2 Poems by Stevie Belchak
I AM NOT THE WOMAN YOU THINK I AM
inside I am
growing out
a double-wide
seahorse
actually
I am growing
a trap door
worthy
of woodland
creatures
of course
my womb
is a carpeted
with pine
needles
the women
keep asking me
for interior
cutouts
the same women
who ask
how I have been
doing
as a statistic
trying to find
her natural
starting point
a geologic mass
eager to
finger
another person’s
glove compartment
the point is
I have been
as busy
as a straight line
composing
four examples
of forward
I have been
whisking
trans fat in isolation
censoring my
bleed outs
because I keep bleeding
out prosaically
I keep
it up
the bleeding
every twenty-five
minutes
because I want to prove
I too
have stamnina
in the morning
in the great
dulled rib
of tomorrow
there
is a thought
that maybe
I could be
a fantastic plot
twist
the sheer
possibility
pulls me out
of the shape
of a tear drop
I’ve been making
my body
into
and walk
like I am walking
past
the boarded-up
J.C. Penny
the pylons lodged
like rotting
teeth
in the river
some
nuanced angles
of light
that break
my heart open
a little
like an egg
what is the point
of shattering
into this
outdated language
when you can look
just as good
in a party dress
blooming
sorrowfully
from a ruffled
bottom
is it wrong
to commemorate
the season
with your debutante
mouth
and its conglomerate
of water
my own
mouth
is dripping
with another
company’s profits
and I feel
a little like
soft
beige
sometimes
in a great moon
and after a
long while
there comes a moment
and it feels
magnificent
because of
the cortisol
and because I am
a pubic bone
moving so fast
over
a furlong
of mattress
I can tell
then
I am
going
extinct
all at once
am a point
hopeless
ly caressing
the butcher knife
left
for the intruders
under your
pillow
I listen
hold sound
at a kind
of distance
from my body
waiting
for
midday summer
to open
with the mimosa
tree’s
pink silk and
melancholy
pop music
it comes but is
a little
too late
and I am
blurred
in the window
like a presiding
Royal
I am
her and
her
eyes
are
impenetrably deep
and yet
somehow
not
even
THIS IS WHAT I MEAN WHEN I SAY I CAN’T EAT, OR IN THE ABSENCE OF FOOD
I have been picking
with average
difficulty
at my fillings
the chromatic
wells shining
deep
in my mouth
my tongue
like a small
offering
to their softer
alabaster
to my fervent
body and its
$6,000
deductible
it is only
the astonishing
tonality
of living
Aristotle said
Knowing yourself
is the beginning
of all wisdom
and I think
I know
what fills me
exactly
how I gather
in lurid
details
grow out
of permissible
folds
and how
fuck
I forgot
and laid down
again
after botox
so tired
I burrowed the lyric
of my hair
into a shoal
of memory
foam
someone
I work with
said was
conscientious
design
I agree
I am
conscious
of nothing
except fumbled vanity
the tether
of my pain
wildly googling
ovary
twinge
while rubbing
my tired scales
as if they were not
already rough
stones
full of blood
and knowing
full well
that if
I am anything
I am persistent
ly
the trembling film
of hunger
it sucks
to think
I could have
one day
been taken
somewhat
seriously
as a poet
had gotten
good
at believing
there is
compounding interest
in my tired
ridges
the words where
I become one
with fear
of the horses
so many women
write about
their gigantic
beating
hearts
and sticking
gleaming orange
carrot fingers
into great
open
sores
without panic
it’s like
we were expected
as girls
to have grown
our hair
out long
like hay
sucked our teeth
into ugly
protrusions
I think it’s time
to be honest
which is
the unwieldy attempt
at iterating
on things both true
and present
and presently
I have
a soft
white ceramic cup
of black coffee
and my
indignant
typing
a triage
of thoughts
like a struggle
for vastness
like a big
timpani
of wanting
to live
without
an extensive search
history
of the phrase
“how long
before
your heart gives out
from starving”
and yet I am still
seeing
deeply
my body as an
archive
of corrosion
the area
of my armpit
as a great
lake
of cancer
in truth
my cells keep
turning guiltily
over
and I cannot pattern
the geography
correctly
can only hold
a baby lantern
to my
teeth
trying
desperately
to tell you
something of
substance
of death
masks
and child
birth
and everything
that is
everything
that is infinitely
weird
how hard
I’ve been
laboring
to detonate
song
while algorithms
work for
others’
money
like stars
work themselves
from a cagey
violet of sky
it hurts
to know the
world is getting
richer
when I have been
family planning
for hunger
storing
and storing
for my great
intermittence
while searching
the web
for a willow
what it
can mean
to weep
inside I am
growing out
a double-wide
seahorse
actually
I am growing
a trap door
worthy
of woodland
creatures
of course
my womb
is a carpeted
with pine
needles
the women
keep asking me
for interior
cutouts
the same women
who ask
how I have been
doing
as a statistic
trying to find
her natural
starting point
a geologic mass
eager to
finger
another person’s
glove compartment
the point is
I have been
as busy
as a straight line
composing
four examples
of forward
I have been
whisking
trans fat in isolation
censoring my
bleed outs
because I keep bleeding
out prosaically
I keep
it up
the bleeding
every twenty-five
minutes
because I want to prove
I too
have stamnina
in the morning
in the great
dulled rib
of tomorrow
there
is a thought
that maybe
I could be
a fantastic plot
twist
the sheer
possibility
pulls me out
of the shape
of a tear drop
I’ve been making
my body
into
and walk
like I am walking
past
the boarded-up
J.C. Penny
the pylons lodged
like rotting
teeth
in the river
some
nuanced angles
of light
that break
my heart open
a little
like an egg
what is the point
of shattering
into this
outdated language
when you can look
just as good
in a party dress
blooming
sorrowfully
from a ruffled
bottom
is it wrong
to commemorate
the season
with your debutante
mouth
and its conglomerate
of water
my own
mouth
is dripping
with another
company’s profits
and I feel
a little like
soft
beige
sometimes
in a great moon
and after a
long while
there comes a moment
and it feels
magnificent
because of
the cortisol
and because I am
a pubic bone
moving so fast
over
a furlong
of mattress
I can tell
then
I am
going
extinct
all at once
am a point
hopeless
ly caressing
the butcher knife
left
for the intruders
under your
pillow
I listen
hold sound
at a kind
of distance
from my body
waiting
for
midday summer
to open
with the mimosa
tree’s
pink silk and
melancholy
pop music
it comes but is
a little
too late
and I am
blurred
in the window
like a presiding
Royal
I am
her and
her
eyes
are
impenetrably deep
and yet
somehow
not
even
THIS IS WHAT I MEAN WHEN I SAY I CAN’T EAT, OR IN THE ABSENCE OF FOOD
I have been picking
with average
difficulty
at my fillings
the chromatic
wells shining
deep
in my mouth
my tongue
like a small
offering
to their softer
alabaster
to my fervent
body and its
$6,000
deductible
it is only
the astonishing
tonality
of living
Aristotle said
Knowing yourself
is the beginning
of all wisdom
and I think
I know
what fills me
exactly
how I gather
in lurid
details
grow out
of permissible
folds
and how
fuck
I forgot
and laid down
again
after botox
so tired
I burrowed the lyric
of my hair
into a shoal
of memory
foam
someone
I work with
said was
conscientious
design
I agree
I am
conscious
of nothing
except fumbled vanity
the tether
of my pain
wildly googling
ovary
twinge
while rubbing
my tired scales
as if they were not
already rough
stones
full of blood
and knowing
full well
that if
I am anything
I am persistent
ly
the trembling film
of hunger
it sucks
to think
I could have
one day
been taken
somewhat
seriously
as a poet
had gotten
good
at believing
there is
compounding interest
in my tired
ridges
the words where
I become one
with fear
of the horses
so many women
write about
their gigantic
beating
hearts
and sticking
gleaming orange
carrot fingers
into great
open
sores
without panic
it’s like
we were expected
as girls
to have grown
our hair
out long
like hay
sucked our teeth
into ugly
protrusions
I think it’s time
to be honest
which is
the unwieldy attempt
at iterating
on things both true
and present
and presently
I have
a soft
white ceramic cup
of black coffee
and my
indignant
typing
a triage
of thoughts
like a struggle
for vastness
like a big
timpani
of wanting
to live
without
an extensive search
history
of the phrase
“how long
before
your heart gives out
from starving”
and yet I am still
seeing
deeply
my body as an
archive
of corrosion
the area
of my armpit
as a great
lake
of cancer
in truth
my cells keep
turning guiltily
over
and I cannot pattern
the geography
correctly
can only hold
a baby lantern
to my
teeth
trying
desperately
to tell you
something of
substance
of death
masks
and child
birth
and everything
that is
everything
that is infinitely
weird
how hard
I’ve been
laboring
to detonate
song
while algorithms
work for
others’
money
like stars
work themselves
from a cagey
violet of sky
it hurts
to know the
world is getting
richer
when I have been
family planning
for hunger
storing
and storing
for my great
intermittence
while searching
the web
for a willow
what it
can mean
to weep
Stevie Belchak is a writer and poet living in Key West, FL. Her chapbook 'State of My Undress' was published via o-blek editions in 2022, and her nonfiction and poetry can be found published in Third Coast, Blush Lit, Feelings, Peach, Pinwheel Journal, Dream Pop Press--among many others.
