Three winter poems
there is something about the oughties
I’m never going to lose my student email
permanent peter pan syndrome.
the swarms of black clothed honorees
in fort greene.
I never thought I’d be here
and now I am nowhere in particular.
I feel like my body has been placed
in various scenes, just to see how I’ll react.
I am non-reactive, that’s a lie.
I react to everything and nothing all the time.
the first time I kiss someone, I think
“how can I kiss them in a way
that will make them fall in love w me”
lol right.
the man told me he would remember in his old age,
sexting me before noon.
“hey honey, wanna eat me out on this Bolt Bus?”
“oh well lovebug, as long as you stay quiet”
there was something hot about us before it got so cold,
but what do silly love affairs matter anymore?
there are creations of love in cages.
they are crying and they are full of love
and the love of their parents,
who are god knows where
and who knows where the creations of love are,
except locked away.
there is something about trauma.
there is something about Mary.
things were easier in the nineties,
Cameron Diaz wearing a white bikini
dropping off goods for her neighbors
and sex appeal was all there was.
I feel nostalgic for the nothingness,
it’s all so heavy now and there’s nothing
we really can do about it.
I call my dad while chain smoking and he blames
someone else,
for everything.
He says it’s all a fraud but there are still babies
in the world who don’t have a hand to hold,
except their own.
remembering me behind a couch hiding?
remembering me finding knives in drawers,
sisters under beds?
there is something about the oughties that fueled
my escapism.
I first heard that term from a lover’s mouth
and his mouth grew cruel to me,
between videotaping being rammed in his bedroom
and buying plane tickets at four am
but his mouth never grew cruel to the oughties.
I have a thing for men who love the Internet
more than they could ever love me.
when will I write your eulogy?
I am sinking into my mattress again,
eating my own words
licking a dirty monitor.
your entire body is on top of me
in the big heat of the roof
and I can’t figure out how to force you off.
I can’t force anything off.
The Big Heat! The Big Heat!
there is something about how soft
my skin feels
after I make love
but I cannot give that to you.
once during The Big Heat,
my father told me that
to have children is the greatest
mistake.
my father once trapped
himself in a bright pink room
for five years,
festering with anger
for the pink and anger
for the others
who were unwilling to join him.
after Stacey Teague
living in the time of fast cars
and broken subway tracks
and humans, so many humans.
miraculous but oblivious
spreading outwards from no distinct center.
eating oranges in midwinter,
citrus forever.
the Māori word for the South Island Snipe
is tutukiwi.
field notes describing a dead thing
what will be written of us?
About the author
Erin Taylor is an American poet based in NYC. Her writing can be found at erintaylorisalive.com and her tweets at @erinisaway
