Requests folder

This fell out of me one morning before I even got out of bed, after a fitful sleep, in response to some blocks I had to make in the midst of such a wonderful time, feeling free and accomplished at my MFA residency. But even, of course, in this little snowy escape from the world, the world still existed in my DMs. And after decades of this stuff, something inside me finally broke.

I didn’t plan on sharing this publicly…I thought it would just be for me, a catharsis, like those letters therapists tell you to write for no one to read. But then I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone else might be quietly blocking, quietly frustrated, quietly angry, quietly hurt, and quietly emotionally exhausted by the feeling of, in any public space (both physical and digital), having to be on alert, at risk; how the phone we carry in our purse, the same one we reach for to text our friends, also, at any given moment, can degrade when we least expect it.

This is for you. 💜

…

“Do you take Apple Pay?”
They ask in my DMs
And I don’t know where they get the impression
That I am for sale

Is this apple pay?
The snake still trying
To deceive?
Degrade?
Deteriorate?

I pay for apples all the time
Wash them
Hold then
Bite into them
Devour them until I’ve gnawed the core
And then I throw them away

What makes you think
That just because I exist
I can be purchased?

It’s 2024 and people are still
Asking in DMs
If you take Apple Pay

As if you are a storefront
The cashier
And the product

I am not a mall display case
I have no price tag stuck to my wrist

I am walking around with
My friends
until closing time
Chatting and laughing and congratulating and comforting each other

I am not in the window
Stop trying to shove me there

I did write a book
It is for sale
Please do buy that!
But they don’t want to read my words
They want to buy my worth

The truth is
I’m tired of blocking
I just wanna talk to my friends
About the 90s and truffle pasta
Without having to be reminded
That some people still see women
Smiling
Enjoying themselves
Living
As to meaning they are putting themselves on a shelf for you to place in your cart

The youth group camp scolding on the girls floor
As if skirt length
Is the problem

Just when I start to feel free
(like at New Smyrna Beach with my friends in 7th grade)
It seems there is always something to remind me
The drive-by whistling

I do not accept Apple Pay
I do not accept cash
I do not accept credit
I do not accept bitcoin
I do not accept Monopoly money
I do not accept your version of me
Of us

I am not for sale