2 Poems by Ezra Tiberius

Illustration of gourd on blue background with primary color polka dots

Things We Don’t Talk About

the night your voice broke / when i asked why you loved me / and you said everything / the cornersto[r/n]e kiss / the atrophied plane ticket / your hands high-risen / how my name sounds when your mother says it / the name i helped you kill / the kill you didn’t finish / the time you cried afterwards / the time i cried before / residue on my tongue / when i taught you how to choke me / we craved a shy violence / the night[s] i got too drunk / all i wanted was to dance / the bottle you dragged me out of / what would have happened if you didn’t / watching you pray / holding myself quiet / your laugh shining through me / sharing smoke in your bed / we woke up too early / we waited too long

During Quarantine, I Wait for My Ex to Cancel Their Spring Wedding

maybe i’m just relieved i haven’t outgrown
     my capacity to be petty,
that there are still ways to empty absurdly—
     my guts, drugged, into
one of the many garbage cans
     positioned strategically around myself lest
     i vomit randomly // this disability, invisible until it
announces itself in all the ways you
     disbelieved—           does it even matter
     how we hurt each other anymore?
     everyone on the internet has suddenly realized
          the people in prisons are people—

on TV cities bloom deceptively—
     i watch too many shows where
          fridges contain severed heads—
     the whole world lacks its outlines—
          the economy unbridles itself of us—

once i threw the ring i designed for you
     towards a lawyer’s retainer // once i watched
your brother threaten his girlfriend
     until it wasn’t a joke

listen, i wasn’t made to haunt you—
     what is a warning if not an invitation?
what is a poem about us      but a superstition?

     something i don’t believe in anymore
     something festering beyond itself

Tags: deezy violet, ezra tiberius

Ezra Tiberius is a transsexual cryptid and interdisciplinary archivist from the jersey shore, and the author of 4 chapbooks, including BLOODMUCK (The Atlas Review) and INVENTION OF THE MOUTH (Dream Pop Press). they want to hear about your favorite bridge @ birdpoet.github.io.

Deezy Violet is a Nashville-based artist, as well as the guitarist and vocalist of grunge pop band Sad Baxter, which you can listen to here: https://sadbaxter.bandcamp.com.

This week’s honorarium has been forwarded at the poet’s request to Philadelphia Housing Action. About: “Philadelphia Housing Action is a coalition formed over the winter of 2019-2020 between Black and Brown Worker Cooperative, Workers Revolutionary Collective and OccupyPHA. [Our] primary demand is the transfer of vacant, city-owned property to a community land trust for permanent, low-income housing. We do not believe the local government can meet the housing needs of the poor, unhoused, or unstably housed, so we intend to do it for ourselves.” Find out how you can support them at their website.