Poem of the Week: Jenny Zhang

 

THE LAST FIVE CENTURIES WERE UNEVENTFUL

The last five centuries were uneventful

the stitches that melted

from my ripped open cunt

tasted like mint and changed color

when I peed

I peed with the door open

because this is bounty

the universe has a fat lip

we put every cock from China

inside it and splash

in the slippery oriental jizz

you feel like seppukuing because your butthole is unretractable

you feel like seppukuing because your butthole is too determined

you feel like seppukuing because one time a man was rejected by a woman

she said, You’re creepy

and he got a gun

and wrote a manifesto

against bikram yoga

against women with great bodies

against women who want to have babies with other men

against women who want to have babies with men who are not allowed to be part of their lives after they have the baby

against women who know they are good looking

against women who have died for knowing they are good looking

against women who loved women and mocked men for jerking off to the idea of a woman touching a woman

I have jerked off to the idea of a man

jerking off to the idea of a woman touching a woman

and that idea bought a samurai sword from ebay

and seppukued

I wanted to have a baby

I wanted to carry my baby to term

I wanted to have milk oozing from my tits

I wanted to have bigger tits than the tits I have now

I wanted to drink my own milk and breastfeed myself

I wanted to breastfeed my mother and tell her I love her

I wanted to miscarry a baby by falling down the stairs

I wanted to toast to my own miscarriage with breast milk from my tits

I wanted to have bigger tits without having a baby

I wanted you to tell me I’m the reason why the world is going to hell

I wanted to give you the hell you said I was capable of creating

no one really cares but you do and I do

we take the relics of entire countries

and trash them in the sea

when we dive for the past

we find unearthed thoughts

the fertility of what you think could one day be

is just the honest desire to be remembered after you’re dead

so much that you focus on how to be great

so much that you focus on how to be new

so much that you forget to love your father

so much that you forget to love your mother

so much that you forget to love your children

so much that you forget to love your pets

so much that you would forsake the barren godforsaken twice

farted sea which gave rise to the queen and her queenly farts

and her princely kingdom

where she once told you and I and our children to fear everything

and we did

and we lived like that

and we still live like that

and we still know nothing

hiding our big dreams in the invisible centers of roses

where we feel big and round and ready

and ready

and ready

and ready

and ready

and ready

and ready

I’m ready

I’m ready

I’m ready

I’m ready

I’m ready

I’m ready

I’m ready

______________________________________

JENNY ZHANG is the author of the poetry collection, Dear Jenny, We Are All Find (Octopus Books, 2012) and Hags, a non-fiction chapbook forthcoming from Guillotine Press. She holds degrees from Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her fiction, non-fiction and poetry have been published or are forthcoming in Fence, Rookie Yearbook One & Two, Third Rail, The American Reader, Bomblog, HTMLGIANT, Glimmertrain, The Iowa Review, Pen American, Jezebel, The Guardian, and Vice. She writes for teenage girls at Rookie magazine.