by grace (ge) gilbert
waterfall Waterfall nothing
can harm me at all
-Jimi Hendrix
can harm me at all
-Jimi Hendrix
leasing my mind
i mean green
as eden
I’ve got the law of averages
and in my eyes
some window s
just shouldn’t
be there
everyone
I mean e veryone
looks like my ex
white guy
Volvo driver
he stops my heart
averagely
in Wilkinsburg
where i get catcalled
by a guy praying
on his front stoop I laugh
because these things
don’t break
me they jus t like
Make me tweet
about my gender
then Watching
the Bachelor the leaves are always
falling like
something else
is happening
I brag
to my co -workers about how i’ d never chase
a man like that and it’s like ok but what
has been taking chunk s
from yr heels
for decdes
I guess when I walk
all middle-d this way I rea ch
for my grandmother that
Ohioan hardwater farm
milieu once she said Girl s have you ever
met a real life
F*****t before ?
i mean a therapist tol d me to imagine
someone as a child so u
can love them again
so I pictured her chubby
Hicktown ankles running across the wide -
Screen low def plains and got stuck
Trying to picture
the soil
I mean something so much Richer than dirt
it is nothing
you could call a person
i mean green
as eden
I’ve got the law of averages
and in my eyes
some window s
just shouldn’t
be there
everyone
I mean e veryone
looks like my ex
white guy
Volvo driver
he stops my heart
averagely
in Wilkinsburg
where i get catcalled
by a guy praying
on his front stoop I laugh
because these things
don’t break
me they jus t like
Make me tweet
about my gender
then Watching
the Bachelor the leaves are always
falling like
something else
is happening
I brag
to my co -workers about how i’ d never chase
a man like that and it’s like ok but what
has been taking chunk s
from yr heels
for decdes
I guess when I walk
all middle-d this way I rea ch
for my grandmother that
Ohioan hardwater farm
milieu once she said Girl s have you ever
met a real life
F*****t before ?
i mean a therapist tol d me to imagine
someone as a child so u
can love them again
so I pictured her chubby
Hicktown ankles running across the wide -
Screen low def plains and got stuck
Trying to picture
the soil
I mean something so much Richer than dirt
it is nothing
you could call a person
grace (ge) gilbert is a poet and lyric essayist among other things. their poetry chapbook, 'NOTIFICATIONS IN THE DARK' is forthcoming with Antenna Books in 2022. their essay collection 'the closeted diaries' is forthcoming with Porkbelly Press (2022). their work has been featured in The Adroit Journal, Ninth Letter, the Offing, ANMLY, Pidgeonholes, Hobart, Gargoyle, the Penn Review, the minnesota review, and elsewhere. now an MFA @Pitt, grace also loves cheese, macarons, their partner Boen Wang, and their cat Honey.
