Alexandra Gilliam
This Is Some Bullsh*t and Wanting to Rip the Ten Commandments Off the Texas School Walls
The familiarity of sitting in circles. The gentleness of pushing
each of their backpacks to the back of the cubby so they don't fall out.
Zaria grabbing my hand on our walk back from recess. King reading
the book about Martin Luther King Jr. in the corner elated
he found a man that looked just like him. How they all dash to the dismissal room,
eyes wide, exhaustion dipped and full of some new kind of light.
I remind them to hold their heads high. I remind them to listen to the cicadas
and don’t follow those patterns given to you. My teaching coach declares
they need to be taught as a whole group. I fire back, they are seven,
can’t we just practice the act of sharing or how to tie our shoes
or how to put the caps back on the markers or let them explore the art supplies on their own? My
friend posted on social media that they made her hang the ten commandments
in her classroom in rainbow bubble letters. I’ve never wanted to rip a poster up more.
Would you get in trouble if you put a bookshelf in front of it? Or blocked it with tiny
slips of paper? Or just stood in front of it the entire day? The exhaustion
of making it fall in your shadow for an entire day and each consecutive
school day after that. And the bliss of using your body to obstruct some supposed truth.
The truth is muddier than ever now. Or the truth is clearer now that our leader
drops bombs or set the national guard out to tear gas us all, our mouths making
light in sections. The sections left for light. They want to allow people to take ivermectin.
Wasn’t that used to treat heartworm in your dog?
I am listening to a novel of an older woman rescuing a dog
living in its own filth and watching the dog run back to its previous
owner the first chance it could get.
Once it saw safety, not knowing where to run,
but back to what it had always known.
each of their backpacks to the back of the cubby so they don't fall out.
Zaria grabbing my hand on our walk back from recess. King reading
the book about Martin Luther King Jr. in the corner elated
he found a man that looked just like him. How they all dash to the dismissal room,
eyes wide, exhaustion dipped and full of some new kind of light.
I remind them to hold their heads high. I remind them to listen to the cicadas
and don’t follow those patterns given to you. My teaching coach declares
they need to be taught as a whole group. I fire back, they are seven,
can’t we just practice the act of sharing or how to tie our shoes
or how to put the caps back on the markers or let them explore the art supplies on their own? My
friend posted on social media that they made her hang the ten commandments
in her classroom in rainbow bubble letters. I’ve never wanted to rip a poster up more.
Would you get in trouble if you put a bookshelf in front of it? Or blocked it with tiny
slips of paper? Or just stood in front of it the entire day? The exhaustion
of making it fall in your shadow for an entire day and each consecutive
school day after that. And the bliss of using your body to obstruct some supposed truth.
The truth is muddier than ever now. Or the truth is clearer now that our leader
drops bombs or set the national guard out to tear gas us all, our mouths making
light in sections. The sections left for light. They want to allow people to take ivermectin.
Wasn’t that used to treat heartworm in your dog?
I am listening to a novel of an older woman rescuing a dog
living in its own filth and watching the dog run back to its previous
owner the first chance it could get.
Once it saw safety, not knowing where to run,
but back to what it had always known.
The Ocotillo Spines and My Friend Telling Me of Her Abortion
The ocotillo sways. From the freeway, they are ropes wrapped
in cloth, or coated tiny mouths, the algae of the base of water,
how water breaks us, remembering the rising flood water
in Kerrville early July, the girls not knowing how to break
the window and swim out, how they put the youngest campers
closest to the river, the girl found in a tree
miles from her campsite bracing, waiting, how a body
becomes expendable especially not your own,
especially women, especially what is taught to us.
You were able to get an abortion? My voice is its own
making, visibly rising and falling. I’m rolling in a pre-dug grave.
An ocotillo in the parking lot. When you get up close,
thinking this green mouth, ocotillo, seems soft
enough to touch, but you can make out the spines,
dark, long, would rip your shirt if you got too close. Honey,
she exclaims, bringing me back. She gives me that look,
softness, a parting of lips, or a late night comfort,
there was no more heartbeat.
So it was allowed. It like it’s own tongue
moving through my own mouth.
in cloth, or coated tiny mouths, the algae of the base of water,
how water breaks us, remembering the rising flood water
in Kerrville early July, the girls not knowing how to break
the window and swim out, how they put the youngest campers
closest to the river, the girl found in a tree
miles from her campsite bracing, waiting, how a body
becomes expendable especially not your own,
especially women, especially what is taught to us.
You were able to get an abortion? My voice is its own
making, visibly rising and falling. I’m rolling in a pre-dug grave.
An ocotillo in the parking lot. When you get up close,
thinking this green mouth, ocotillo, seems soft
enough to touch, but you can make out the spines,
dark, long, would rip your shirt if you got too close. Honey,
she exclaims, bringing me back. She gives me that look,
softness, a parting of lips, or a late night comfort,
there was no more heartbeat.
So it was allowed. It like it’s own tongue
moving through my own mouth.
These Red States Keep Wanting to Take Me Too
They say it’s terrifyingly close. Another woman dead in Texas. These red states keep wanting to take me to. Remember how we sank in the roof out my window our third year and how illness settles in your bones. How you say that poetry is both gentle and defiant. I tell the little boy I nanny not to run into the street without my hand. End a poem with a demand like hold on to my hand or don’t stop running or make my hand your hand and run.
I stand attempting to pull language from my phone with a few friends huddled together attempting adulthood. It’s the early 2000s. We are huddled together like the Spice Girls or Paris Hilton and her bestie Nicole Ricthie trying to figure out how far away we are from Barton Springs. A man, a total stranger, comes over and declares he would take us to Barton Springs not so far from where we already were. We must have made a small scene while T-9 texting. I pull my hair behind my ear. My hands sweat and my Bath and Body Works sweet pea starts to make me feel light headed. It’s 2006 and I’m looking to others around us, adults, anyone. I am completely alone in this Whole Foods. I am a deer waiting or I am a soft breeze that is about to be taken by the humid summer day. This stranger points to a woman two feet away and claims this woman is his wife. I am wondering if we are in on some elaborate joke from one of the popular TV dramas from the 2000’s, Punked with Ashton Kutcher. This woman glances up with the hollowness in a stranger, the blank look of adulthood. This man I meant monster becomes flustered, exasperated, exists the Whole Foods in downtown Austin. Maybe he finally realized we were just girls or maybe he realized that his work of kidnapping was taking too long, imagining how in any universe abduction happens as smooth as you want, as smooth as smiling, a split second and you are gone. I step out in the summer streaked sky letting the sun swallow me whole.
The revolution began with the death
of one white tailed deer on the side of IH10.
The revolution began when the three slugs:
“deny” “defend” “depose” hit the NYC street.
The revolution began when my sister
stopped being around our mother
She had abandoned obligation
like a fallen branch that crunches under your shoe.
The revolution began when the boy I nanny
asked about the birds.
I stand attempting to pull language from my phone with a few friends huddled together attempting adulthood. It’s the early 2000s. We are huddled together like the Spice Girls or Paris Hilton and her bestie Nicole Ricthie trying to figure out how far away we are from Barton Springs. A man, a total stranger, comes over and declares he would take us to Barton Springs not so far from where we already were. We must have made a small scene while T-9 texting. I pull my hair behind my ear. My hands sweat and my Bath and Body Works sweet pea starts to make me feel light headed. It’s 2006 and I’m looking to others around us, adults, anyone. I am completely alone in this Whole Foods. I am a deer waiting or I am a soft breeze that is about to be taken by the humid summer day. This stranger points to a woman two feet away and claims this woman is his wife. I am wondering if we are in on some elaborate joke from one of the popular TV dramas from the 2000’s, Punked with Ashton Kutcher. This woman glances up with the hollowness in a stranger, the blank look of adulthood. This man I meant monster becomes flustered, exasperated, exists the Whole Foods in downtown Austin. Maybe he finally realized we were just girls or maybe he realized that his work of kidnapping was taking too long, imagining how in any universe abduction happens as smooth as you want, as smooth as smiling, a split second and you are gone. I step out in the summer streaked sky letting the sun swallow me whole.
The revolution began with the death
of one white tailed deer on the side of IH10.
The revolution began when the three slugs:
“deny” “defend” “depose” hit the NYC street.
The revolution began when my sister
stopped being around our mother
She had abandoned obligation
like a fallen branch that crunches under your shoe.
The revolution began when the boy I nanny
asked about the birds.
--
Alexandra Gilliam (she/her) is the author of Lightsheen (sub-sea sheen), Finishing Line Press, 2020 and the chapbook, Femmesturary, dancing girl press, 2016. Find her work in LIT Magazine, Second Stutter, In Parenthesis, TPC Review, and others. Alexandra is a bi-poet who lives in San Antonio, TX and works in video production. Find some of her film photography on Instagram: @poetsforsound.
Alexandra Gilliam (she/her) is the author of Lightsheen (sub-sea sheen), Finishing Line Press, 2020 and the chapbook, Femmesturary, dancing girl press, 2016. Find her work in LIT Magazine, Second Stutter, In Parenthesis, TPC Review, and others. Alexandra is a bi-poet who lives in San Antonio, TX and works in video production. Find some of her film photography on Instagram: @poetsforsound.