Memories
1.
Under the covers in your pink room with
the blue blanket you can’t think of your father
without the blood rushing
Catholic school taught you to think
of the devil the same way
So you fight with your
insides willing your body to
subside to your reason to your conscience but
what about your cells that are
fighting to breath
little tiny brains
seeping through your skin that don’t
know nuthin about
how people sew
beads into their facial
muscles so every
involuntary action is
checked
You need to touch yourself and
your sheets are wet and you
think of the breathing
your parents made when
their skin touched dark in
their bedroom in the middle
of the night the wind
tapping the windows closing
the December world out
when both were so alive they
couldn’t deny it peeled
back the layers so they were
both five again hands over
hands and down below
you bring your hands down
below too and now
he is dead but you are alive
and where would you be if both
of your parents weren’t craving
to be alive
what about the spot
on your body where
your lungs connect
what about your daddy
coming and smiling and
you pulling his blue veins out
what about him sleeping
next to your mother to let her
breathing pull him into a sleep and
what about you rubbing
yourself in your blue blanket at night
before school starts the next day
so you can brave faces
that don’t want to look at
your body because
you like to scream
2.
It’s night you hide in
front of the TV with
the lamp off and you pull
out the porn you watch
your favorite scene of
two men in an English
garden by a lake
two boys in the summer
time with the rare sun
burning their butts and
you touch yourself the buttons
in the blue couch puncture your legs
you kick your pants off
and feel dirty for sitting
half naked on the couch
your friends sleep on that couch
you look down at your white
socks, force yourself to leave
them on, one boy is on
his knees, the other bends
over and kisses his
shoulder, you think
of the imprints the
grass leaves on their knees
the boy slides his cock in and your
slimy hands pump your own, car
lights pass over your window and
you want the car to stop the
man to come up to your
window and climb in and
take your cock in his
mouth, you want to
fuck him and then
you want him to leave
you, you think of both
of you on your couch
your tongue flickering
over his shoulder and when
you come listening to the
two boys groaning
on the screen, you get
an image of kissing
your sister in the car
you are ruined, aiming
your cock to your feet
so some of your sock
can soak up your cum
you’re glad that car didn’t
stop, that there was no
man that you had to
touch, that you can go
to sleep with a limp
body that will refuse to
remember in the morning.
Giovanna Coppola is a writer and poet based in London and runs a regular poetry reading event in North London called ‘Parole Parole’. Her work has recently appeared in JSTOR Daily and The Stockholm Review of Literature.