Poetry: This Place is a Sorry Excuse For a Hell by Jennifer Patino

This Place is a Sorry Excuse For a Hell

guts roiling in anticipation
for take-off          emptiness
should be guttural    no good
until a space is all hollowed
out

cut up like poetry     arms
holding a girl together /
make her sick so you can
take care of her

all-in if it weren’t for
circumstances     slow dances
in the snow       worry patrol
beautiful girls who don’t
believe it      danger zones
erogenous

woke up from a nightmare
with bloodstained eyes,
tear-crusted sight, lied
about the meaning of it
because reality means
I’m an awful girl

calming the flare
with gasoline soaked
food, dishrags, films
in Spanish, & a flipbook
of Basquiat’s works

this trailer smells
like cat urine which is
really meth, which is really
not too far off from
the familiarity of home

rub me in down pillows
so roses bloom on my skin /
I’m allergic & crave suffering /
your saliva like ointment
drying in the February sun

give me your best murder glare
take me to the swankiest
hole in the wall
count shell casings to fall asleep

pull over so I can throw up,
I see the worst of our culture
in the swirls      I wish it were
the late 80s & I could subsist
on Camel cigarettes & iceberg
lettuce    but I’d be older
acquiring wisdom from street
graffiti

we missed every shot we tried to take
& the holes in my heart leak
a good story / I’ll write it in my
own blood after they rob me
of everything

I’ll feel your finger
in my throat every time
I gag & be on my merry way

Bio: Jennifer Patino is an Ojibwe poet from Detroit, Michigan currently residing in Las Vegas, Nevada. She lives for books and film. She has had work featured in Door is A Jar, Punk Noir Magazine, The Chamber Magazine, Free Verse Revolution Lit, and elsewhere. She blogs at www.thistlethoughts.com.