middle school & other initiations
BY PHIL SAINTDENISSANCHEZ
i.
the first time i really saw the stars
they hit me / first time they hit me
i really saw the stars
Pleiades & their oceanic mother
washed over my nymph body
still childing idyllic &
on the cusp of shifting
constellations
the second strike
loosened Orion’s belt & i saw
the world fall out of myself
i lay naked on the concrete
through the rest of the strikes
while all the stars watched
& told me i wasn’t enough
in every way
i wasn’t enough
what the fuck is that
who the fuck is that
said the stars
like they were destiny
but they had human bodies &
human names like Max
& Nick
& Chris
even as they violated me
from above
i tried to talk to the gods
who were also above me
so who & where was i?
& how could a child
know the difference
between them & the godly sky?
ii.
the words where my lips have been
the voice my throat would one day make sonorous
the names my body knew as mine
there’s nothing left of me
but the afterflash of butterfly wings
leaving the path
leaving the path is the only way
to become what i need to become
i got kicked out of public schools in seventh grade
i’d already been pumping since late that winter anyway
how they let me stay after we Bravehearted
the private school next door
i told them not to run their mouths
just cuz they had numbers for a brief moment
the next day
when their school let out
we charged them a hundred deep
& sent everyone fleeing back inside &
bolting the door
they kept it pushing after that
my best friend hated me
but we were both wild & uncontrollable
i heard his dad had connects in Colombia
& i had friends in places he couldn’t walk
he had five enemies for every friend
i was the opposite
so we were useful to each other
when he was killed in the middle of a house party
for smacking one of his runners around
everyone saw it coming
i heard it was the largest obstruction of justice filing
outside of a RICO in the history of the country
they made the whole house party bury the body
& swore them to secrecy
she swore me to secrecy so i can’t tell you how much older she was
when she went down on me in the woods in the summer
between eighth & ninth grade
but i will tell you she drove us there
she tried to swallow me but i just
hit throat & hit the back of throat & touched throat &
some eternal hunger
she swallowed the life at the end of desire
& told me to watch porn & compare
like maybe i have a future, new eyes,
a body worthy of life,
& the L i light to lean harder into breath
the L leans me back into the hardest relax
i drip the coconut oil down the length to slow the light
let the shine beckon angels
bathing in the screen
i study the bounce
freeze the bodies
& hold myself up to compare:
my width is clear
&
i feel my new power
stretch the air
out before me
hard to say on length
i’m almost there
but most of all
i’m finding beauty where i was
first taught shame / smooth
with the turquoise & amethyst veins
light beneath my darker, olive skin
my purple radiating deep night is quiet
& needing nothing
i relax into god’s mind
lord i lean into the sun
even when it’s not out
you can be who you want to be i tell myself
you don’t have to be powerless
& i soak in my power
still i awake depowered & shaking it
wondering where it went
its states seem infinite & i oscillate with them
i count at least eight
at least eight arrests that i can remember
the first was for grand theft auto
but i was twelve & just a backseat passenger
they thought i’d break when i came home to
a detective at my family’s kitchen table
the next year
but i was just moving ounces
&
i knew they didn’t have
anything on me
they just wanted me
for whom i knew & my infinite time
god i felt like i knew everyone
Freddy & i laughed ourselves through the smoke
the last time he sold me a qp
he gave me an extra bag for free
right before Samuel Sheinbein
& Needle
killed him with a sawed-off
& burned the body
Sheinbein fled to Israel & the US somehow lost
the extradition battle to a country whose existence it funds
i heard about my dead friend on the news
for a full year
including from my dad when
he was in Gaza
while bombs in the background
decorated his voice on the phone
as it carried across
so many walls
to get to me
their thunder signaling so many deaths
Ahmed wasn’t even a teenager
iii.
i wasn’t even a teenager when i
hotboxed the playhouse in
my grandmother’s backyard
let the front door yawn smoke
& hopped the fence
on my way to Martin’s for Muffaletta
i heard fireworks that weren’t fireworks
i saw fire dance from one car window to another
like when you love someone so much
you turn their world to nothing
but light
light like leaving a seashell
repeating the ocean
the ocean how i wept
how i wept Carlos didn’t make it
he was my favorite Carlos, too
big Carlos tried to show me his dick while we were high in
Brian’s backyard
i got a glimpse & told him he wasn’t doing
himself any favors
but the Carlos who got shot in front of his grandmother’s
building in the summer between seventh & eighth grade
had such a good heart—
& was way more fun to get high with
he was in love with V
just like everyone else
but he still gave me
props after i hooked up with her
behind the tennis wall
during Social Studies
she gave me slow blessings & slow love
let love slow / Carlos with the good heart
got aired out in front of his abuela’s building
left him full of quiet windows
& good questions
good questions leaking all over the
street / himself / every /
where / beyond
himself
where the brightest star is left alone
beyond myself in a clear mirror i gaze up &
down the length of my lost self,
wonder where i’ve been hiding inside myself
let unseen beauty clear my path,
keep me safe in this dark world
taste the victory spilling from me slowly, love
slow love, i’ve beautiful’d my way back to you
for good
this time
