untitled
by Nicholle Savoie
I want to move away from the idea that I have baggage
That I am a crazy girl with suitcases of trip wires and loaded guns that I haul into every new relationship I enter but
I've always been a backpack kind of girl
Especially since I turned twenty maybe things became too heavy for purses when I turned twenty
I'm not trying to be poetic, these things just coincide
Like the universe knew I needed more space for the shit that was handed to me
Was about to be handed to me, had been handed to me
Every verb tense of receiving things for me to hold
I have copies of "A Scanner Darkly" and "A Light in August" and my red grad dress and maybe Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" on vinyl
You handed these things to me because I was so "mature" so "insightful"
As if it were a gift for you to make me hold these secrets for you
You see my hands shake as I hold together your job and your marriage and your family
It's funny how a whisper can feel so heavy
image: painting by Gerogia O'Keefe
"Agent Michael Scarn"
by Nicholle Savoie
I am Michael Scott in improv class, finger guns blazing
"AGENT MICHAEL SCARN, HANDS UP!"
No matter where I start the same thing comes out
"You're in a doctor's office and a duck walks in"
"AGENT MICHAEL SCARN, HANDS UP!"
"You are picking wildflowers in a meadow"
"BOOM! BOOM! AGENT MICHAEL SCARN!"
I am the proverbial broken record stuck in the same scratch for years
Words tumbling out that always turn to dust clouds of ash and shrapnel
"Boom, Agent Michael Scarn."
How do I write love poems when love tangles tongues with destruction
Maybe I always write love poems
Poems where my bite comes out where my claws come out and I refuse to be quiet about the things that love has done to me
The wounds done to me under the guise of love
My love poem to myself
My indictment of love
All the poems I write are love poems, all the poems I write are rape poems
"Agent Michael Scarn"