by Tommy Pico
trauma It sticks Mangled like a long thin silver chain in the Junk
drawer I sort of loved digging you/up Figuring out how to
make a sad person laugh is my daily task, so I enjoyed the challenge
Do you ever walk around & randomly remember what a
good experience I had at the DMV four years ago or just me?
Don’t try me dummy, I’m not in the mood The Kelly Clarkson
song called “Einstein” with the chorus “dumb plus dumb equals
you” Nope Love in the Time of Cholas Fine The sadness activated
isn’t where I wanna rest How sad to only feel suspicious
love Subcutaneous suspicion or sometimes thorny suspicion
Ossified suspicion Hedwig’s journey thru “Wig in a Box,” finding
a way through the perceived prison of makeup and wigs into
Identity Haven’t figured out how to be NDN and not have
suspicion coursing thru me like cortisol But we all have our
struggles I’m learning to be less weary of abstraction It looks
periwinkle Sorry my mom’s a synesthete I’ve had to suffer
through so much abstraction in these book things You can at
least give me a few more pages Hunger is a room to be tended is
the kind of sentence I resent In fact, if you don’t like everything
I like you’re a goddamned dog pornographer Abstraction how
can I say this, my rancor isn’t anti-intellectual I just hate it when
you never use contractions Do you wanna do something fun?
Do you wanna say larp five times fast? Larp x5 The Berdache
The Shaman The Noble Savage The Indian Problem The Squaw
The Indian Princess The Spirit Animal The Drunk Indian The
Teary-Eyed Environmentalist Considering something as a general
quality or characteristic apart from concrete realities,
specific objects, or actual instances From the Latin word for
separation Work it like yr workin a pole God I can’t believe I’m
actually going to write this: Hi I like myself It’s taken me seven
generations to dig my Junk situation It’s how I’m seen, felt, and
fought The American imposition that rumbles my coffee break
I shout into the god The god buffers In the buff Shit, that
Erykah lyric is actually “feelin kind hungry/cos my high is
comin down” Speakin of Munchies It’s okay to be wrong, dummy
My squishy delicious brain begs me to write but the couch in
the office siren-songs like rich vanilla in almonds, Nap gentle
hero, Nap damn you From the window, the city grows brickish
beanstalks tall and fat and largely dark Only a craptacular
society would build luxury rooms not even the lights will live
in while so so many sleep in slumps surrounded by all their
Junk What’s the material significance of an empty luxury
apartment What’s it like to express potential over utility Are
not lost on me The sky in snowflakes humping a big turquoise
Eames chair on the street The featureless Upper East Side The
hard up city El Niño year had me thinkin snow might not even
happen The kitchen junk the closet junk The shoes I always
mean to resole If Junk is the space in between utility: the poet in
writer’s block And somehow the Junk, aka History, aka Snow
keeps piling up There are far too many beauties who think
they’re trash too many dipshits who think they’re god’s gift
Too often impaled by the reflex to ascribe meaning onto things
The movie stub for example I miss your very adult body In my
neighborhood, in the bars I go to, nobody has an adult body
Ppl talk about cartoons and have faces that slide shut as patio
doors when I say what’s up Some things reach w/o trying, like
a bartender with dimples In the morning he rolls over You shd
get going if you want to catch yr bus on time UGH don’t break
the moment with yr shirking derp yolo internetese Or future
tenses (what if we . . .) or catastrophic personal narratives abt
the kind of guy you can’t be Once, a generation was a generation
Now even just a few years’ gap it’s like I’m an eld n then
have trouble sliding into sleep Plz let’s stay Buoyed by pillows
by knees I double back onto u Send yr nerves shooting like a
mind understanding new terms So what do you do? Is a thing
ppl ask at parties n bars n the morning after dark sex in New
York Whenever I’m back in CA my whole rez asks Soooooo
what r you doing? Which means, what’s more important than
being here w/ yr family and yr ppl in the valley we’ve lived in for
thousands of years Which, heavy I have ppl out here too Make
here feel like home Sucks bein a sometimes person Sometimes
here sometimes there The mind like arthritis But really I’m
lucky Some ppl never get ppl Some ppl make them up Get
locked up for talking to them I’ve never been locked up but I
did come out as bisexual & was afraid of my own voice once
for 28 years But now, karaoke And the whole block knows
when I stub my toe It sounds like this: UUUUUUGGGGGHHH
Sometimes I hear my voice back n wonder if I even went thru
puberty Junk is a come up for ppl treated like garbage of the
state More mass shootings this year than there are days in a
year Men in Texas surround a mosque Erect their open carry
law in time for my trip to Austin I can’t remember the last time
I was so skittish Except when I saw that drone in the city The
eerie sputter of the world shifting Or just about anytime I use
the toaster Blimpy eyes trained on the bread slits Possessions
possess A park bench overlooking the backlit skyline of the
city’s trunk Powerless, dark, deafened and more stars over
Faggotland than we’ll ever see again Sandy alarms all around
us but I’m warm in yr arms Winter is a season of accumulation
I have layers, like an onion is the stupidest online dating profile
“about me” I’ve read in a minute Men are a waste of attention
You can lead a man to Beyoncé, but you can’t make him think
Let’s get anti-romantic Let’s get disgusting My kink is holding
hands on the way to the deli I hate musicals so gd much Not
every revelation deserves a stanza, dummy The hope is unity
The reality a bit more sandpapery Refurbish The hands are
welding torches The clear tube-light the torch smirks outward
The cutting edge The tink tink of paper clips A clear pink plastic
swordfish tiki drink stirrer America is all action, no memory
Me, mostly memory and laughing at the proposed stripper
name “Diphtheria” America wants its NDNs weary, slumped
over the broken horse, spear sliding into the dry grass But I’m
giving u NDN joy NDN laughter NDN freedom My body was built
for singing The notes drive my mottled sky Catch them one by
one Trill at will Wizard the A’s and D’s C’s and such in piles on
the staff, clef, etc I’m worried self-love will make me lazy No
dummy, it’s yr natural state The Kumeyaay custom of burning
the dead’s possessions, ascending the objects to heaven, was
a lot simpler when everything was organic Junk smoked w/o
the spirit infuser A note isn’t useful until you sing it Store them
in yr ear Didn’t quite
hit the note That wasn’t such a good time
American “Freedom” is such historical propaganda Indigenous
and black lives remind American exceptionalism that slavery,
theft, and genocide are its founding institutions Buy me a donut
and take me to a museum Reach for my hand or the spot on my
neck when it rained and we ran the ten sloppy blocks back to
my place—Bring me a cool bowl of sherbet when I get high The
base forming rings on the thigh of my jeans My brow forming
beads on yr shoulder America is like, I’m just trying to get my
happy back America is like, but I’m a good person Never the
body of its atrocities Never the Chinese Exclusion Act Never
Jim Crow Never the Indian Removal Act Never the Japanese
internment camps Just because you don’t know about them
doesn’t mean they go away Who built the railroads Who picks
the crops Who delivers yr egg bagel on a rainy day Our tower is
missing bricks Fingers to lips it’s a wonder we make anything
I’m a tenant of suspicion Did u know in Chile, pico is slang for
penis? I’d always just thought of beaks like in pico de gallo but
a pecker’s a pecker And then that fabulous round thing, “language,”
taps me on the back and I fall over A. R. Ammons is like,
I have this feeling to write a poem but it was a boner Oppression
is the wages of comfort We walk down 14th Street and you see
14th Street but I see a massacre Lenape land An unfortunate
side effect of living is the world doesn’t care What a way 2 stay
stoked: Pepper objects with life and ride or die To ascribe
victimhood to Junk is to miss the point completely There’s a
calm outside the anxiety of utility There’s a freedom from use
for the sake of use An affection for just being, a new kind of
worth outside of the object Perhaps I’ve lost my grip I saw my
ex or like the body of him not the face Or, the hairline not the
pomade The shoulders but not the cape Yet for a couple mean
seconds he was somehow 2,760.4 miles from NYC Somehow in
front of me in line at this coffee shop in downtown San Diego
ordering a maple bar and iced coffee I froze n literally buckled
It’s never just abt the night in question My body holding onto u
despite myself or bc of it America is all action, no memory Me,
mostly memory and farting on airplanes Pull down the orange
ex-boyfriend box behind the Container Store plastic storage
drawers on top of the Expedit IKEA bookshelf Swing states
Under appreciated patience Straight dudes painting their nails
Asking of a main character, is this a normal person in extraordinary
circumstances, or an extraordinary person Can u be
ambitious w/o being anxious I’m in the moment I’m in the
moment I’m in the moment A metal chair screeching on concrete
Bridgegate The base of the former World Trade Center
turned into a Westfield Shoppingtown Faggotland is extra
digital these days A registry that tracks queers’ location—
what’s the danger in that? A torso shot or the Williamsburg
Bridge A gruff couple words (hot, you looking?) Then a pin
drop Do you really expect me, sight unseen, to come over to
yr (murder) apartment Buzz up like takeout n ask “Who
ordered the ass?” I’m not sex negative I’m just weary of a
culture of explosions It’s never just the night in question
Thumbing into plastic wrapped grocery store ground beef Let
him go like the bright yellow socks w/ blue toes Auntie sent last
winter, dummy Brackish I mean bratty My mind wardens I’m
sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry Stop apologizing, dummy How long do
you hold on to childhood survival strategies Like a sponge but
for feelings More armored in the new years But growin up on a
rez gripped by meth it seemed like anything could catalyze
violence Auntie cackling one minute then accusing u of givin
her “that” “look” Yelling at you until you cry Uncle Cookie
shooting his rifles at night Threat flows thru my valley I used to
hide in there, like my ancestors There’s too much world Still I
try to see it Look, I’ll compromise: I won’t get the cookie dough
brownie bites frozen yogurt n beloved chili cheese corn snack
Fritos But I’m scarfing the banana chips, dried mango n cacao
nibs Baker’s chocolate sucks Anything coffee flavored that isn’t
coffee is an abomination Buttered popcorn flavored jelly beans
are literally the next extinction level event Many ppl can be in
their bodies w/o moving all the time Baffling I’ve snail-trailed
all over this Anything still is in danger Dancing in moonlight, I
know you are free Run in a zigzag Part the part I didn’t get the
part The middle part (it was the 90s) I wd go down on Chris
Pratt tho All my friends are BOTS—Babes of the Struggle The
mind is so much fire and bull Get some marshmallows How do
we protect ourselves from car commercials and the border
patrol Mom and Amber hands behind their heads facedown
on the asphalt at the checkpoint There is something sick abt
accusing an NDN of bein an illegal immigrant And something
sick about the phrase “border patrol,” and “illegal immigrant”
like white ppl where was your green card when the sun never
set Seeing as how borders r erected in part to pen in the poor
Plenty money jumps over under in & out borders as a matter
of course This is my heroic, sweeping sentiment This is my red
love The pinch of sun floating thru the blackout curtains in the
old apt on South 8th in a sharp disbelief our two rivers met
downstream A mirror fell the day I discovered I was living my
future n for the first time in my adult life experienced a
moment of happiness arm in arm w/ security All my little faces
are smiling Life, I look forward to living you completely, with
all my shattered selves All divisions of reflection All the ppl
who ppl like us are required to be Touch is the first step of discarding
Some things, seen simply Simply need to leave A niche
ecology Large, breaking, beautiful time This gallery owner hits
on me by telling me he’s a gallery owner He spent all day in his
gallery I say Lucky gallery having you shoved inside it all day w/
a straight face Like a common thot A Land Before Shame Sometimes
life’s a “call is coming from inside the house” situation
and That Ho Over There is really The Ho Within I still have a
few skies left to rise toward A few other giant Earths to unearth
A few (hundred) (more) clippings to collect Slapping
noises Look at you dummy, adding proxies of yrself onto the
world & reaffirmed by them Yr rip currents r proof that it’s still
possible to get lost inside you Do significant swells write themselves
When I started this I was delirious frenetic and in the
cyclone I found Teebs, the bratty diva, my alter ego You rang?
I put him on and everyone loves him He is piss & vinegar &
libido & punchlines Everyone wants to chat w/ him, desperation
and all He’s onstage, a whip He cracks and cracks up He
doesn’t “do” hesitation Just hyperbole
I wear him on dates
and he always gets a text on the way home I wear him under
the red lights He’s a flashbulb All the men say so Fuck yeahhhh
says Seattle, corner of his lip curls upward That’s it baby take
it all Oh my God So does Baltimore & DC & Philly & Portland &
Boston & Northampton & Providence They all want to fuck
Teebs and after a while I forget that he comes off But the more
I AM Teebs the less I’m writing because writing requires the
hesitation, the fear, the insecurity, the reflection So Teebs I’m
going to leave you in the lines I can write you or I can be you
but not both Touching all yr Junk hides it from obscurity Not
wanting to feel absence because absence is a grief In her book,
Kondo suggests going thru yr Junk one item at a time, holding
the various its and asking does this spark joy Point being: the