funny to

  imagine herself as a fish

  that he catches each day.

  A wish that she grants him. He

  whispers: Be mean to me,

  please.

  She does, it’s granted. She says:

  you’re welcome and please don’t

  go fishing tomorrow.

  Not the same hooked wish, the

  snare kiss that’s tangled in

  nets and wet spangles and bitter

  like brine

  that draws her, catches her

  again and again, when

  all she wants is to see the

  sun glint and feel

  the swim motion forward.

  Freckles

  Freckles on my fingertips

  like fairy dust

  or when you touch

  a butterfly

  except it dies

  and you’re alive

  and you exist

  and here you are.

  I touch your skin.

  Your freckles won’t

  come off but I

  enjoy the thought of

  making you

  more naked than

  you are right now

  with me.

  This may be your favorite song, but

  you’re mad because I sang the words wrong.

  Don’t you see?

  The man said hiding place, his voice so brusk

  and fakely British.

  I heard honey glaze, my voice so free and

  plain and confident

  A honey glaze was the lyric needed in the

  song that played while we rode that street.

  We ride in a sugar maze. The man who’s singing

  doesn’t know that you plus me is sweet amaze.

  How could he have known while recording what

  he thought he had to say? That we would be

  inside a personal honey glaze today?

  His love was like a hiding place, it’s

  not my fault that he was sad

  and couldn’t understand.