Phoebe Fico

This one is for the black queers

This one is for the black queers
Whose mother tongue is shade
It was our mother's who taught us to monetize our lungs
They dealt in gossip like it was a rich man's trade
While they got their hair pressed
It was their friends they undressed
Stripping them of any dignity and privacy
We learned that children should be seen and not heard
So we sat back and observed
How to fight with out words

This one is for the black dykes
Who jammed their legs into coral skirts
Just so their mothers wouldn't endure whispers in church
So every Sunday we would endure
Thoughts of sickness we could not cure
Even though we were sure
Touching her would feel like praying
Direct communication
With a God we'd lost faith in

We created the entire culture
From jazz to hip-hop to rock-n-roll
I'm not saying this to be conceited
It's just the truth
Look it up:
From sister Rosetta and Sylvester to Mr. Laughton Hughes

You may hate us

But you can’t replace us
There ain't nobody flyer than us

I never had any thoughts about how poetry happens until I wrote this poem. I had kept the first two lines of on this poem in the back of my mind for months, trying to come with something to go with it; something to do with word play as a form of currency. Then one day as I was walking down street and the whole poem came to me. Maybe for me poetry is Plato’s idea of memory. Recollection, he called it. It’s the idea that all knowledge exists within all of us. All we have to do is remember it. Poetry for me serves as a way to remember the things I forgot about myself. I always known I was queer, but I was afraid what that meant. So, I willfully suppressed it and forgot about it. This poem is remembrance of that fear and the joy that happens when you push past it. 

Phoebe Fico

Manic Pixie Dream Girl 

The first time I saw him was at the independent coffee shop on 53rd street 

You know, the one that only serves hand-picked, curated, Venezuelan beans 

Our tables were positioned right across from each others 

He was reading something on his phone 

So deeply engrossed the screen almost touched his nose

And I was reading the diaries and poems of Sylvia Plath 

And as I looked up from my book, I caught his eye 

And later he would mention mine 

And how they seemed to be infected with a certain sort of melancholia 

Something that he had always felt growing up in suburbia 

And he deducted that we were twin souls 

But I think he just thought I was sad 

And I think he got off on that 

I saw it all right away in his brown eyes: 

He was so disillusioned with life 

And it is up to me to show him how to live one moment at a time

If this is a movie written by a man: 

He’d fill me up with knowledge about his favorite artists 

And pump me full of playlists featuring The Smiths 

I would only there to serve the disillusioned male protagonist 

So devoid of purpose, I wouldn’t even pass the Bechdel test 

Then there we were in his apartment: shoes off curled up on his couch with our Venezuelan coffee 

There were only books in his apartment and no TV

Because he thought that it ate away at our brains, making us zombies 

And I stupidly agreed 

I could see it in his brown eyes: 

He was starting to revive, 

Finally finding purpose in his life 

He likes The Smiths 

But I think that Morrissey is a whiny little bitch 

I much prefer Sleater-Kinney

But he is the protagonist and I am just secondary 

I’m got really fucking sick of his disillusionment  

I’d really just wanted to pass the Bechdel test

So I dumped his ass and got a girlfriend 

We sit shoes off curled up on my couch with our Venezuelan coffee 

I’m reading Sylvia Plath and she’s reading Anne Sexton  

She’s thinking of shaving head

Last Saturday she pierced her left tit 

She went to a punk show and crowd surfed

And didn’t care if anyone looked up her skirt

“You’ve been in the house too long,” she said,

“You need to get out more.” 

She says I seem disillusioned with life 

But I don’t hear a word she says, all I see are her caramel eyes  

I think she’ll save me from this horrible world. 

She’s my manic pixie-dream girl

This one was inspired by the criminally unrated song, “Allison’s starting to happen” by the lemonheads. I like the song, but it seemed to an overly romantic portrait of a girl he was friends with: a manic pixie dream girl before there was a term for it. So, I wrote a response; and intended to release it on the debut album of my non-existent post-punk rock band. 

The first draft of the poem didn’t have the final part. When I presented the poem to my professor, he said: “sure, this guy romanticizes her, but couldn’t she do the same thing to someone else?” In my naivety, I had only thought of this as a gendered problem. (And certainly, the problem has a long gendered history that should be acknowledged.)

But with that question he challenged me, to think about what it means to have a body. To have a body at all, to have a physical form, exist in this world means that you will be perceived. In being perceived you will be judged, romanticized and vilified. Everyone creates stories about one another and it’s those stories that we have to contend with to really get to know each other. And in this poem, none of the characters succeed. (And for the record, I love the Smiths.) 

Phoebe Fico

It was dark and deserted the night you finally got me to try it
The streets were lined with cops cars, I thought we’d get arrested
I almost backed out, said, “I’m already paranoid what’s it gonna do when it hits?”
You spilled your laugh out onto the street and held it up to my lips
My cheeks sprayed like a puffer fish, to swallow your laugh you took another hit.
Nearly threw up my lungs in coughing fit, said “I’m not sure I like this”
And you told me I didn’t do it right

I don’t know if you know this, but you saved my life
Was writing the note when I heard your voice on the line
You asked me if I wanted to sit outside, it was such a nice day
But what I actually heard was “I’d really like it if you stayed”

This one is about the people who see you, even when you try to escape yourself. When they say something so seemingly innocuous, but it fits right into the part of your heart you thought was broken.  It is untitled and maybe that’s because it feels unfinished. But I’m glad I’m still around to finish it.

Phoebe Fico