Jessie Lynn McMains is a poet, writer, zine-maker, and small press owner. Her words have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Awkward Mermaid, Wyrd & Wyse, Juke Joint, Occulum, Memoir Mixtapes, and others; she’s also a contributing writer for Pussy Magic. You can find her website at recklesschants.net, or find her on Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram @rustbeltjessie
*****
forget the fuck away from me (origin stories of a safety pin girl)
coil magnetic reels back into cassettes
collect scraps flaked from yellowed glue bind
sheafs once held by rubber bands now
snapped & staples all a-rusted
static- magnetic between voices graves ghosts
so loud & sorrow-slick my blood smeared
with all that dark lilac remember
string me a necklace sing me a song decipher
me these stories how I was born to hate
pink dresses’ itched rustle & cobweb silence
by four I was lost to the basement carved
a hole where my tender should be
to try safety-pinned & glitter heart with dark carved-out
bottle-blue girl & anarchy Disobedience City
o grit o fishnet & midnight Vaseline
o tiny vandal soda pop stealer pocketer
of keys o pirate babe I longed for X (marks
the spot)
I wore my twin lilac-haired drag faggot
o queers boy hands held angels when suicide
got stuck o skull unzippered
come sound system & salvation trusted just in
gutsick sensation faces in the night-trees shark-toothed
faeries in the midnight side of the garden
girls high & holy flirting blacklit girl to girl
got me cute small geek daughter I Ginsberg Allen
I’m fuck you stutter caffeine spotlight
gravel in my hips my lips against best friend salt skin
after playacting striptease this time you be the boy no
this time you be the boy childbrides wedded
to each other ‘til I had to leave my ain true love
my girl my water snake coiled thick & black in
eastern creekmud my battlefield ghost played trick
o’ treat between the mossy headstones & my mama
would never understand so hide yourself for me
slam poems into my heart so often o easy
o fragile I fell not-caring my smoke
too young never night in empty buildings
o girls in black dresses girls in soft starlight death
I flirted with Anubis like me he was shapeshifter dog-
headed weigher of hearts hawk- feathered & feral
punk whore graffitied skin pale black epithets
scrawled glorious mark a hell made to wreck
this shit to make love suburban waste
baptized in glitter- lust bloodlove o love dig
out that dark & see how warm & red how slick
the thighs of sorrow & my strange cupidity hellbound
I became filthy Peter Pan crowing in the gutter Venus
rising from a dumpster in cigarette- burned faux fur
ripped tights & black boots scuffed
our sickness our goddess o vengeful angel
I taste smoke when kissing her blue too
blonde dirty dark ocean across nothing’s hot ghost
shaved my head & my mother cried you look
like a boy a refugee like Sinead o rebellion I was
a shock deviant spellcaster with do-it- yourself
grimoires Ouijaing great Oscar Wilde’s ghost
whispering hot nothings across phonelines
in the heavy ocean dark o dirty blonde teenage
lingerie too far
whispered Oscar Wilde Ouija grimoire shoppingmall
spells casting deviant rebellion boy refugee
my mother my boots my black ripped fur
gave her away for a girl who crushed me streaked
me blue burnt holes in the carpet kissing smoke
rings when I tasted the angel I had a piece of I
could’ve been the vengeful goddess of a shared
sickness a wasted love should’ve shot
the suburban blues straight through the heart
wanted to make a mark on this town wreck it all to
hell made some marks on myself with cigarettes
& razorblades & safety pins wrecked myself
a glorious mess scrawled epithets in black lipstick
on pale skin graffitied punk songs on the backs
of empty buildings rolled joints in soft night alleys
cigarette-burned dumpster Venus crowing dirty cupidity
strange sorrow of thighs slick red & dark dig love
o gutter-lust o feral hawk dog-headed death
never too young to smoke & hide behind my hateful
notebook practice a cool uncaring outside semi-famous
indie shows at The Rave at the YMCA
I flirted with starlight soft girls dressed in black
mama never knew o trick o treat played ghost
creek muddy & thick coiled snake girl my only
I fell so easy & so often the padlocked chains I wore
could not protect my fragile heart & when my poems
slammed into the spotlight at the cafe open mic
in a nervous caffeine stutter I said fuck you I’m Allen
Ginsberg’s daughter said fuck you I was just a geek
in smalltown U.S.A. but the cute librarian Ramonesed
me, got me singing hey little girl I wanna be the next
Cometbus writing zines about stomp-dancing to L7
in blacklit bedrooms stoned flirting with girls in holey
jeans & hi-top Chucks
‘til each wedded a boy child bride this time strip
tease this playacting salt friend hip skin lips
the end of midnight the faerie sensation just believe
girls who gave me drugs that unzippered my skull stuck
my backbone to their painted fingertips things got
weird girls who were Sid to my Nancy my suicide
pact dreamboats boys I twinned with lilac haircuts
dressed in each other’s clothes my faggot drag my
midnight marathons of Blondie records & Rocky Horror
fishnet fantasies
daren’t I come mark X but babe
& Belle City gave me a sadness a skateboard a grit &
Steel City christened me Disobedience o I was a boy
called anarchy a girl with bottle- blue eyes
pirate of pop tiny tender lost cobweb
I try to fill that carved-out dark with a valentine
heart doused in glitter & safety pinned together I try
try try to remember in the lilac dark with all that blood
smeared on my hands slick as sorrow loud as ghosts
storied silence rustle the dresses decipher me a song
sing me a-rusted all staples & snapped bind scraps
o reel o coil o string me back
those ghosts all graves all songs one atop the other
between magnetic
static—
*****
the mother and the childless woman
when the boys are away
we dance in her kitchen,
first hipsway to calypso,
then I put a waltz on.
teach me, she says.
one damp hand slides
into mine, the other
rests at my waist. I
lead her across the
tile, our skirts swing
tschhh-tschh-tschhh
in time to the music.
my breasts leak. I lean
down to kiss her. rum
and root beer.
we are both lonely, with
or without babies.
the hollows of our
bodies aren’t the kind
that can be filled. our
need is long as the
late-growing hour,
sweet as milk and
whiskey. the night is
deep, starless. across
the street, the train
howls its departure.
*****
ISACOUSTIC* 
Reblogged this on kingsoftrain.
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