the destroyer > text > Monica McClure

TWO POEMS

I DON'T LIKE YOU

If we were fighting over a baby
I would just let you keep it
so the stress of parenting would age you
I would get drunk
on Diet Coke, grenadine, and vodka
and show up at the Baptism
with the only man who ever
broke your heart
I want you to feel like cutting
and then I want you to feel nothing
All my life I've grasped for a raft
on the sargasso sea of my moods
I amputate myself and tuck
the Swarovsky crystals
in my cunt like I’m going
for a stint at juvy with a
rolled sandwich bag of weed
Could your lover come over and help me
feel like I'm of use to mankind
There's a knife under my fainting couch
that I'll use
to chop off your passé bangs
I looked at the scuff marks
on my Louboutins but couldn’t focus
on what to do about it
You are pretty, I admit
with the right instagram filter
recasting the ontological relationship
of beauty and time
I like this faded Nashville
the name of the city where I bled myself
into a flute of Dom Perignon
until it turned pink
in the light




GIRLS ROOM

I’ve always lacked volition
I could never choose one over another
I’m self taught at being liked
so I don’t have to choose who to like
Do you get it? Do you know?
There’s so much affection in me to give
to the person I pity the most
A femme girl told me
that she’s always been intact
Her gender was a perfect seashell
wearing red cowgirl boots
and a feather boa that dragged on the ground
I’m skeptical but not altogether
ruling it out
I can’t read the signs fast enough
so I don’t drive my own car
When I’m with a man I feel
like a gay man
When I’m with a woman I feel
like a gay man who is into women
And I only feel fabulous
in the presence
of someone less girly
This is my romance with gender
I play it with semiotic excess
I play it in long seasons
I silent act and forget sometimes
to come out