Geraldine Jorge

Girls can’t be creepy!

Loveliness is

lotion

for poison face;

snail soil

for elven loops.

I would be a bitter wort

if not sorry,

for only lovely

tow sadness

and madness.

At least feed

the banal land crab.

There has never been

a female Caliban.

It’s a sin

that should

be seen,

you say,

your clever

ectomorph

blinding.

I won’t be

your sidekick

and take it,

Tut the

brown

ground

wounded.

Do not hate me

for my sake.

The cuck wolf

cries sheep;

The cold

makes me follow.

All is fair for

the tall airy!

But me

what reflects

in the glass

is your sage

expectation

no escape.

Driving while wired while confused while sarcastic while nervous

I never was a good girl

Or even a boy girl.

If I’m cruel it’s because

I want you to want me.

I don’t have the balls to call

These “allies” on their shit,

               You to vent about it,

I need friends more

than I need justice.

You acquiesce easily but

Are unfit for the slaughter,

Says the big guy but he

Wrings my neck anyway.

There are about seven ways

I could have fucked up,

Anywhere from pronunciation

To the color of my skirt.

She smiles at me like it’s

Someone’s birthday we’re in on

But I’m not in

And it’s not funny!

Are these even Girl lessons?

I’m undercover as a hack detective.

It’s my own body turned up chopped

But the case has gone cold.

I’m trying to play

Three characters at once

And not one of them

Is the final blonde, so

Why can’t I just

Pick an identity, right!

“You don’t have to be weird

To be wired.”

You don’t have to be ugly

To be ugly.

You don’t have to be mad

To be rad.

You don’t have to be fatale

To be femme.

So compare me

To your problematic uncle

At Christmastime.

Else

Explain to me which

Of the seven I got wrong,

And how (if ever)

I can fix me.

Ich will doch nur, daß ihr mich liebt

I want

my lions

Nic tit at

ing.

Field is felt

is felid is folded.

In the catte’s eye,

a way out.

—

I woke up alone

in your bed

as you and shared

a suspicious glance

with your mother

on the stairs.

Imagine being so big

the only way to distinguish you

was by memorizing

the track of your soles.

—

When we are lone I molt.

Meanwhile you keep the heads

one for each mistake.

Please take me with you,

else my hollow buckle

else no one.

—

Behind your bad boy

is the mop top

begging to digest

the fruit fly.

In black hematite,

the jowls of the thing.

Soft but dripping.

—

In jealousy

no one takes more

than they give.

This will have taken

nothing from

no one.

Geraldine Jorge is an emerging, Oakland-based, Filipina poet interested in sound, form, and forms of sound. So far, her work has appeared in Warning Lines Lit as well as in an earlier issue of Hot Pink Magazine. Follow her on Instagram @s.eyende.