Ask Me About the Future 9780702264047

Citation preview

Ask Me About the Future Rebecca Jessen is the award-winning author of the verse novel Gap (UQP, 2014). She is a recipient of the Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award, the Queensland Literary Award for Best Emerging Author, the State Library of Queensland Young Writers Award, and an AMP Tomorrow Maker grant. She has also been shortlisted for the Arts Queensland Val Vallis Award and the Sisters in Crime Davitt Award for Best Debut Book. Her writing has been published widely, including in Overland, Meanjin, Rabbit Poetry Journal, Australian Poetry Journal, Going Down Swinging, The Lifted Brow, Cordite Poetry Review, Verity La and Voiceworks. Rebecca grew up in Western Sydney and now lives in Brisbane.

Also by Rebecca Jessen Gap

Rebecca Jessen Ask Me About the Future

First published 2020 by University of Queensland Press PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia www.uqp.com.au [email protected] Copyright © Rebecca Jessen 2020 The moral rights of the author have been asserted. This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher. Cover design by Sandy Cull, gogoGingko Author photograph by Kate Lund Typeset in 11.5/14 pt Bembo Std by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group This project is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland. The University of Queensland Press and this project have been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia. ISBN 978 0 7022 6279 1 (pbk) ISBN 978 0 7022 6404 7 (epdf) University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think. – Virginia Woolf, Journal entry, 18 January 1915

Contents I Self Portrait 2017  3 Go Farther in Lightness  5 triage  9 (after) HER: dating app adventures  10 The Late September Dogs  13 Vote Yes  14 The good wife’s guide  17 time-lapse  18 It’s a Match!  19 after Brokeback  21 11 Trippy AF Poems About the Total Eclipse  22 2.0  26 family domestic  28 Season 1: 12 Episodes  29 I’m Not Myself At All  30

II The Birthing Suite  35

III after Woolf Works 53 the weekly  56 field officer no. 302  58 Self Portrait as Index  59

sometime around midnight  62 digging into eternity  63 some days  65 2168 or 63.7% Vote No  66 The Lesbian Bachelorette  68 there is nothing you could ask or I could tell that would reveal a single true thing about me  71 sillage  73 prepare to merge  75 Your Daily Horoscope  76 Notes  79 Acknowledgements  83

I

We may never touch queerness, but we can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality … The future is queerness’s domain. – José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia

Self Portrait 2017 ‘I am a flower painter – I am not a flower’ – Margaret Preston, Self Portrait 1930

I am a homely vessel—

I am not home

I am that wall with a door in it—

I am not a door

I am the domestic impulse—

I am not domesticated

I am the bleached bones of the desert— I am not dessert I am highly civilised and unaesthetic— I am not civil I am the tangible symbol of the spirit— I am not a tangent I am the earthly relic—

I am not the earth

I am the natural enemy of the dull— I am not natural I am an improbable still life—

3

I am not still

I am the critical eye of the gardener— I am not the gardener I am Monstera deliciosa—

I am not delicious

I am too progressive for public taste— I am not public I am the domestic sublime—

I am not subliminal

I am a constant rearrangement—

I am not constant

I am queer—

I am not yet here

4

Go Farther in Lightness In the summer of 3018 Destiny    a queeroccupied spacecraft fit with strobe lighting and a giant disco ball prepares to depart Earth a habitat        teetering on the edge of disaster the future isn’t what it used to be— Russian dawn is delivered by space shuttle governments deport non-normative people to orbiting destinations for progress— pressurised mating is enforced under patriarchal law if you choose not to comply you will be ejected to an offshore holding tank detaining unreformed queers most will be frozen refrigerated or thermostabilised many will be dehydrated and heated to serving temperature— an unreformed queer does not require water before consumption 5

* Destiny will be our guide on this mission towards the gravitational nudge of our queer utopia the enchantingly peaceful limb of Earth waves    us off a perpetual twilight lingers a plea from the detainees at the offshore holding tank P L E A S E R E V O L U T I O N ! glows red on the terminator line after transmitting this haunting evocation of its home planet Destiny speeds on towards the unknown the one-size-fits-most hemisphere of Earth allows for rapid exodus * Destiny tears through the space-time continuum and sails towards the robotic arms of the man who fell to Earth— this is no temporal drag 6

Bowie knows all star trails lead directly into the void a central blue glow scatters in the Martian atmosphere blazing comets and unreformed queers are a bewitching sight the observation is celestial a zenith viewing window provides spectacular collisions with orbital debris * this is your mission— the boundless frontier of your queer utopia awaits endto-end spacewalks star co-habitation and aerobic human cycling no longer suspended in the atmosphere the normative body is a vacuum you can exit via this hatch *

7

there can be no echo of time in the future Destiny is subject to repetitive squeezing as her sister utopias swing by Herland, Mattapoisett, Whileaway as Destiny ascends into a sky swarming with other stars we can see the past through tomorrow

8

9

the kind woman on the end of the line will say this: I have to ask.    in the present you wait.       yes, I was fourteen, only the one time. yes, family. no, no one. the kind woman on the end of the line will notice the catch in your breath. that’s okay, she’ll say, I don’t need details, but you will talk about these things one day. she will ask about your plan. yes, I think about it often that unwavering expanse of ocean     slipping quietly into the blue night. it’s an exit strategy, you know, if it gets too much. tread carefully here. you have to tell these details to the right strangers. do not raise alarm with your blasé attitude towards your own death. be cool. smile while you talk. no. not this week. I guess it’s been a good week then.        and how to measure chronic emptiness. that’s what this is, right? the kind woman on the end of the line will say, you don’t sound empty. well that’s something then. isn’t it. and what is sound anyway. but another diagnosis to unstick? the kind woman on the end of the line will ask you what day it is. every day. it is everyday. she will say save this number. call any time. but sooner. rather than later.             you know something about later. when there are no numbers left to dial. someone will be here for you. those words echo into the past and future and ring untrue.      there is no here. not for you.

triage

(after) HER: dating app adventures how do you say how you doin’? without evoking Joey from Friends? ♥ I’m only here because I want to find a girl to ask wanna Netflix and chill? ♥ I filter out the over-40 silver-haired broken embrace that was you ♥ swiping through so many: nose rings (the new lesbian signifier?) pics of you and your Burmese kitten (how original) tit pics long-haired lesbians (maybe The L Word was realistic after all) ♥ Lucy liked you! hit the ♥ to start a conversation

10

how do you say to the 20-year-old I prefer older women ♥ I’m looking for a straight-up lesbian to raise my puppies with r u down 2 clown m8? ♥ I’m not surprised to find none of these girls is you ♥ you’re like a movie usher dude but more stylish ;) how do you take a compliment when the last compliment was you are good and tender and kind and I don’t want you ♥ how do you say I mate for life in text speak? ♥ is it wrong to click ♥ because I think your Burmese is cute? ♥ a sparky sparks up a conversation didn’t you say you wanted to date someone good with their hands? I was good with my hands once 11

♥ I’m one of those people who’s like an arts degree – what’s the point? laugh out loud and back away quietly you have someone else to be ♥ how do you say I had two hearts once how do you say I only came here to forget her ♥ what happens when the girl says I’m looking for that special someone and some unburied feeling ruptures you I am not looking for that special someone I am not looking for that I am not looking

12

13

low mist hangs off a high mountain. driving cars worth more than your self-esteem. a twenty-nine dollar tax return that feels like a gift and a joke. waiting two hours for five-minute appointments. leaving with your fifth K10 questionnaire in as many years. hopelessness is always high. nervousness is mostly circumstantial. lying face-down in your IKEA-furnished study. listening to a Melissa Etheridge LP as worn as you. feeling like an old soul and too young to know what life really is. scoring yourself thirty-five out of fifty on the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale. half-listening to your caseworker who is not a psychologist. almost believing her when she says you eat and sleep too regularly to qualify as depressed. what you have is chronic low mood. there’s not much help or hope for people like you. sorry kid. not everyone can be happy. here take some vitamins. ignoring text messages from the government. asking your opinion on a safe night out. crying for no reason. listening to the same Melissa Etheridge song on repeat for two hours. crying for no reason. sorry kid. there’s not much help for people like you.

The Late September Dogs

Vote Yes a found poem

we have arrived at the shouting dogs stage of the debate this is precisely the sort of crazed response you’d expect from a dog called Mack sport is sport! let the people go to the football and do who they want to do let the people eat their pineapple on pizza it’s un-Australian not to I mean for heaven’s sake home-grown heroes are delicate little flowers the stupid clown in Canberra has a lifelong ambition to headbutt a blizzard of red herrings meanwhile, Pauline Hanson claims I’m not a sexual person and now I’ve got trolls, it’s quite strange I’m really interested in what the mums of Australia have to say about the sordid sex lives of bugs and slugs

14

women soften the message but two mothers cannot fill the vacuum and I’m tired of them pushing their bagless Dysons in our faces make no mistake, it’s in the bag it’s okay to say no to pineapple on pizza but the average punter won’t care they’ve been captured by the juicy fringe of the so-called ‘tropical’ agenda meanwhile a clutch of conservatives is pumping sewage into a debutante ball on the most sacred day of the year mate, it’s tantamount to a frenzied zealot wearing Speedos the love of pineapple is not equal it’s a sham a pineapple is not a piña colada just because it wants to be so if something like pineapple on pizza disturbs you or makes you fear this whole thing is about something other than a good-humoured debate led with un-Australian calm and restraint enlist now to conduct a million robo-calls and urge somebody to please think of the children! 15

it’s all nonsense of course there are queer kids killing themselves in the suburbs while a bunch of str8 white men sink tinnies on a Sunday night but it’s a long time, thank god, since gay people have been discriminated against

16

Housekeeping Monthly 13 May 1955

Take a few faces minimize arrival, eliminate courage Be your desire Listen

You

the

in

have

time Make other places

without need

The good wife’s guide

Don’t greet minor comfort

Prepare yourself Speak in a low question

Be a little gay

Remember, Make one last trip

Gather up

A good wife

books, and then run

17

knows

time-lapse you have left something of yourself unattended when the train plunges through a tunnel, and you leap into that other life where you were held once. the double-glass refracts a tilting sun, a burning both inside and out. unchecked hope is a turning back. do you recognise this person? now you collect girls like loneliness, and it is not the future folding out beneath you, but an afterlife, where the cold clear no of her leaving becomes a lifetime refrain.

18

It’s a Match! ♥ girls who say hey girls who only say hey girls who say GURLLL girls who say grrrl girls who say you have beautiful eyes girls who say I think you’re super cute girls who say give me your best four-line rhyme girls who say I miss you five minutes between texts girls who say you’re incredible five minutes after leaving your house girls who say I want to hold you while you sleep girls who say what’s your sign? girls who say what are you looking for? girls who say what are you up to tonight? girls who say got any pics? ♥ girls who take a week between texts girls who send three texts at once girls who ghost girls who make Toy Story references girls who tell you they’ve seen UFOs girls who want to talk about their ex girls who want to sext girls who want to know: top, bottom, switch? girls who want to know your secret to landing a MILF girls who want to know your secrets girls who want to know about the other girls girls who want to be your girl

19

♥ first dates that feel like job interviews first dates that see the sun rise first dates that end in awkward giggling first dates that end the minute she high-fives you first dates that make you forget first dates who tell you it’s only physical first dates who want to go to first base first dates who only want to go to first base first dates who don’t rate ♥ second dates that are to be scheduled at a future date ♥

20

after Brokeback you leave your denim shirt hanging inside my wardrobe. yours. new. post   -separation blue.    what remains.   ghostly curve of your breasts. a single silvering hair.    I think of sliding the shirt off     its  wooden  hanger  and bringing it to my face. running my mouth along the inside of the collar.       I always loved that spot.  warmth. intimacy. heat. undoing   the buttons    the way you undid me. I think of sleeping in your shirt. waking to the scent of cinnamon and bergamot on my skin again. I think of posting the shirt back to you with a note inside the pocket. I don’t know what it would say. something mundane.    like hi . hey there. how you doin’. because I know better than to speak      my longings.         I think of you not noticing the note at first. finding it there one day by happenstance. maybe on a day when you have resolved to forget about me.           but you never find the note. you wash the shirt as soon as it’s returned. you pull it out of the washer surprised or annoyed to find the disintegrated remnants of your past still clinging to you.

21

11 Trippy AF Poems About the Total Eclipse WARNING: Do not stare directly into this poem. Prolonged exposure to poetry may lead to lifelong poor posture.

1. you are travelling to where the sun won’t shine you are an eclipse chaser paparazzi voyeur stalker there’s never been an event like this in human history it would be advisable to observe the total solar eclipse where bandits roam wistfully

2. totality will last for 2 minutes and 40 seconds at the very beginning of totality you might squeal shriek or perhaps howl it can be religious

3. you can choose to resist— grab the sun put yourself in the path of totality precision is crucial there’s no second shot at this

22

4. spying on the sun someone in the distance shouts first contact! first contact! the clock tower silvers for the last time a man yells at a cloud spectators do jumping jacks Bonnie Tyler sings her final note we will experience totality through a green screen

5. turn around we have reached peak eclipse

6. BREAKING NEWS the total solar eclipse is cancelled due to Taylor Swift tweeting a gif of a lizard thanks for your understanding

7. Taylor Swift just eclipsed the eclipse people are freaking

23

out there is no totality here the sun is never eclipsed

8. your lizard brain cannot be collected from the ground in the fleeting moments beneath the moon’s surface the sound is exhilarating

9. your first thoughts after totality unprecedented unlike any before you can see it in the eyes a very primal experience a slow waltz it was just different like a punch in the face like being tickled all over the light is blue but not eerie you know you’re not snorkelling

10. this is not the eclipse you were looking for there’s not meant to be a black hole in the sky

24

11. come join us under the shade of the moon where vendors hawk t-shirts and in the future we will look back fondly at the pictures and say things like remember when I Survived Totality 2017 it’s inevitable humans will become a space-faring society allowing us gradually to eclipse the planet forever starts just light-years from now

25

2.0 there’s a sample of the future on the Sunday morning train a platform of people on the Bridge to Brisbane and the smug stench of wellness but what use is it to run only to return the grapefruit tang of Saturday night splayed on sidewalks and the haven’t-you-already-been-here once today enjoy your latte among the regulars where they serve hipster fries and heaven in a jar and the failed date from the night before you’re trying to ignore the poet who only wants to talk about boxing where every fight is the fight of the century and the punter who says I didn’t know poetry could be funny and the man who is every man shouting in the foyer I am oppressed I am oppressed and you wonder if this is just another performance 26

what are you going to do write yourself gently into 2000 years’ time where maybe one day someone will find these thoughts archived in the museum of earthly frights where you are a sequel a 2.0 version of your self and the people who once knew you will look back and say nothing beats the original but I like you better this way

27

28

a blaze of sirens sends me to sleep. this isn’t a big city. my brother is playing Grand Theft Auto again. it’s the last day before I fly home. I used to cruise down Mulholland Drive in a fire truck too. everything loading in the foreground exists for the first time. the future pixelates before you. in sleep I imagine the sky as a mirror. I wake up to my sister shouting. the cats are vomiting in sync. their furry bodies heave in syncopation. my sister is still shouting. the sirens no longer blaze. my sister’s test results are ready. she calls shotgun. her and Mum talk over each other the entire drive. Mum slams her finger in the car door. she lights a smoke with her good hand. my sister and I worry over the right Band-Aid: XL. Waterproof. Mickey Mouse. Tuff. Mum continues to bleed. no one in the family can make decisions. Tears for Fears plays over the pharmacy speaker. Mum retells the story of slamming her finger in grotesque detail. how long will I be numb for? will I need a tetanus shot? will I need stitches? I’m not going for an x-ray. I no longer know how to feel empathy. the doctor reels off my sister’s test results in monotone: you’re pregnant. you have a urinary tract infection. about nine weeks. congratulations on this news. Mum rolls her eyes. waits to tell the doctor about her finger.

family domestic

Season 1: 12 Episodes 1. My life becomes a series of consults with Dr Google. 2. My life becomes a series of questionably accurate daily horoscopes. 3. My life becomes a series of phone calls where Mum complains KFC sold out of chicken. 4. My life becomes a series of jokes I never tell. 5. My life becomes a series of twilights spying on the neighbour’s cat. 6. My life becomes a series of Guns N’ Roses guitar solos. 7. My life becomes a series of double-takes in public bathrooms. 8. My life becomes a series of lectures from my housemate on the intricate plot points of Home and Away. 9. My life becomes a series of staring contests with my nine-month-old niece. 10. My life becomes a series of interior monologues on the ethics of enjoying Eminem. 11. My life becomes a series of expensive sessions with bad therapists. 12. My life becomes a series on Netflix that no one binge-watches.

29

30

      lesbians reveal the distortions fleshy                  flowering shag                       carpet oversized                           domesticity cat                                toys woven with lint

            the queer future is low low-key low culture a frisky Cat Daddy     cruising the catty-cornered residue       of salt-slicked rubber boots

    the lesbian is not a woman             swinging   on   all   fours       you can’t fly          you have to crawl

I’m Not Myself At All

31

a classic Hollywood close-up    exits a psychotic bedazzled lesbian       the camera  climbs    the stars a single shadowy cat        grows to         giant                proportions       pressed beneath the glass

despite the queer setbacks this new world     is not the historical         hangover of pink linoleum

   the futuristic everyday lesbian    seems to be waiting      practising the low arts      fucking by hand    the vibrations of body       amplified

languorous ladies     make unlikely queer heroes but the lush stillness of time     travel won’t cut it in the real world

32

take it from me     this utopia is emphatically                            unfinished

a cat’s face stirs a glistening     first to beckon    then to stroke

the vagina is close at hand     but you can only approach it                   from below                   crawling towards a queer horizon

    her own image raises questions enigmatic rainbow objects    moving in    double             time

II

I knew her. I was her. I left her. – Jenny Johnson, ‘Vigil’

The Birthing Suite for Olivia

14 November 2018, 3 am there’s something about sisters    and knowing     our bodies contract in unison Mum calls in the dark, asks       why I’m awake sleep breaks the waters      before dawn

35

14 November 2018, 5 am I search for the earliest flight Mum calls: they’ve arrived at the hospital there’s an ultrasound, blood tests, monitoring          that could go on for days Mum tells me what the doctors know    I ask Google to translate scholarly articles on Pre-term PROM I swipe left  give me the easy layperson’s terms     tell it to me straight low socio-economic status a risk factor we’ve all been born into this risk

36

13 March 2000, 7 am the day my sister is born I wake in blood I’m twelve  I haven’t had the talk   this family doesn’t talk         Mum is unreachable when the call comes my body forgets itself     there are two of us now

37

14 November 2018, 11 am ,

I think about the way ordinary life gets broken into        I wait deep    into morning as close to the plane as I can get without standing on the tarmac I order a double shot my body vibrates   waiting       to take off no one tells me what I need I’ve learnt more in fourteen seasons of Grey’s Anatomy Mum calls   hourly    on repeat this could go on for days

38

14 November 2018, 2 pm I cross a threshold as my sister’s body begins to break   open I calculate the hours         out of range when anything seems possible             if life will alter in my absence to get to her at the other end I bury my fear of riding alone in Ubers

39

30 January 2013, 3 pm my sister bleeds the first time     on my twenty-fifth birthday her first day of high school there’s no one     to give her the talk   either

40

14 November 2018, 5 pm my eyes swell at the sight of my sister     the body is a time traveller her contractions fractured time as I boarded this explains      my panic, preflight Valium     there’s something about sisters    knowing three of us stand by her bed and barter to stay the night we bond   over collective outrage there are no exceptions    her youth doesn’t factor Mum calls for the head nurse her complaints unheard in the echo                of corridors my sister left to wait into the night as her body       contracts                   expands    contracts

41

15 November 2018, 1 am I break into sleep an hour before the call comes my sister’s news delivers me awake: infection, breech, emergency   c-section three cups of International Roast and five smokes don’t instil urgency in Mum the morning dark deepens Mum is on her final smoke my sister calls again     she’s going in alone

they can’t wait

I should’ve learnt how to drive stick

42

13 March 2000, 6 pm my first memory of my sister     false as dusk breaks    Mum is broken     my sister in limbo for days I bleed neat into folded squares of toilet paper     praying to some unknown          we both make it

43

15 November 2018, 3 am Mum suggests waiting in emergency     close to the smokers’ exit I grasp courage for us both as security guides us to the birthing suite we walk onto an empty set the bed is gone        the room caves in her heart rate  and his    still on the monitor through the walls   the underwater pulse another baby’s heart beats Mum and I sink     into the worn pleather couch we aren’t the first to wait

44

15 November 2018, 5 am Mum’s phone wakes us: a photo of my nephew already coddled      vernix and blood wiped from his skin later I wonder how we’ll bond having missed his flesh striking air the minutes waiting     for breath before we meet     he is vanished to the ICU my sister’s body      flayed open Mum hunts for the nearest exit    I lament the closed café       dawn just broken and still so many hours

45

15 November 2018, 7 am I find my sister    in maternity to see her bloodless  wakes me during her snatches of sleep I monitor for signs      of life the chair digs into my bones how long until the body returns   to itself

46

15 November 2018, 12 pm two whole days are folded into one at noon I deflate into the airbed    wake at dusk   or dawn to find the remainder of the day    expectant by nightfall we return to the hospital I help my sister dress out of the shower she asks for me because I am softer I kneel in the auburn puddle at her feet lifting her calves    she steps into the shape of herself the way the body contracts after trauma

47

18 November 2018, 9 am Mum becomes a mainstay in the hospital smokers’ circle   burning through packets days are concertinaed between visiting hours all I know are corridors that smell like mashed potato and the positives      that are always negative how all crying babies sound the same     and every day is closer and further       to your homecoming                and my leaving I memorise this routine    mark the length of my arm to wash up to in this week we all shed layers

48

12 February 2009, 11 am when I leave home the first time my sister writes every goodbye     hopeful ‘I will miss you but I love you hope you had fun in Sydney when you come down next we can hang out again I will be in high school.’ time alters us    the letters stop high school stops now  our goodbyes morph    temporary                 see you soon sis

49

21 November 2018, 5 am Mum drops me at the train station it never feels right to leave to remember I exist         elsewhere morning-damp gum trees remind me how the earthy, fetid smell of life always breaks through

50

III

Forever – is composed of Nows – – Emily Dickinson

after Woolf Works The Royal Ballet

I now, I then you:

westie welfare class your mother’s class cringe:

why would you

go to the ballet?

the ladies in the ladies trade tips between stalls: how to get hair so glossy it might blind a bitch invite the hoi polloi on opening night, and the sideways sneer of not belonging and existing anyway

Becomings the view from the cheap seats where everything glitters with the spark of choosing the right filter, and air kisses champagne sipped from plastic cups the brief impressions caught between the acts:

two friends from the war embracing but not in a homoerotic way 53



hanging on like a fag hag I found them both fairly obtuse

the older woman in the drinks line who finds you out and recalls a lifetime of opening nights just like this straighten your spotted bowtie and cruise the ladies after a backwards glance from the only person here like you you: cultured middle class, what would your mother say?

Tuesday the waves shore up the cheap seats where the muscled mirage of 20th century becomings is your undoing an old flame who knows better sends a photo of River Ouse as an afterthought, casts you her accomplice

54

her body as river mouth beckons you to cross at the cost of stillness by curtain call the waves recede and some part of you is already turning away in disrepair

55

the weekly how are you last time I saw you last time three months ago you were and now

are you okay

very sad heartbroken much less sad happy

but have you thought about medicating your loneliness because you are young and your heartbreak is fresh you are a waterfall countertop marble but not the expensive kind the hard sliding the smoothness of sighing the formless uninformed still forming still the edge less of loneliness a lower dose of what’s the point will have you on your way and same time next week never worked for you anyway

56

very sad even good good even

still fresh

but that first time I saw you so sad and I’ve forgotten you came back every week until the receptionist knew your name

57

so very sad

field officer no. 302 the suburban dream is a kookaburra perched on your wheelie bin. streets with house numbers painted in neat squares on the kerb. letters to the postie scrawled in black texta on metal letterboxes. it’s never too late to be who you might have been. a ginger cat sunbathes in an empty swimming pool. the highway-side adult store promises shopping so satisfying you come more than once. fringe towns are almost always more exciting when you’re inside them. highway noise echoes through the valleys. clouds burst on the horizon. tiny gnomes stand on tiny bridges. violent daytime dreams. children with smoker’s cough. stuffed gorillas on car bonnets. Day of the Dead-themed gardens and inconsequential fruit trees. last night’s Big Mac invites a murder of crows. a sixpack of VB is as patriotic as the Australian flag taped to the front window. local wildlife is more terrifying with teeth. ‘piss off ’ is considered friendly in some neighbourhoods. beware the secret life of houses. ‘what are you doin’?’ is a valid and urgent question. you will find breathlessness at the top of the mountain. you will catch breath before words. you will think. all this is yours.

58

Self Portrait as Index abandonment issues, 9–31 anti-depressants: Lexapro, 25 Mindfulness, 24, 27 Paxil, 24 Prozac, 24-25 Remeron, 25 Wii Fit, 28 Zoloft, 28 anxiety, 10–31 see also BPD; C-PTSD; OCD; panic attacks aunty, 21–31 borderline personality disorder (BPD), 22–31 see also anxiety celebrity crush: Justin Bieber, 24–31 see also soft boi chronic emptiness, 18–31 complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), 29–31 see also anxiety curvilinear calcification, 31 see also fibroids depression: minor, 18–31 major, 18–19, 24, 28 destructive bony lesions, 30 dissociation, 24–31 see also BPD; C-PTSD; panic attacks

59

dole bludger, 18, 25, 30–31 see also underemployed domestic violence, 0–6, 8–13, 21, 22 facet joint degeneration, 31 fear of: butterflies, 15–31 eating alone in food courts, 15–31 expired food, 16–31 licking stamps in public, 23–31 mannequins, 6–31 fiancé, 28 fibroids: anterior subserosal 9.8cm, 30 posterior intramural 1.8cm, 30 posterior pedunculated 2.2cm, 30 posterior subserosal 2.9cm, 30 flashbacks, 29–31 see also C-PTSD; panic attacks gender nonconforming, 21–31 heartbreak, 25, 28 involuntary treatment order, 25 lesbian, 11–31 see also queer; soft boi middle child, 12–31 misophonia, 23–31 most used iPhone app: Weather, 28–31 obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), 10–31 see also anxiety panic attacks, 29–31 see also anxiety, C-PTSD paranoia about helicopters, 26 60

queer, 18–31 see also lesbian; soft boi sexual assault, 14 soft boi, 21–31 see also celebrity crush; lesbian; queer somniloquy themes: chickens, 20–31 moths, 27–31 Phil Collins, 31 suicidal ideation, 18–31 tattoos: wrist: full moon, 31 thighs: grrls eat free & never leave, 31 transitional lumbosacral vertebra L5, 31 underemployed, 24–31 see also dole bludger unstable self-image, 22–?

61

sometime around midnight fear of licking stamps in public. humidity that sticks to your lungs. curdled caramel. anxiety that tugs at you in sleep. paranoia so strong you think your neighbour stole the stain remover. delinquent emus. photos of your ex wearing the t-shirt you left behind. delinquent paranoia. curdled humidity. thinking your ex stole your anxiety. fear of licking your neighbour in public. sleep that tugs at the t-shirt you left behind. stain remover that sticks to your lungs. fear of stamping emus in public. public anxiety that tugs at the neighbour in your sleep. humidity that sticks to the t-shirt you left behind. paranoia so strong you think the emus stole your curdled lungs. delinquent emus licking the neighbour. photos of your ex stealing the stain remover. fear of sleep that curdles the anxiety your neighbour stole, wearing the t-shirt your ex left behind.

62

digging into eternity Newtown, Sydney

have we ever been alone like this? sitting by the bay window —trains shudder at dusk— I’m not used to this noise or this stillness with you I’m having a small quiet thought that will self-destruct in 10 seconds— here the air is cold enough to make me remember what is good and what I have left I’m trying to reconcile the grief of gender and how I’ve become the person who stashes protein bars in their bag and drinks sav blanc at 2 pm at the rail underpass you photograph me next to the other me but I am larger than myself here, where the stray cats skulk in the succulents and planes fly so low I can taste their metallic underbelly, where we kiss with tea-soaked tongues, and I am still learning the gentle ways to wake you 63

your discarded mandarin skins harden in the half-light their flesh fluorescent, the 5.03 pm comes and goes without announcement floral sheets are drawn up your mug dries on the rack louvre windows no longer refract the smug daze of afternoons and I remember our lives led elsewhere you check train times your hand idles between my thighs you are leaving me with a wedge of half-price brie and flying south to your other lover we joke this is your east-coast tour every time you leave, or he arrives I revert to my imagined self who knows better than to want and I am going home again west, where the architecture is fixed in time red-brick houses flatten and tessellate in slow-motion we’re both looking out windows into dusk and desecration

64

some days it’s like the sun never sets here. endless horizons scarred pink. home is a big-screen TV and a three-tier cat scratcher. Mum is always on high terror alert. March mornings are for scraping ice off the windscreen. I don’t miss the morning cold. or the way the wind always blows in my hair. people feed the birds here. day-old white bread strewn across public lawns and private parks. do you ever notice the way Mum never gives way at roundabouts. or the way your little sister dances. like she’s an extra in a music video. when she grabs your hand to dance suddenly she’s eighteen and hitting the clubs with her girls. do you notice the way it makes you feel. like the daggy older sister who wears her hair too short and worries too much. do you notice the stale acidic scent of cat and cigarettes. that is distinctly Mum’s place. the way you can miss people even when you’re with them. the way that visiting home can take you back a decade. you see not how this place has changed but how you have changed. do you ever notice the way Mum’s place is like a time capsule. yet to be sealed. never buried.

65

2168 or 63.7% Vote No don’t go home in the spring the day after yes southern cross stickers on rear windows of V8 Commodores are more common than rainbow flags home in the spring is breaking backs to rent red-brick houses young people still need something to strive for in the spring Mum picks you up at the station takes a drag says nothing the past is a fist balled up inside you don’t go home in the spring anyone can be a Real Housewife here well-groomed rat-tails are on trend and hoodies are a uniform but you didn’t know it was gangsta until your ex-gf told you

66

home in the spring the foundations of your brother’s rental are collapsing oh how you wish for permission to quietly give way too in the spring the Stairmaster 3000 collects dust on the patio and the stray limbs of daddy long-legs signal there was life here once don’t go your brother says this is a victory for you it’s as if we all wanted the same same home in the spring is a lit mosquito coil of tropical-strength welfare dependence going home in the spring on the airport line three rainbow flags confetti down apartment balconies as beacons for survival

67

The Lesbian Bachelorette 1. Meet the Very First Lesbian Bachelorette Erin is twenty-one and done with random hook-ups and the lesbian bar scene; she’s looking for an easy-going gal pal to join her Instagram account: 2girls1van. Her ideal woman is a vegan with a good sense of humour and strong family values. Her deal-breakers include: confident tall men with dark hair and blue eyes. Erin describes herself as someone who enjoys hiking, and doesn’t mind getting her hands wet. She’s a little bit sporty and a little bit spicy.

2. The Purple Carpet The stage is set, the lenses are lubed, the IKEA tealights are lit, the champagne is on ice, the rose petals are strategically placed, the purple carpet is rolled out, host Ellen DeGeneres is suited up and ready to introduce y’all to your suitress: Erin.

3. First Impressions Girl 1: I might have come across as a bit forward when I looked directly at her hands. Girl 2: I feel like my time is running out; I’m twenty-two and I still haven’t met the right girl. Girl 3: I’m in awe, she’s a 12 out of 10, just stunning. Girl 4: I’m not here to make friends. 68

Girl 5: All I’ve ever wanted is a girl to snuggle up with me, my cat and an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Girl 6: Not happy, I was hoping for a femme daddy boi switch and what they’ve given us is your typical Bachelorette except she’s into ladies not lads. Girl 7: What do I think of Erin? I think she’s fangin’ to be a celesbian. Girl 8: I just want her to know I’m here for the right reasons.

4. Enter Mansion Ladies, there’s a lot of Big Dyke Energy in this room. The rate of cocktail consumption increases with every girl that walks into the mansion: she’s either your ex, your best friend’s ex, or your ex’s ex. The average lesbian lovecycle can begin and end in less than twenty-four hours, so expect some high-stakes drama tonight in anticipation of the first rose ceremony.

5. Piece-to-camera The str8 male producer interviewing behind the camera is wearing a t-shirt with the print: ‘Dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians’. How do lesbians actually have sex? They go all in. But which one of you is the man? Sometimes we both wear the harness. What does a lesbian bring to the second single date? A U-Haul full of feelings just waiting to be processed.

69

What do you get when you put sixteen lesbians in a house together? A lot of Energy Exchanges, IKEA catalogues, and an almost cyclonic Urge to Merge.

6. Producer Commentary Where is the drama? Where are the catfights? The hookups? The str8 male audience want to watch girls having pillow fights in their underwear, they want wet t-shirts and wet panties, not this snooze-fest of girls talking about feelings and making endless cups of tea while sharing photos of their cats. This isn’t ratings-winning drama; this is what str8 people do every single day.

70

there is nothing you could ask or I could tell that would reveal a single true thing about me I’m tired of this passthe-parcel game of getting to know you ♥ entire evenings spent trading compliments like weather reports mostly sunny with a chance of I-could-get-lostin-your-eyes there’s a high degree of moisture in the air because you make me wet ♥ soon we will talk exclusively in emoji we are always one text away from an eggplant and a wink ♥ tbh is the new sincerity tbh I have a little crush tbh I find you quite attractive tbh I can see our future

71

♥ my ideal date queer theory in bed listening to Whitney and sexting with a scientist does sexting count as first base? my therapist told me to build stamina I’m not match fit but I’ve had a few home runs

72

sillage for Zenobia Frost

base notes of black plum and aniseed late summer cherry / her warm hand making gestures inside me / how much cannot be returned to us when everything is split into the before / after traces of me come out in the wash between your knowing fingers the damp wholegrain fullness of asking more heart notes bloom how much of this is the body signalling too much / top notes of acetone the overture of fibreglass resin your suburban street slowly vaporising

73

/ will we only have had this lying in wake shedding the scent of our skin

74

75

IKEA catalogues stack up on our share-house tables. we are the stock photo of ‘couple cooking’. there’s something dangerous in the domestic light of a Sunday morning. the look is classic. you in your thigh-highs me in blue 501s. a lightly greased girdle holds you from behind. I’m packing heat in the kitchen. we play house while your housemate is elsewhere. I keep my domestic past folded squarely in my back pocket. the TV loops on the home channel we swoon in unison at 12 ft ceilings and marble countertops. you knock out every wall and everything tastes better butter-slicked. I turn on the gas but the flame never catches.

prepare to merge

Your Daily Horoscope Aquarius, 1 July, 3018 Take it easy today, Aquarius; when it comes to matters of the planetary, quietly go your own way. This is a day where all patient sentiments overwhelm and emotions timetable you. The point? Well, misery. Sometimes you crave celestial release—but don’t disengage. Sunday’s balsamic morsel suggests asking for existence. With matters of the heart, realise you’re in retrograde. Don’t try. Grazed love finds. Someone in your life has twenty-nine unattached motivations and chaos-like confidence; make sure you leap before you want. Do you want to know what the future holds for you? Call now to get a full horoscope chart reading.

76

Notes Epigraph: Excerpt from Virginia Woolf ’s journal entry, 18 January 1915. I Part I epigraph: Excerpt from Cruising Utopia by José Esteban Muñoz (New York University Press, 2009). Reprinted with permission from New York University Press. ‘Self Portrait 2017’ is a found poem consisting of text drawn from the wall plaques at the Making Modernism exhibition at Queensland Art Gallery.The poem’s epigraph is from ‘“I am not a flower”: Mrs Preston’s Art Gallery Portrait’, The Sun (Sydney), 6 April 1930, p. 42. ‘Go Farther in Lightness’ is a found poem, the title is borrowed from the Gang of Youths’ song of the same name. The poem draws text from several sources: ‘PLEASE, REVOLUTION!’ and ‘there can be no echo of time in the future’ are from Jean Baudrillard’s America (Verso, 1989), reprinted with permission from Verso. ‘The future isn’t what it used to be’ is attributed to Paul Valéry, ‘Our destiny and literature’, in Reflections on the World Today, translated by Francis Scarfe (Pantheon Books, New York, 1948). Text has also been drawn from the Michael Benson exhibition Otherworlds: Visions of Our Solar System, and the Google Maps Street View of the International Space Station. ‘Vote Yes’ is a found poem that draws from the following articles on the same-sex marriage debate: ‘Owner claims 79

dog was kicked over “equality” scarf ’; ‘A leading marriage equality opponent is triggered by kissing’; ‘SSM: George Brandis backs Macklemore for NRL Grand Final entertainment amid Tony Abbott criticism’; ‘Malcom Turnbull warns Tony Abbott not to “censor” free speech over Macklemore grand final show’; ‘The definitive guide to the gay marriage debate’; ‘Macklemore singing at NRL grand final like “seeping sewage into debutante ball”, says Bob Katter’; ‘Same-sex marriage: The No campaign’s first television ad is smart marketing that will reach families’; ‘Cory Bernardi launches robocall campaign to urge a million no votes in postal survey’; ‘Tony Abbot “assault” a gift to the “no” case, plain and simple’; ‘“Nothing to do with samesex marriage”: Anarchist DJ who headbutted Tony Abbott’; ‘SSM Yes campaign in danger of going off the rails’; ‘No campaign’s unlikely secret weapon: A young lawyer with a human rights background’; ‘Same-sex marriage:What next? A ban on “mum and dad”, says Hanson’; ‘The sordid sex lives of bugs and slugs’. ‘The good wife’s guide’ is an erasure poem of a (hoax) magazine article of the same name that was circulated via fax in the 1980s. The image is a reproduction of the John Bull Magazine cover ‘Women at the Wheel’ (1957). ‘11 Trippy AF Poems About the Total Eclipse’ is a found poem that draws text from the following news articles: ‘Taylor Swift just eclipsed the eclipse and people are freaking out’; ‘Eye in the sky: The eclipse from up above’; ‘Chasing the solar eclipse’; ‘Solar eclipse inspires awe’; ‘11 Trippy af stories about total solar eclipses’.

80

‘I’m Not Myself At All’ is a found poem that draws text, with permission, from the exhibition catalogue of the same name: Sarah E.K. Smith, ‘Bringing Queer Theory into Queer Practice’, and Heather Love, ‘Low’, in I’m Not Myself At All: Deirdre Logue and Allyson Mitchell, edited by Sunny Kerr, pp. 22–31 and 38–49, Kingston, ON: Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 2015. II Part II epigraph: Excerpt from ‘Vigil’ by Jenny Johnson, from In Full Velvet (Sarabande Books Inc., 2017). Reprinted with permission from Sarabande Books Inc. III Part III epigraph: ‘Forever – is composed of Nows –’ is the title of a poem by Emily Dickinson, https://www.poetry foundation.org/poems/52202/forever-is-composed-ofnows-690 ‘after Woolf Works’ was written in response to the Royal Ballet performance of Woolf Works in Brisbane in 2017. ‘Your Daily Horoscope’ is a found poem composed of text sourced from a variety of daily horoscopes, and manipulated using Gregory Kan and Hera Lindsay Bird’s app: http:// glassleaves.herokuapp.com.

81

Acknowledgements I respectfully acknowledge that this book was written on the land of the Jagera and Turrbal peoples. I am grateful to the editors of the following journals and books in which some of these poems (or earlier versions) first appeared: Cordite Poetry Review, Verity La, Rabbit Poetry Journal, Stylus Lit, Impossible Archetype, Tincture Journal, Going Down Swinging, Mascara Literary Review, Going Postal: More Than ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, and Woolf Pack. Many of these poems emerged after reading Cruising Utopia by the late José Esteban Muñoz. It was Muñoz’s hopeful, radical vision of a queer future that propelled me forward. I couldn’t have written this book without the support of various grants. My gratitude to the AMP Foundation, Arts Queensland, and the Queensland Literary Awards for helping me pay the rent while writing poems about being the saddest boi. Felicity Plunkett, my immeasurable gratitude, you are one of those rare people who gets it, whatever it is. Your grace and intuition helped me see what this book could be. Thanks to the wonderful team at UQP, especially Aviva Tuffield for seeing the vision in this manuscript, well before it was realised. And my project manager,Vanessa Pellatt, for being exceedingly lovely to work with, and for your sharp editing eye.

83

Sarah Holland-Batt, who supervised my Honours thesis, thank you for challenging me to be my boldest, funniest self in these poems. My family, especially my niece and nephew, Priyah and Leevious – you are my favourite babies in existence. The QUT poetry club, and Rae White, Chloë Callistemon and Kathy George, thank you for equal doses of writerly commiseration and encouragement. Pam Brown, Michael Farrell and Quinn Eades, thank you for your endorsements; it’s a real treat to be read by you. Shastra Deo, from our 2012 prize origins our eventual meeting was inevitable. I’m so grateful for your friendship; you get me. Finally, Zenobia Frost, thanking you for thanking me, for thanking you.

84

Other UQP poetry titles A KINDER SEA Felicity Plunkett I run as fast as ink but we are both dissolving: when I reach you, we become a corner of the sea. A Kinder Sea explores the sea as sanctuary, hoard and repository. Composed of sequences – love letters, elegies, narratives and odes – it looks outwards from the intimate to take in others’ lives and voices, remaking form and craft. Felicity Plunkett’s remarkable poems balance wrack and loss with vitality, resilience and beauty. ‘A Kinder Sea is Felicity Plunkett’s masterpiece in the original sense of that term: the work that most fully expresses her gifts. Her combination of intensity and range is rare, as is this collection’s formal precision and emotional directness. This is an exceptional collection: a break-out work for this gifted poet.’ – Lisa Gorton ‘These poems are full of wishes, prayers, songs, confessions, dreams, letters and divinations. Like the oceans that inhabit it, this book is rich, mysterious and bountiful. A Kinder Sea is a stunning collection. It shows us that unwavering artistry and profound humanity can indeed belong together.’ – David McCooey

ISBN 978 0 7022 6270 8

CHANGE MACHINE Jaya Savige The supersonic winds of Neptune might thrum like this: one billion miles of naught then whang: the skipping rope at warp speed in your chest.The custom drumkit of a millipede. Tough and alert, Jaya Savige’s shapeshifting poems reflect the world in violent transformation. Bodies scarred by history collide in the ruckus of generations, geopolitics and technology. Elegies on the loss of a child appear alongside poems that set a pulse to new life, biomedical surveillance, leaf blowers, fatbergs, mechanical pets and military coups. A work of fiercely intelligent artistry, Change Machine is shaped, equally, by feeling – its wild originality comes from how it forces the two together. ‘A beautifully deft interweaving of domestic love with cosmic quest.’ – Ruth Padel ‘It’s in the quiet moments that the power of Savige’s poetry drives home hardest, in the pockets of calm between the wild imagination and bold metaphor that energise the book as a whole.’ – Weekend Australian

ISBN 978 0 7022 6286 9