Andropomorphic

Poems by
Summer kurtz

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 Andropomorphic
Poems by
Summer kurtz

Poetry senpai press, 2016

Statesboro, Ga

[cover] summer kurtz

[layout] summer kurtz

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for dani. She saved my life.

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4
Table of contents

Blank canvas
White Wall
Sonnenizio on a line from Joseph Awad
Girl with black hair
dysphoric ghazal
should forget the regret
keep this moment
my family, still living
blanket
skin hunger(sonnet)
dyke
jenner
andropomorphic
obsession
not a daily thing, but pretty damn regular
ars poetica
belly shirt
easily-refracted
art show

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Blank canvas

Puddles of color
soak up the space on my
fingers, on the scrap
of cardboard on my floor.

Puddles of color, bulbous

globs of pigment, spread
like molasses, drop slow tears
onto soft carpet. They weep
because my brush
cant find a place for them.

The paint is cold as I

cover my hairy arms,
cover my too-small nose.
Covers my flaws as if
this is how self-acceptance looks.

The dry, cracking new

shell across my body
stares at me, mocking.
It says, this is not
the new you.

It says, this is you,

covered in a world
of colorful expectation.

Puddles of color, impatient,

vibrant against
freshly-marred skin.

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White Wall

What does a white wall feel like

after a holes been punched through it?

I can tell you what it looks like:

still just a white wall, crumbling in the middle.

A white wall feels like plaster dust,

and paint chips glued by sweat to skin.

A white wall makes your knuckles sting

and after the cuts have healed that hole remains.

Youll stare at the damage for months maybe,

trying to find the time to fix it.

After too long putting the work off,

youll buy new plaster and new white paint.

But turns out that white wall is more eggshell than white,
and your sloppy patch job wont match quite right.

A white wall feels like it did before all this,

it just looks a little different.

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Sonnenizio On A Line from Joseph Awad

When they conspired, whispering on the phone

the phone lines buzzed in response,
whispering their own sultry secrets.
They conspired, their phony lips
muttering, whispering little I love yous
and the two on the phone stood hushed,
sure that the whispers couldnt be true.
But the phone doesnt lie and their ears
dont mishear. They conspire and the
world goes hushed to listen to the phones.
Their wires twist and even those conspire
together to wonder at what other whispers
they can hear. The words are conspirators, silent,
and the whispering grows louder, more violent.

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Girl With Black Hair

I dont know you at all, but

you keep posting pictures
of the bruises on your legs.
They look good like
you look good, playing rugby
and always bragging about those bruises.
Girl with black hair,
I dont talk to you anymore.
The conversations I have with my sister
always somehow veer away from you,
maybe by mistake, or chance,
maybe to keep me
from punching concrete walls
whenever I think about you.
Girl with black hair,
I never knew you,
maybe once I though different.
I dont know you at all, but
your dog is cute as shit,
I wish I could find
a cute-ass Corgador like her.
Girl with black hair,
I dont think I love you anymore.
Were barely even friends.
You keep posting pictures of bruises
and the cats that you housesit,
and I keep liking all of them
except you, still cant seem
to like you anymore.

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Dysphoric Ghazal

The person in the mirror is me.

The reflection mimics this face, so it must be me.

This brain in this skull thinks a number of thoughts,

and if I speak those ideas they must come from me.

The hands in this lap clench when told,

so the body making these actions must be me.

People call this name and these ears hear,

since I respond, the name must belong to me.

My name is Summer, the warmest season,

so if this blood is warm, I must still be me.

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Should forget the regret

Should is a word my therapist

says I need to stop using.
And shes right, I should.

should stop thinking about that afternoon

should never have gone to his house alone
should have gone to the police
should have told someone what happened

The word is soft, but

saying the word reminds me
of the obligation behind it,
of his hands in my hair, the force of them,
His hands saying you should stop struggling.

should have learned self defense

should have been on birth control
should never have worn such revealing clothing
should have run when I had the chance

The word is innocent, but

repeating the word reminds me
of what happened on that date,
of his knee between my thighs, the hardness of it.
His knee saying you should let me in.

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Keep this memory

Keep this memory

of the old me,
in your pocket.
Let it fade and wrinkle,
let the edges curl
let water to stain it.

Keep this memory

or who I used to be
beneath your pillow
Until the paper softens
and it slides to the floor.
Let the paper soften,
let the white parts yellow.

Keep this memory

of who I am no more,
folded,
safe in a box somewhere.
Let it crumble like the old me did,
let that time be forgotten.

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my family, still living

Mom sells things, sells what she

can to put food on the table.
I took it for granted until
it dawned on me that
she was supporting two kids
in college and a husband
who didnt work much.

Dad learned everything about

parenting from himself;
but his job as Mister Mom never
got overshadowed by his role
as Mister Substitute Teacher.
You can teach kids a lot in
a few hours but you cant
teach them how to love like he does.
And yet as a kid I told him
I hated him six different times.

Its a fact that I love them

both, and theyre truly wonderful people.
But for some reason
its harder to write about virtues
instead of flaws.
Its harder to see them objectively,
especially when family
is nothing but biased at times.

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Blanket

Over dinner once Mom

told me that as kids,
my sister and I
were complete opposites.
When we were swaddled,
my sister would
squirm, fight, struggle,
but I would smile
and snuggle closer.

I used to think that was all wrong.

As a kid I hated hugs,
and I shied away from touch
like ice against heat.
My sister touched everyone, always
seeking closeness.

Now, once again over dinner,

I tell Mom she was right
about us all along.
My sister has never been more distant
and I cant help
but seek the intimacy
of that blanket
everywhere.

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Skin Hunger (sonnet)

There is a hole in my chest

that seems to pull at itself,
feeding on flesh on its best
days, or on its bad days, myself.
This hole has no stomach, no end.
It gives me an ache that stretches
to my skin and makes me bend
over backwards as it wretches
and wails, craving attention, craving touch.
It always keeps me up at night.
And I know it could be a bit much
to say, but one way to cure it might
just be a person to touch as the nights go cold,
before the hole eats me up, having no one to hold.

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Dyke

Its not that I dont like

the word dyke. Its been
reclaimed, in fact.
In fact, I called
myself a babydyke for
almost a year,
that was before I got more
comfortable with myself
and just went with lesbian.

But its the question I get

that always precedes the label,
the oh so youre a faggot? or
even better, one of them lesbians?
They say thats hot as they grin
their shark-tooth grins
and I can almost see in their black-marble
eyes how they picture me
grinding on some other woman,
but the only
hot thing I picture is grinding
a lit cigarette into the eye
of the next person
who assumes my sexuality
solely defines my worth.

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Jenner

People miss me, the athlete

me, the celebrity,
me, the man.

They think that because

Bruce is now Caitlin,
those memories are dead.

But the only thing dead is Bruce,

and his running shoes had been
collecting dust for years anyway.

He hung up the track suit,

passed the baton and victory tape
to a new body, who took the ribbon

off those medals to

tie up her hair and get to work
living like me, the celebrity

me, the woman.

Caitlin remembers Bruce,
but only as a woman remembers
an old friend long past.

Times change and so do people.

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Andropomorphic

When I sang in the

methodist youth choir
I wanted to sport masculinity
and a suit and tie
like the boys my age did.
But I wanted to fit in
so I wore a flowery dress.
The director chastised me for wearing
mens shoes and a womans face.

When I wanted to be a girl

Id buy cute shoes, cute skirts, cute
smiles. Id practice my curtsy
and hope theyd
believe I was the female they wanted.
The store mirror believed me until
I looked again at home and suddenly
the hangers were corsets or nooses
and my blouses suffocated and
got left behind.

When I wanted to be a boy

I bought cargo shorts and
stopped brushing my hair.
I was happier this way but still got pissed
when people mistook me for male.

Now I know I want to be both,

but androgyny doesnt fit as well
in peoples mouths as it does on
my body and I still
sometimes
think that maybe theyre right,
Maybe its just a phase.

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Obsession

The clothes in my closet are corsets

or nooses and my blouses suffocate,
they hang like corpses, fallen
victim to the Rake,
the man with the hook hand,
the clown killer in the sewer tunnel.

I wont wear them anymore

because I never leave my house,
never leave my desk, my face
never leaves the glowing screen.
They dont fit me, and besides,
there are too many stories to read.

Ive learned, for instance, that

the Denver airport is a fortress
for the infamous Illuminati,
and Donald Trump doesnt know
how to read. Maybe.
Maybe we made this up
out of boredom.

None of this is useful as a profession

but I identify with these facts
created by other anonymous users
like I identify with the gender
the shirts in my closet assign to me.
It could be the truth but more
than likely it isnt.

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Not a daily thing, but pretty damn regular

Okay, just talk about it.

You had suicidal thoughts. Have.
So do a lot of people,
youre not the first.
You did some self-harm. Do.
Just because you dont cut
doesnt mean its not the same.
Drinking is just as harmful.
Repeat this to yourself in the mirror.
Just talk about it.
Itll make people uncomfortable,
Theyll get over it.
Watch them squirm.
Repeat this until you feel okay around others.
Just talk about it.
Youve been getting better. Are.
Drinking less,
trying to feel more.
Repeat.

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Ars Poetica

Poetry is talking to myself,

or so I am convinced in this
room that sits absurdly out from
the rest of my house.
The streetlight shines at just
the wrong angle, right in
my tired face, as I narrate
every insubstantial thought and
turn it into substance.

Id move the desk, but its

heavy and the rest of the room
is drafty and cold.

I feel as though I may

grow old in here, hoping
this is a poem.
So far all it does is
squash my ego into
tiny pieces.

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Belly Shirt

There are some memories that would rather be forgotten

with help from a little bit of vodka.

Like the woman at the last party

I went to sober.

Her bare belly in her pale blue blouse

twisted and rolled itself out like a red carpet,

one that I knew Id never have

the courage to roll out myself.

I mentioned as much and she, with

her curves and drunken grace told me,

You can dance however you want

once youre comfortable with your body.

And I was reminded of the sensation in grade school

of slipping face first down the playground slide.

The drop in my stomach and the soar in my chest

were the same as when I heard belly shirt girl say that.

She was drunk and I,

unfortunately, was not, but

the words still stung as she spun away

in her freed body, to grind on a girlfriend.

You see I thought until then that I

was perfectly comfortable. Until I met her,

and that deflating confidence just kept stinging

as I refilled my solo cup with tap water.

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Easily-Refracted

The next time you sit

having lunch with your friend
at that place on the corner
that makes soft, salty pretzels in-house,
if you catch yourself staring
at the way the straw seems to bend
as it makes contact with your dripping ice water,

dont think about your mother hitting

your father at dinner after her fourth
glass of pinot gris,

dont think about your cousin

in rehab somewhere up north, working
bagging groceries and breaking up with the woman
he loved to spare her his pain,

dont think about how these things run

in families. Take a bite of your pretzel
and a gulp of your drink through the bendy straw.
Smile at your friend and remember that
liquid likes to distort the world
and thats why youre drinking water.

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art show

The colors of my canvas

have dried in cracks and spots
and peculiar patterns.
Water doesnt make
them run or wash away. I

am a chameleon of
rainbow hide, of shifting
identities. I am morphing
day by day into new skins,
new feelings, into a new person. I

did change, am changing,

will change again tomorrow.
A queer compounding of experiences
and personalities, I
am camouflaged, I
am andropomorphic in nature. Please

walk my halls and see

how far Ive come.
These pieces I broke off
my body myself, and
hung them up for all to view.

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