ELEGY FOR MASSACRED SCHOOLCHILDREN
it’s shattering whole budding worlds
that should be plainly stated
not like knocking over a row of snow globes
not the terrariums and aquariums some of them
no doubt tended with earnest diligence
i mean tiny universes in cataclysm
surviving only in raw jagged memory
how do you play hand games with ghosts
expect souls to hopscotch the river styx
let favorite toys become grave markers
when my abuela died her lifetime companion
closed the funeral by singing the music
he’d spent that lifetime serenading her with
i wonder who will find their voice for them
who will summon the quavering notes inside
streak them with scalding tears
belt them to the impassive sky
find a lullaby one last time
for those who will never wake again
spinning tenderness out of the shatter
saying goodnight moon to closed caskets
they were young enough to dream
young enough not to know the future
much less fear it
because time to figure it out was promised
already artists explorers athletes scholars helpers
soon to be virtuosos heroes world changers
little lanterns snuffed into acrid gunsmoke
FOLIE À DEUX
he arrives and my room morphs into a hotel
with my books on the shelves, sticky residue of bergamot oil
in my clay diffuser, my memories swirling in the dust
on the dark lacquered walnut table
my heart freefalls to my gut
all the space turns heavy like a storm rolls in from the vents
from the one small window’s worth of dispassionate sky
this was supposed to be fun
he is undressing, acting
out the preamble of the porno that taught him to make love
runs his hands over his body celebrating what i don’t know
his denim eyes are frayed, unfocused i pour
myself into changing the music
ready to go he’s in heat like July but i can turn time
into a slow liquid he’ll never notice move yes i can
turn time into panes of glass but then
he is a cloud of gnats on my shoulders
a creeping mantle he’s already shattered my boundaries
my spells of will are meaningless to someone so devoid of magic
i can’t find the tempo of this transaction
my skin is turning to bark
i put on one of perfect pussy’s albums so the fuzzed out rage
might reverse the petrification our contact has enacted
it needs to be noise
he won’t understand to him
it won’t matter as long as he hears my mannequin moans
receives affirmation from my shudders as he enters me
‘again and again’ my laptop blares
we are a bad matchup
that keeps happening as if by chance but it’s all intentional
a deliberate melt into fugue state, a sugar cube dissolves in ichor
our lips at war, ever at odds
we could never communicate
much less love there was never potential to do more than get lost
in the salt and nickel taste of cut tongues lapping but i wish
he wouldn’t smile
like he’s giving a gift
like he’s taking what’s his
like see you next time
like he knows the joke we’re both living in
it’s the ugliest part of playing house
but when he leaves i feel the room grow back, expand
the floating after his departure on my bed with no sheets
that strange surge is what i’ll return to, glittering proof
i am my cause and he
is incidental
THE SCARECROW HAUNTS ITSELF
hurt does not require understanding
you can accept pain in your life but it really doesn’t care
there’s no control
it’s more about figuring out your relationship to suffering
finessing it so it doesn’t destroy you over a lifetime
as a child i remember feeling alone around people more than anywhere else
schoolmates told me they thought i was a serial killer when i was nine
i hope they still think that
if i show up at a reunion i hope they piss themselves
i’m not going to do anything but i’ve learned to love that they think i could
if people want to make you a monster then be a cool monster
the kind that kid-you would be proud to have drawn
being mythologized is more interesting than being forgotten
as much as i hate the kids i grew up with i don’t remember their names
they must have been boring
i’m sure they were boring
a chain of paper dolls cut from one fold
my so-called best friend’s father told him i had a rodent’s face he didn’t trust when i was twelve
which is a long way of saying he was a bigot with a smile
it’s funny to me that he talked about trust as he lied by pretending to be comfortable with my existence
wherever he is i hope he’s terminal
i hope he got beaten by a bunch of other mexicans with faces just like mine
and now he spends his life in a chair or bed being kept alive by tubes
i hope his wife aged like wine in a hot car first and they got divorced because he was a shallow
bastard and now all people in his life are paid to be there
i hope his closet case son that i once showed gay porn at his request ends up in prison and writes
his infirm father letting him know how much he loves the new life he’s found with his cellmate
more than any of that i hope they’re aware of themselves now
hurt does not require understanding
but an emptiness recognized gnaws like nothing else
so my real wish is through sheer repetition of looking in the mirror they see how it’s all deterioration
how behind their eyes it’s not even entropy
not even things breaking apart
they were always broken and spilling and now there’s nothing
not even loss
not even hollow
they lived their way to being nothing at all
Mykki Rios is a queer genderfluid Mexican-American poet, performer and multimedia artist. Raised in Chicago, and having lived many places across the globe, they currently reside in Boulder, Colorado. Mykki has had works featured in issues of Welter, Meat For Tea: The Valley Review, Random Sample Review, Smoke and Mold Journal, Synkroniciti Magazine, Lupercalia Press' Vulcanalia anthology, and more. They were also a finalist in Lupercalia Press' 2022 Chapbook Series Contest. You can find Mykki on Instagram and Twitter at @abbisynths.
Photo credit: Stefano Pollio