ex-wonderboy
Don’t walk out on the best revenge!
Chelsey Minnis
this is when i write a poem for you
even tho you never wanted it
i can long remember a nastie thing
if it is well done
when i try to write a poem it seems reasonable but it can never
be reasonable
this is a chain for you,
it goes around your throat
if you want to be a poem-writer then
pull a knife out of your head and threaten with it
this is a freedom from achievement
should one everlastingly seek to appear in a sympathetic way?
if someone wants to exist then they must be contented to make some tragic moves
this is a chance to tell the truth
and you start to get excitably depressed
i like it when a baby is crying
maybe they’re crying because they are so depressed
sometimes i get the right feeling in the afternoon and that’s when i write a poem for you
i get the idea i should appreciate things more but my ego is a
baby
you are just an ex-wonderboy
and this is like telling someone wearing a gorilla suit you don’t love them anymore
every day i behave as tho i am a human being and it hurts
me to do it
i don’t see why i must be so terrifically sorry you will find me
unchanged from how you knew me
should i have my vengeance or should god have it? this is like
crabs trying to walk to the side when they have no chance of
getting away
pretty soon, i’m going to unstick the flies from the flypaper and let them go free
no one wants any more punishments from you
how sad and sorry that you should die when i still loved you
the less water’s in my cup the better it tastes
the best thing about getting old is
losing everything you love
plus the self checkout register
making music you can understand
the puckered lips of the spurges
are lowkey kind of cute
now that it’s been a year since you wrote
fuck the magnolias blooming again
in your notebook. a hole
in the ground is half a sphere
and my boss just looked at me
and said spring?
like it was something we could do
Untitled
under the table
on a train
in a taxi
at work
in the bathroom
in the woods
in the middle of a meeting
in a bookshop
in a library
at a wedding
at a funeral
in a church
in the confessional
in the pews
in a corn maze
on halloween
at christmas dinner
on the dinner table
on the kitchen counter
in the laundry room
in the backyard
on the grass
in a pool by the sea
in the sea
on a boat
while you’re driving
in the middle of a football field
with the lights on
on a tennis court
on clay
on a ferris wheel
in the bleachers
under the bleachers
in the hallway
in a classroom
in an alley
in a dark dark alley
in a tunnel
in the sewers
on the subway
in the cinema
on a fire escape
on a roof
in a car garage
in any parking lot
under a bridge
on a ferry
in my childhood bedroom
in the closet
in a park
in the bushes
in mcdonald’s
in the drive thru
in a fountain
against a tree
on a rollercoaster
at a waterpark
in the playground
on the slide
Ulyses Razo is the author of Murders & Other Poems (Ghost City Press, 2024), a fellowship recipient from Paul Smith’s College, and a previous poet-in-residence at Bethany Arts, Ulyses Razo’s poems have been featured by Hobart, ShitWonder, SARKA, Car Crash Collective, Amygdala Journal, Dream Boy Book Club, Discount Guillotine, dadakuku, SWAMP, and others. New work is forthcoming from Jon Leon’s Annual Report, Die Quieter Please vol. 2, and Defunkt Press’ Surreal Confessional Anthology. He lives and writes in London.
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