In Response to Derrick Brown’s “Conquered Ventom”

when a poet is wronged,
she is wrought with venomous vengeance;
she might spill the contents of your past
and your childhood fears
at a local open mic night.
you asked, "wanna dance?"
only because i had no legs.

you should hold children. maybe girls.
you cannot hold onto a single
woman.
you love--like an empty soda can.
sticky sweet recyclable.

you gave it to me--like pissing in the mouths of
children
sun-dried
lost at sea
asking for water
yes. the sex,
you gave it to me like this.

the tremble between
my wet, aching thighs
were warning signs;
the richter scale read
a perfect 10.
fucking you
was drowning in a
surreal packet of lies.
sliding down
a slice of lime
naked with welts of paper cuts.
you stapled my hopes
with promises.
then un-stapled them,
sending me back to the copy machine.

your penis is failed white hope.
your penis is fucked misspelled in the last round of the 5th grade spelling bee.
your penis is a room full of school girls in mini skirts and training bras, knocked up,
lined up
for the morning after pill.

untangle me from your outreached limbs attached to that mutable muscle,
from that fetish-fiend, rusted-knife infection you call your heart.

how could you not tell me they used to use your father's semen to populate hell?
and how could you not tell me that your father was belial?
your heart is an open sore wound of a leper, oozing on for hours, dripping mucous unto stranger's shoes.
your caustic remarks are not "street."

you've lost your wit and charm along with your heart.
our distance is safety. everyone should be safe from you.

i would like a fuzzy, pink, stuffed bunny
with your cock buzzing between her lips
to remind me that someone else
is sucking you off right now.

over the phone
you ask, "are you ok?"
i nod.

the blank calendar misses her dates.
but most of all, the holidays
and all the dated contents:
pictures
movie tickets,
love letters
poems.

how long do i wait
covered in your street stench
til your voice no longer
hums pressed to my ear?

i am as worn as a whore's doormat.

when you said you wanted to keep me,
i didn't know you meant keep me
from loving.