American Sonnet

My take on the American Sonnet. Written at Atlantic Center for the Arts, for Terrence Hayes' class.

American Sonnet

 

There is a woman sleeping, there are movies

Playing in the dark. The tacos are burning

on the stovetop & the nachos in the oven;

The book is on the nightstand and I am crying.

Vanilla Soy Dream starts to harden in the

Fridge, the kind that doesn’t make

Us sick. Dana Scully’s face fills the

Television scream; my mother sleeps on

While I hear the prelude lull. Youth parents her plastic

Adolescence in this room that is not white.

I shout out the lyrics to Sheena Is a Punk

Rocker over my tears. The door

Is open and I am shaking with birth.

I do not belong here.

 

The pages are not wet with my tears but

The tears of those who have burnt before me.

I means nothing but charcoal radiation

Or poetry books lying on their cracked

Spines. You know, something I cry

For this happy family, these purist walls

In which the skin boils off our secret faces.

I means killing the hairs on our

Heads, means eradicating with pesticides

Our deepest truths. After paying the

Mortician bills pasted to the skylight, it means

The boots crushing down on our souls. Spiral-

Bound lies in spiral-bound books

Cut my wrists again & again.

 

There is a mother sleeping and a

Girl with red at her cheeks. The

TV is cued on X-Files and the

Sister is on Facebook. The father loses

A bit of his soul with every click

Of the breathing mouse. I love you. There,

I said it. Am I shaking now? A cloud

Shifts over the sun. Poetry is

Passion & energy, is hours of

Bone contracting muscle, causing jots

Of ink on the marble floor, is

Shivers of electricity down your

Algebraic spine. Time is too short

Before we say goodbye. I love

You, but I do not belong here.

 

Author's Note

This is looking for revision without editing out the emotion I put into it...another one of the many poems I read (at ACA) that made me shake as I stood up to read them.