At the creative writing workshop, it’s my turn to be workshopped, so they workshop me, and I find out
they’re going to workshop me,
actually me,
not my writing,
but me,
my body,
mind,
soul,
teeth,
spleen,
posture,
spirituality,
mental health,
ethnicity,
testes,
future grave spot,
dentures (that I don’t even have),
and ability to pee without waking my roommate.
The first poet clears their throat
and clears the table
of all our possessions,
knocking them to the floor,
which is mostly just notebooks and pens,
things that don’t break,
except one computer,
that shatters
into a hundred little computers,
and the poet says,
I think there’s a problem with the point-of view,
so I ask, How can there be a problem with point-of-view
when I’m literally me,
and the poet says, Shut up, Belfrank,
which isn’t my name, and I point this out and the poet says
I have a shitty name and Belfrank is better,
except I say, it’s not a name,
and the poet asks if I’ve ever heard of Shakespeare,
which I have,
which means nothing,
and the poet screams, Nothing! Shakespeare means ‘nothing’?
and a fiction writer comes out of the wall
and says, You need to explore the human condition,
to which I point out that I am,
that you can’t not,
and the fiction writer tells me he’s almost been nominated
for the National Book Award Circle Award
at least eight times
so I need to shut my soda-hole,
and the fiction writer says, There’s nothing funny about genocide,
and I just let that one go,
worried what the reaction might be,
and then a nonfiction writer comes out of my armpit
and says, You need clarity,
and I ask if I’m blurry,
and the nonfiction writer says, You’re basically a vomit draft.
A what?
At this, the nonfiction writer tells me I’ve officially been cancelled.
The teacher pulls the fire alarm
and the building catches on fire,
which is not what I thought those things were for
and on the way out to the front parking lot,
which is also on fire,
but is where we’re designated to go,
a playwright tells me, You’re fine.
People just like to get their hands all over everything.
Just send yourself out and see what happens.
And at this point a screenwriting student shoves me in a mailbox,
placing a stamp on my thorax.
Eight months later, I get accepted by Third Coast.
I’m being reborn in next month’s issue.
Praise, Goddess.
In this poem, the poet-slash-impresario Ron Riekki advises all men not to be single, but for more women to be single
I go on a dating app
and find it’s incredibly helpful
if you want to be ripped off for bit coin.
I don’t even know what bit coin is.
I imagine Luther Vandross eating nickels.
On the dating app,
a girl posts that she’s from New York, New York, New York,
which I think is a New York that’s inside New York,
hidden somewhere in the bigger New York,
but I’m not sure.
She’s posted as 32. Lives in Vermont. South-side.
We connect.
She informs me she’s actually 83.
And in the Philippines. West-side.
She asks if I have a problem with that.
I tell her it makes getting a coffee a challenge.
She asks for my social security number.
I tell her there’s no way I’m sending her that.
She asks, OK, just the last six digits.
She adds, And no dick pics.
I’m sick of you pervs.
I ask if a knee pic is acceptable,
except I misspell knee.
I put in an extra k.
She’s offended.
She wants her money back.
From me?
No, this stupid app.
I tell her I’m writing all this in a poem.
She blocks me.
I connect with a 45-year-old in Kentucky.
I find out she’s really 18,
lives in Bermuda.
I block her fast.
I connect with a 1,000-year-old vampire
in Turkestan.
I find out she’s really 3,789 years old,
and dead.
I tell her it’s going to be hard to see a movie
if she’s dead.
She doesn’t respond,
because she’s dead.
This is a short poem that’s self-conscious about its height,
and the short poem
marries an epic poem
and gets pregnant.
The doctor says,
We’re going to have to have
a C-section.
The doctor adds,
And we’re going to have to have to have
a D-section,
because you’re having twins—
a villanelle and a sonnet.
The epic poem
is worried about money,
gets a second job,
pretending to be a haiku.
The short poem
calls it appropriation.
A fight ensues.
Short story long,
lawyers get involved.
The short poem
ends up meeting
another short poem.
She gets pregnant again,
gives birth to a poem.
It takes a while, but the doctors
end up diagnosing it
as a limerick.
They cry,
but promise to make it work.
They do.
They die forty-eight years later.
Graves right next to each other.
We all wish for that life.
Single at my age, she asks me, “Aren’t you afraid?”
and I tell her,
well,
you know
the ending of the horror film
where there’s only one person
left
alive
and the killer
is all-out
dedicated
to slaughtering them
and the person
is in the woods
pressed up against a tree
in the dark
trying not to breathe heavy
and there’s just trees
and dark
and a killer somewhere
with a knife
and chainsaw
and thumbscrews
and an iron maiden
and a breast ripper
and a pear of anguish
and two turtle doves
and a glop of cadaver fat
and Lindsey Graham’s sister
and an axe
and the actor looks straight into the camera
and you can see the sheer terror in the irises and the aqueous humor?
Well,
that’s me.
I’m not terrified of being alone.
I’m terrorified.
I’m what’s-worse-than-terrified?
And she says, OK, I was just wondering.
Complaining of money, my neighbor says, “Why don’t you teach creative writing full-time at a university?”
And I say, I never thought of that.
I’m calling Yale tomorrow.
And I call Yale
and they say they’ve been dying
for a creative writing teacher,
when can I come in?
So I drive straight there.
Sign the paperwork.
And they ask
before I go into the classroom
if I know how to write.
And I say, You mean, like, poems?
And they say, No, like, can you write at all?
And I say, You mean, like, sentences?
And they say, Yes, like a letter
or a shopping list?
Can you do those sorts of things?
And I say, Yes. Yes, I can.
And they say, We knew you were a good hire.
And I won’t be single anymore.
Not with this gig.
I’ll get a woman pregnant.
My parents will start inviting me over for Christmas.
I’ll get invited to guest speak at places like Harvard and Mott Community College.
I can just tell it’s going to happen.
I keep praying.
God is good.
This is a ridiculously long poem that’s so good it gets picked for Best American Short Stories
even though it’s a poem, and, yes,
you guessed it, it even gets into
Best Mexican Short Recipes
and I’m not even Canadian
and then, just because this poem
is that awesome, it makes me forget
that time I went shopping with my mom
and we bought parachute pants
and I wore them to school
and found out the meaning of the word
humiliation and how it shouldn’t start with
hum, because there’s nothing musical about it.
