Junk

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