Jarrod Lacy

A Twisted Trip Back There

I was really, really, deep in my head then

and really, really, deep in there now.

The past can be a passenger parade of joy and shame,

but often the latter could fill it faster.

Example: It most certainly bugs me now that I pretended

to be in Samantha Baker's place at the end of Sixteen Candles.

Oh, yeah, me sitting across from that stud muffin, Jake Ryan -

(I think that's what they were called back then, stud muffins) separated

by what should-have-been-better-off a lopsided

birthday cake.

Watch this one go viral.

It looked so sickly at being pretty.

On a table or something grinning at each other, him with his immature-fitting

blue jeans cuffed, dark socks, all unbuttoned soot-gray sweater, looking better, (but now) I just want to

molly wop that bastard in my wish or what-could-have-been

if it was real life - just sick then and vomited all up now - at how I sutured myself into a world that's not mine.

#metoo will you scrutinize Ted, the panty-sniffing geeks,

the beer-backing jocks, and all the other misogyny that

failed to be discreet?

Okay, check this out!

If this dream of mine is to come true, let be predicated on me and big bad Long

Duk Dong, sober and without the damn gong -

both of us smart enough to render

the story unlike ours and shame every teen, or twenty-something, or probably early thirties,

and I'm not researching, starring

as them in this crusty, too cotton swab of a situation  

that sold audiences the stank-cheese of some sad     

suburban child from fiction blithering about

a forgotten

birthday and a crush who was supposed to know about it.

Dong, portrayed by Gedde Watanabe, respectively,    

I am not fighting a battle for you.

You need to know that.

Dong was just my pretend buddy that assisted me        

with a little vengeance.

We're not joined at the hip,

and we don't have to beg any John Hughes types

to even pencil us in a script.

Brown Water

The air mute or wind would be the

worst beaten wherever cruelty clawed

for what could've been simply solved.

Say it to all fathers, but mostly to all

mothers, the first teachers.

They would become fire crackling

throughout the sky, their screams

multiplying what Vesuvius did by

burning and burying everything

and everybody beneath ash

and black that risked spite

and underestimation.

It would not have been my child! It

never would've been mine, chile! That

other access to the sewer is just as

rank and hazardous as the manhole lid

leading to it.

Nasty lady, filthy so-called educator,

surely you've heard of a plunger, bleach,

a drain opener or snake,

a janitor you should've summoned  

to cure a malfunction that keeps water

flow in the race and stayed clear

of the irony of young, black hands

unclogging white porcelain.

Bio

A fanatic for various Breakout-style computer games and an eternal aficionado of strawberry ice cream, Jarrod Lacy (he/him/his) is Tennessee Valley-born appreciative Gen-Xer and late bloomer. As a self-described explanatory poet, he truly began his poetic journey sometime after high school and is currently writing one poem a day for a year.