ANTHONY AGUERO

Squatting While I Piss

faggot/ fem bitch/ cosmic rubble caught on
my earlobe/ dangling like 2032's Spring Fashion
trend/ queer/ *crotch grab* but bite this/
so I howl and ruff/ consenting his examination
of my barely off-white incisors/ joto/ el hijo de
puta/ a pot's been overwhelmed with its boil
underneath me/ liquids spilled over while
there is/ already crusted calcium and blood/
underneath my nail beds/ I'm unaware how he/
got inside this space/ where I squat while
I piss/ I haven't looked this good/ since 2017/
when I stopped sucking that/ pipe/ you're
dead/ you're done/ faggot. faggot.
faggot/ first-degree murder/ hate crime/ my shoes
aren't/ looking to clean anymore/ but that's
a trend these days/ converse off kilter/ blood
on my shirt/ he's got a hook in my neck/ let me
make it asexual for you/ he's stabbing me
to death/ faggot/ queer/ daisy boy sitting to piss.

I Did Nothing

I did nothing today and it was brilliant. My hands
Barely made a note, and what I mean is that they
They didn't so much as twitch which would have
Caused a microscopic fissure in the air and begat
song. My heart barely made an effort to exclaim
Any effort for living because I did nothing today,
And, oh, the seriousness of a resting heart rate. I
Am telling you I did absolutely nothing today, not
Even this poem was being birthed and I pretended
To have forgotten to write. This is a lousy writing
Since I did nothing today and my legs are swollen
From inactivity. I did nothing today and was repri-
                                                                                       manded
              by a man wrapped in white silk and didn't

Appear any semblance of breath in his chiseled

              Body. I did nothing today and, so, he waved those
Thick fingers at me and the chill of his warning cut

              Through my already resting thump thump thump!

Inside my chest and knocked me to the ground. I

              Am doing nothing I demand and he ripped off my

              Tongue because he asserted himself as Lord and
Declared no protest of I did nothing today and the

              Logical action, for him, was to silence me into a

Nothing that would go on until tomorrow and then
              Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and —

I did nothing today and it was brilliant
              I did nothing today. Don't move a muscle.

When did you first learn about anger?

I covered my ears and convulsed within my own
small body as the door went thwack on [ ]'s hand
as my dad marked territory. Marked blood-shed.
Marked the steam rolling out from outside the
tubs from the hydrothermal plant down the street.

Much of what I've learned I've not learned from him.

Mom covers my young ears with the ocean of her
cupped palms. She says Shh, shh. You're safe.
and I'm familiar at this point that the boogeyman
is incapable of getting to me with an ocean sitting
between us. Sound has a peculiar way of letting
us know tragedy/ horror is afoot. Her hands.

I've learned softness, and, too, strength from a
woman's/ mother's/ survivor's voice. Her hands.

[ ] was crying and bleeding. She was exclaiming
My hand, my hand! and I was afraid she wouldn't
be able to cup the horror of my listening anymore.
I was too familiar with pain at this point and heard
it pouring and pouring like the gray-cloud in her
had suddenly burst wide open.

Dad stole me from my mom for a few days, and
rode me around a bike for a few days. He returned
me sunburnt. I'll never understand her pain during
those days of my absence from her.

What I know from the different variations of red
come from him and that day. Steam rolling from
every body that heard that ululation of caused pain.

A Man Relapsed With Me

He walked up that staircase, his branches,
All of him, budding with colloquial green;
Neither here nor there, only a fresh wind

Brushing through the decay of my browned
Ribs. He smelled of Pine Sol so I wanted to
Lick him, and I wanted him to remind me of

The apartment I lived in with two families
And how that was also expansive roots
Growing in every direction and the cause of

So much more green; ordinary green like the
Chewed-up leaf slipping through the slit of
This man's teeth. Oh, you beautiful gap. I

Wish I didn't have to do this. He whistled
Through those teeth and I imagined that
Song the color of blue a day after a rainfall,

And I thought blue jay, or rivulet of small joys.
I wish I didn't have to do this. Oh, his ebullient
Puffed-out chest, the things which grow deep

Inside of us when you've something to look
Forward too. And his whistle was the child of
Me laughing in some distant, beautiful retro-

Spect, and I was branch suffocated in flower,
So I didn't have to do this. No. Not this. God
Take the cruelty of this fire I've grown in me.

He's inside the apartment; I clip each green
Caterpillar from the surface of his body. Oh
Innocence which tree have I laid you under?

Anthony Aguero is a queer writer in Los Angeles, CA. His work has appeared, or will appear, in the Bangalore Review, 2River View, The Acentos Review, The Temz Review, Rhino Poetry, Cathexis Northwest Press, 14 Poems, Redivider Journal, Maudlin House, and others.