Poetry Suite by Moxxy Rogers
a poetry reading on the porch
Abuse and Other Silly Things
terrified is how you make me
a plethora of pretty words you
string them together and watch as you dangle them, so violent
in the way you, you so callous, dare to say what you do not feel though you know it stings
in that way
i still understand you
just as it burns, you are like my father
though
i do not know him
i cannot walk away from a natural disaster nor run nor hide nor fight
tornado or
hurricane or
blizzard or
you
in that way
i still hate you
suddenly now when the waves are in my throat crashing (i do not stand a chance do i baby?)
the tides have pulled against me every time (we fucked in august and i left in september)
i forgot how to swim and remember my father was the first man to teach me i do not deserve to be saved
(how do you look just like a man you’ve never met?)
i do not drown tonight
or tomorrow
or the next day
or
you showed me best that it means nothing and everything to be alone your own words plague you still, you still want me don’t you, don’t you remember what we did, did we ever?
in that way
i still love you
+++
origami feelings
in my dreams
he grips the edges
of my existence
and folds me over
myself
until i am in the shape
of something
he could possibly
love
in my nightmares
he
never
stops
folding
+++
a man in the elevator of my building asked me if i heard the news about mr. bryant
and i’ve been thinking about death ever since
i’d sooner gnaw my tongue in half
than gut my own mother
flesh so fickle & my hair ever thinning
a woman with exposed gums once told me
i have my father’s eyes
i often wonder if she thought i looked angry
or maybe just insatiably lonely
i had eyelashes for breakfast on the sunday of my mother’s father’s death
did you know that funerals taste like sidewalk chalk?
if u mumble in circles long enough,
all ur teeth fall out & ur mouth fills with pennies & everyone will stare at u & u will be so
embarrassed
im better off stuffing grass where my eyes used to be
when daughters cry in open spaces,
& our ache embalms against the pavement
who picks up our teeth when they trickle down the sewage pipes?
i’ll drink loose screws until im full &
beautiful &
temporary &
i’ll think about that later
+++
what did you do this weekend?
friday 9:25pm
swayed to a distant beat at a birthday party for a guy i didn’t really consider a friend. ordered a
raspberry mule even though i made a new years resolution to only drink alcohol i didn’t buy. forgot i
hate raspberries because they taste like cough syrup, taste like doctor’s office visits, taste like when my
mom put me first. stayed another hour until my racing ribcage chased me into the streets. caught the
first train home without saying goodbye to anyone. nobody noticed.
friday 10:13pm
realized i never paid for my fare for the first time since i got caught not paying for the fare last january
but also fuck authority. read on the train until my neck hurt from the angle. 7th time trying to get
through this sylvia plath novel since i picked it up in june. had a phone call later that night in the
bathroom with my father about my mother and he sounded angry and i tried not to bite my tongue.
saturday 11:05am
during the week i bought a new laptop off of a stranger because i think it will help me create projects
because i always need to be creating because i don’t know who i am if i don’t because that’s what it
means to be an artist right. spent a total of 15 hours playing sims instead.
sunday 7:30am
woke up to my lover’s alarm. asked him to drive me to the train. he was the kind of sleepy boyish cute i
like to kiss into the daybreak.
sunday 7:45am
man at the station began a conversation with me while i held my breath and tried to make myself
smaller. he looked at my body, up and down, the entire time, pretending to care about my words. i
panicked and started lying about the details. told him my name was roman (like the numerals, is what i
always say) and im from idaho but im homeschooled so im here on vacation, taking the train to
church. he said he liked my friendliness and asked how old i was i fucking knew he was going to ask
how old i was they always ask how old i am. i lied, said 16, holding my breath in my sleeve and he
smiled, said o, you’re underaged. i said yes, felt angry, felt dirty without being touched. counted the
tracks until the train arrived. considered walking away and missing it because i hate carrying
conversations with old nasty men i don't care about why should my back have to be this heavy.
chanted into my jaw please don’t look at me please don’t look at me please don’t look at me if you’re not
going to bother to see me. he walked away when the train arrived, still looking at my body, still looking at
my body, still looking at what i told him was a child’s body. sat in the back without paying the fare
again because nothing about authority has changed. let my breath free, wondering if he’d look at my
body the same if he knew how i used to starve it and carve it and carry it through funerals. innocence
dies the same way people do.
sunday 9:45am
did childcare at church and forgot about the anger and remembered it again. listened to a 4 year old
explain why god is love and i believed her.
sunday 4:55pm
did my taxes for the first time and probably did them wrong because i owe money but i don’t have
money i’ve been spending it all on train fare so fuck.
sunday 11:47pm
listened to a podcast by tracy k. smith. wished i could curl into her voice and live there for awhile.
+++
I Can’t Breathe: A Sonnet
I fear the worst has yet to come
I am trapped between these four walls
Stuck inside a beating drum
Where the people cry, and the nation falls
The days turn red to match the streets
Brown is the skin that bleeds of blue
Massacres covered in white sheets
While a virus waits for her cue
But there is a curse that haunts this land
A furious body shaped like mine
Raging of a kneel, yearning for a stand
A life that matters is more than a sign
Two killers among us who you cannot see
Where your last words ring, “I can’t breathe.”
+++
I demand the right to see another sunrise.
*editor’s note: upon hearing this poem it was our privilege to accept and publish it
I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T
BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T
BREATHE
I write it until it doesn’t make sense anymore.
I write it until it looks like something out of a horror movie.
I write it until I realize it’s never made sense.
The day begins with my face pressed into my hands. My hands, these brown hands, have been shaking
for several mornings. They quake into the evening, they tremble so terribly sometimes I fear that they
will fall off. These hands are my only weapons. I use them to write.
I shove my face harder into my hands, try to cut off my circulation, try to imagine what it feels like to
not be able to breathe. I count the seconds waiting to pass out, waiting for the moment I just can’t take
it anymore. It is painful, a searing type of burn that lingers in the lungs and inflates inside your chest. It
is terrible to not be able to breathe and still I try to see how long I could last with my breath suspended
in my own hands.
It is barely a minute and then my hands out of sheer instinct, out of a necessity to see another day,
release me from myself and I am breathing again. How lucky I am to hold my life in my own hands.
I take in a gust of air, fill my lungs, let the oxygen clear my brain.
And then I do it again.
I do it over and over again to test how long I can hold it.
George Floyd was suffocating for 9 minutes with his head crushed to the ground, a knee in his neck,
blood pouring from his nose, and his mama’s name dancing on his last breath. George Floyd was
suffocating for 9 minutes with his head crushed to the ground, a knee in his neck, blood pouring from
his nose. George Floyd was suffocating for 9 minutes with his head crushed to the ground, a knee in
his neck. George Floyd was suffocating for 9 minutes with his head crushed to the ground and a knee
in his neck a knee in his neck a knee in his neck a knee in his neck.
George Floyd was suffocating.
I bury my face into the pillow and I try again.
I must know what that type of pain is like. I carry myself throughout the day in George Floyd’s last
breath and something audibly snaps in my chest. It sounds like a gunshot going off in my ribcage, but I
hold it there, I let it hurt, I let it take my breath away, I let it follow through my whole body.
It is in the mornings that I try to find the words to describe what it is like to be black in Amerikkka. I
sit, petrified and paralyzed, in front of the tv and feel a knee in my neck. There is a bullet in my gut
before the words have the chance to catch me. The blood in my mouth tells me to put it on paper. I
must write about this anguish.
But the words don’t come.
George Floyd was suffocating.
The blood in the streets is mine.
It is yours.
I watch that video again and hold my breath during its duration. My breath does not hold for as long
as George Floyd’s was forced to before it left completely. I watch that video again and pound my head
against the kitchen tile and wait for the blood to pool in the cracks. A headache starts before the tears
but it doesn’t compare to cracking my skull against concrete. I watch that video again and dig my
fingernails into my neck, pinch the cords that hold my head upright, dig dig dig until it pulls a scream
out of me. But I don’t hear it. I watch that video again and shove a fist into my stomach until it makes
sense. But it never does and a knot forms in my throat.
There are some mornings where I pray that it kills me.
I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T
BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T
BREATHE
George Floyd was suffocating for 9 minutes.
And I have the audacity to demand the right to see another sunrise.
+++
Moxxy Rogers is a 22 year old poet from Gonzales, Louisiana. She moved to Portland when she was 18 to pursue an education in literature, and just graduated from Portland State University with her Cum Laude Bachelors in Creative Writing with a Focus in Poetry and a minor in Film Studies. Moxxy hopes to one day get her Masters in Book Publishing and is looking forward to eventually publishing her own collection of poems. Moxxy Rogers finds joy in talking to the ocean, spending time with God, playing with her new puppy, and writing stories about people she's never met. She is currently serving with AmeriCorps as a College Coach, and is a part time nanny to two really weird kids, whom she adores. You can find more of Moxxy's work on her personal website (moxxyrogers.com). Feel free to check out her online manuscript of poems from her Senior Poetry Portfolio: Comet (simplebooklet.com/cometseniorpoetryportfolio).
