Furious Joy

Please note, this post contains swearing. Probably a lot of it.

From my snarl to your earholes, recording a new poem.

TW: Feminism.¹

February, huh?

I can hardly believe it. I really didn’t think January was ever going to end. Didn’t I hear that the Shitiot in Chief signed some executive order to cancel spring?

Seriously, January is the temporal version of that Irish myth of the mug that magically refills with beer every time it’s emptied. Except, instead of beer, it is a bucket of frigid grey death.

I woke up feb 1, feeling relieved. I said to my wife, “Well, those were a tough three years, but we made it.”

She looked at me quizzically, then sad that she had to be the one to break the news:

“Oh, honey. That wasn’t three years. That was just January.”

I said “How dare you.”

And went back to bed.

I have just returned from my little fetal nest under the covers. Thanks to everyone who reached out to gently poke me to see if I was still alive and if I ever planned on being funny again.

Yes, hello. I’ll do my best.

And since I skipped last week, this one is a double feature! A post with a bonus poem! An ice cold bottle of prose with a poem chaser, if you will.

The rumors are true, rage and I are in love again.

It makes me think of that song…how does it go?

“Reunited and it feels so good, reunited cuz we understood…

There’s one perfect fist²

And sugar this one is it…”

Those aren’t the words? Well they are now. This is my cover, when you do your own cover you can make it say whatever you want.

Anyway, it turns out all we needed to do was go to therapy. It really is all about communication, isn’t it?

Rage has reassured me that she’s totally cool with me seeing other people as long as she gets enough time with me.

Isn’t that great?

My rage washes away my paralyzing sadness when I must make myself move again. My rage makes me brave. It makes me focus as sharp as a katana slicing effortlessly through any wispy hair that falls on its blade.

On the downside I’ve found myself screaming at temperamental household appliances roughly 900% more than I did pre-election.

But every relationship has its downsides. No need to throw the baby out with the rage-water. (And that piece of drywall you put your fist through. As usual, by you, I mean me.)

My rage even helps me exercise!³ I mean, what’s a little 40 mile walk when you’re fighting Nazis in your head? The time just flies by.

But can I just take a minute to say: Nazis? Seriously? Fucking Nazis? America has become a cross between Parable of the Sower and The Handmaid’s Tale and then you throw in…Nazis? How fucking redundant. How unoriginal. Just atrocious writing.

Seriously, God, I’m worried about you. Do you need to go on a fucking writer’s retreat or something? I mean it’s so over the top. Like, we get it, it’s scary. Next I suppose you’ll bring back the murder hornets. And the bubonic plague. (With RFK jr. as health secretary, anything’s possible.)

I feel like I was promised the scariest movie ever and then I get to the theater and it turns out to be just another remake of Night of the Living Dead. Only without a dashing black man to play the level-headed lead and help me board up some fucking windows. (I’m looking in your direction, Obama.)

So here we are, surrounded by hoards of white men in red hats, just drooling for brains (I mean, I can’t blame them there, they certainly need some) and I’m so fucking pissed off because it is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.

I feel so cheated. I mean, this thing that is terrorizing me isn’t even original. It isn’t even clever. But just because I happen to be living it, I can’t even enjoy it ironically as I love to do with bad horror movies. It’s way less satisfying to roast bad dialogue when you’re actually getting ripped apart.

Really. If this was a movie, I would be like “God, this is so stupid.” And I would turn it off and go to bed. If only.

But alas. Here we are in hell. And y'know that saying: If you can’t get out of it,⁴ get into it.

So, let’s roast some marshmallows and read a poem.

(But you should listen to it too!)

 Furious Joy (for all the girls)

It started
With dreaming I was screaming 
“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE!”
Screaming that shit so hard so loud
An entire pack of wolves came tumbling out of my mouth 
Howling

They sent him scurrying back to hell. 
All the witches, the three furies were there as well…
A whole posse to defend me, a whole fucking tribe, 
And that’s only counting the ones in my mind. 

Because something I could never look at directly 
Grabbed my head and stood in front of me
Confessing all the septic details of that memory
Begging me 
To live free
While there’s still something left of me. 
And I will. 

When I woke I thought it would be hard to say that sentence out loud 
And it’s true I cut myself getting it out 
Spitting that broken glass truth from my mouth
The truth is sometimes bloody. And ugly. 
But as soon as it was out
In the sunlight and open air
I could finally see that what was ugly about it
Wasn’t me. 

And suddenly 
I was filled with joy. 
And rage. 
If that seems like an impossibility, 
It’s not. 

See, joy and rage are not antithetical emotions. 
They are what is most fiercely, 
Me. 

The lion’s roar, the big embrace, standing in power taking up space. 
That savage grin laughing like
“You best say that shit to my face.” 
J
oy and rage are not opposite, they are two sides of the same coin, 
And when I’m spinning in the ether I hold the possibility of either, equally within me, 
Schrödinger’s cat, but very much alive
Claws flared, teeth bared, 
But peaceful inside. 

Because that coin is called love. 

See, deep down, I’m just Ferdinand the bull. 
Sleepily smelling flowers 
Making love to all of nature with my eyes in the vast green fields of my mind. 
But I’m still a fucking bull. 

Taurus on the cusp of Gemini 
I 
Am mercurial flowing seamlessly from 
Day to night. 
That is to say…

I just want to love. I want to be a great gentle lover of all the sweet little things. 
But don’t piss me off. 
I have horns.

I carry those dualities inside of me 
And I can use them simultaneously. 
Joy in my left hand rage in my right, 
I’m ambidextrous, motherfucker, I can do this shit all night. 

You think I hate hard? 
You ain’t seen shit til you see how I love.

It’s all connected. As below, so above 
As the tiny tributaries of a baby bird’s capillaries,
Follow the same pattern as rivers filling the ocean, 
One weak man who never asked or apologized
To my terrorized 
Soul, 
Is just another drop in the immense pool of pestilence, 
Poisoning this country whole. 

And what I want all you women to know…
Is we’re in this together. 

When I faced down my worst memory in my mind, 
It wasn’t shame or fear I felt but fury
Crackling like severed power lines, 
I’m a dangerous woman, and I’m not lying when I say I’m just fine. 

When I say:
My joy is knowing I survived you, 
Looked down at your crumpled corpse
And spit blood in the dirt beside you. 

I thought facing this demon would destroy me, 
But I should have trusted these hands

hands powerful enough to stop a raging man twice my size 
and gentle enough to brush the tears from you eyes

and sure as hell they shake but not when they’re focused to a fist
my grandmas hands shook too and she was the strongest person I ever knew

These hands have wrought destruction.
They’ve nursed sick kittens back to health. 

These hands excised the tumor of you 
without even cutting myself. 
slicing free the rotting albatross that is you, 
And anything I ever thought I owed you. 
I’ll pick my teeth with your bones before I pick up the phone
For you. 

Joy is standing bloodied on that old battlefield, 
and finally feeling the sun. 
Still shining after all. 
Whispering “I won.” 
Spreading my toes in the earth
(That is still holding me, after all) 
Cupping that little flame of hope
(That is still burning after all) 
now more scar than skin
but standing tall
because i’m still here. 

 I’m here.

I’m here For my cis girls and my trans girls and my sometimes girls and my sorta girls, my big girls and my tiny girls, girls of all ages all colors all worlds, with all your baggage, all the shit you’ve been through 

if you fight for me, I’ll fight for you. 

You should have felt the twisting tree truck strength in my legs then, 
In my dream, delivering that eviction
A runaway train would have bounced off of me. 
And if this is just the microcosm of me, 
Imagine the magnitude of the macrocosm of 
Thousands, millions of us. 
Standing strong, our roots holding hands underground
Finally saying simply 
“no.” 
will be a deafening sound. 

I wasn’t afraid and I won’t abide
Any racist homophobic slimy greed misogyny, 
Transphobic rhetoric, get that shit away from me
I won’t suffer your xenophobic foolishness
Pointing your finger when it was you who got us into this, 
Letting people die for your profit, you soulless fucking ableists

I will let joy be the fuel for my fury
(I know what I’m fighting for)
Let fury be the fuel for my joy 
( I trust myself to go to war)

For any and all, of mine, that you trespass against, 

Fuck your Aryan patriarchy 
Fuck your white picket fence 
I’m coming in my beat up truck
To crash through it
tell the pretty girls to hop in. 
we’ll be ridin deep but screw it. 
Cuz all the girls are pretty. 
And We’re gonna go paint the town.
We’re gonna take back our city 
and burn this evil empire to the fucking ground.

---

If you’ve stayed with me this far, I just want to say: Thank you. Y’all are my brightest bright spot right now, and I appreciate you. 
Please remember: All art is an act of resistance because it’s a blow against despair. And despair is exactly where they want you. 
Keep making things!!!
Love and hisses, 
K 

Enjoyed this post and want to toss me a few bucks? You can do that here:

1. I wish I was kidding, but it seems some people get real triggered by this subject. Just fair warning, if you do, you probably won’t like this post much. And frankly, you probably won’t like me much either. So, y’know…🖕

2. My lawyer would like me to state clearly that I mean punching intellectually. No veiled threats of violence here, no sir. Except- Okay, fine. My lawyer would like me to shut up now. My lawyer says that a lot.

3. Of course, my rage also demands more exercise, because if I don’t pulverize myself into puree so I can pour myself into bed, I won’t sleep. Perhaps you’ve seen some evidence of that lost sleep in this very post! I know I’ve become unhinged, but where was being hinged getting me? I’m not a fucking cupboard door.

4. Though I did just get my passport renewed, so if any of y’all need a house sitter for your lil bungalow in Costa Rica…