when i go out for dinner with my boyfriend
i worry about many things:
about the threat of men
hetero & homonormative
about the threat of race
& the two-tiered energy
i expend as a bifurcated canadian
& i worry about the dessert he wants to order
“what’s wrong?” he’ll ask
as i lament the decay of a chocolate lava cake
of course i order too
miniature, a la carte, gluten-free
splenda-infused quinoa oats
rolled into a picarone no peruvian
will ever be able to afford again
but i’m sick of this script
so i eat a slice of cake
& purge it in his toilet when we get home
make sure i wash my mouth
so as not to corrode his cock
because i’ll need it later
when i need an ejection of confidence;
i expend my energy
always to make another happy—
& even my most liberal lovers
police my nipples & straighten my hair
expect me to look like
booboo stewart & taylor lautner
when they undress me
they want beaded fringe
sunburnt flesh; windburnt braids
a body odour that smells less like fermentation
more like a sweet[ER]grass
that’s been smudging since reconciliation
never expect to see an underfed
brown boy whose body is riddled with marks
s t r e t c h i n g
back to pre-contact dates
can’t they see my consumption is in the bone?
don’t they see my brethren rolling
themselves in wheelchairs down portage[s]
there is no river to roll here
(sorry tina turner)
we’re too busy getting turnt up
instead they see voyageurs
with painted-on beards
& a metis sash
from a manitoban museum
re-enacting retromania
lumbersexual hipster liberalism
dreaming of the fur trade
in the twentyfirstcentury
as if our prison commissary wasn’t enough
here i am smothering beneath your weight
here i am self-destructing beneath my breath
here i am tasting your cock
with every orifice your wallet can afford
tell him: watch me transform
watch my limbs morph into grammar
language becomes syntactical tactics for transfiguration
my body infects yours
with numbers, with language, with words
i can be a tyrant with a lacerating tongue
i can be a cyborg imperialist erasing your narrative
i can be so many things
& here you are as one
beneath me
sad little cock having tasted
the smoke of a dying fire
& burned its head retreating
so here is my body
do with it as you will
when his dick stiffens in his pants
& his hands run up my calves
i let myself become my disco-divas
moan like donna summer
“love to love you baby”
grind like candi staton
let my “young heart run free”
in the gentrified ghettos of osborne
extend my legs like grace jones
“man-machine, power-line”
slaves to the rhythm
of his breath, his expectation
& when we watch hbo
i see myself in the black-mirror
distorted between commercials
for gilette & axe body spray
here i’m loras tyrell
here i’m the hole in renly baratheon
here i’m cersei lannister
here i am a sparrow
here i am in chains
here i am made of metal
that intoxicates my veins
shameshameshame
here i am walking home
body stung & glowing red
here i walk home
in the dismal grey of seven a.m.
down portage street in his tee
pink floyd’s prism on
the city i call home quickly becomes un—
canny when i have no money
when i do not act polite
when i un: \ s /
the game of my superior / e \
& here portage bars its doors \ t /
bares its teeth at me / t \
lets me know / t \
through the hum & roar \ l /
of its streets / e \
that i can die here too
this is my walk of shame
sometimes i see myself
looking at myself
in the reflection of the unfee
think: here i am
in the jaundice yellow liver haze
of a saskatchewan fire
this is the wasteland
total recall; i|I?
while the prairie landscape burns
i pretend i’m sarah connor
burning in the playground
the name has been taken away
as my skin hue lightens in day
i am the cyborg tonto indianess
scalping frackers, claiming land
i can be a residential terminator
here are my teeth; my trc
instead i wake up arrested
with the anxiety of c51
here i am a mean girl
formulating theories
chaos theories of good intentions
that if you mix the benevolence
behind bill c31 & c51
you may get a voucher
for an extra generation
a bogo sale for cfs
can’t you tell its reigning?
why do i always have to be respectful?
tip-toeing around the sensibilities
of your illusionary trauma
go fuck yourself
how’s that for respect?
literally too
you could use a good come—u
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