2 poems by Trina Young
Stephen King Fantasy In Which I’m Much More Than The Magical Negro
I took over for the cosmic
beast, was the new show in town.
I came in from the city hot,
missed the din but I needed to be
alone. It was the same thing here, no one
knew me, they just looked into my face and reflected
back at them they saw what they feared.
It was hard slithering into new shapes
at first
but you start to get off on not being yourself
settling into a skin scalier, slicker now than before
curling bloodied claws like acrylics, lapping at innards cupped
in a hungry hand.
I used to be so unassuming.
Something in the sewer called to me; I’d never heard my name
said that way, mistook the salt for sweet. The creature saw to kill me
was a kindness. He smelled me like the storms I used to lie in,
on my belly craving the lightning
only ever getting another sole to my spine.
Even a worm will turn,
roll herself toward the gutter and glide
into the sewer where that something was saying my name just so
saccharine.
It took the form of a man
said I looked so sad asked me how old I was if I was shaved
Down there I ate him.
Not fucking again.
He dripped off
my stalagmite teeth like fresh strawberries.
Of all the forms I can take, the clown is most befitting.
Monochrome, I appear from a crack, my painted white face peeking
through the curtain of my wild hair
from the closet
seeming to appear and disappear between the clothing, the smeared black
mouth open,
a slight glint to the teeth in the night
the expression contorting with each reemergence, soundlessly laughing
crying and/or screaming; you cannot tell.
When I became uncanny, I sunk
into comfort. When I let myself just be
slightly off, it felt right. I sat in the vanity
and my gaze went from pitying to lambent
I said my own name 5 times in the mirror and out
I came, sublime
All the candles unlit
In a smoky room I sat with the terror
of myself,
finally home.
The Room of Tiny Tenderness
Here the walls
rot
The exhibition unkempt
uncared for
save but a couple items
under cracked
display jars of glass
: misshapen candy pieces
The colored dye watering
off, like running mascara
I cried while I ate them;
it was the first time
a man had done what I asked
Given me what I wanted, something
sweet
Treated me nice after
and never asked for or tried to take
anything back from me
: a dead baby turtle
from the graveyard walking tour
where we trailed behind
and bonded
tight.
She wasn’t there on the first day of class
I almost missed her
But there the second day,
a goddamn angel.
She’s a mother now
Pregnant now
I need those kids to know
she saved me
Invite them on this tour
of my sad life museum
so they can see
how her pillar in me
still stands
and was built upon
Behind a curtain in the deep
corner, a video plays
Hours long footage
of me and him playing
house, sharing the sparse
studio space, the money
the chores, the shows
So many shows and movies, fucking
while a horny 90’s thriller plays
(probably Michael Douglas stars)
A video in a video
A montage of him holding me
Of course I’m crying in the clips
He’s always there
It’s a little something for the real perverse, who tell us
we look at each other like no one else
is in the room
I wish there were more
to the collection
But the tape sustains me
Alone in the after
hours
I rewind the part
before bed
when he removes
my glasses
Over and over
over and over
july 30th, 2020Trina Young is a poet in Chicago and Best of the Net 2019 nominee. She has been published in Afterimage Online's Inklight Gallery, Superstition Review, Burning House Press, Rhythm & Bones Lit's Dark Marrow, Kristin Garth's Pink Plastic House, Moonchild Magazine, Kissing Dynamite, and placed third as a Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award Winner in the 2015 Illinois Emerging Writers Competition. She's on Twitter @tcyghoul but like... abandon hope all ye who enter here ok.