Category: Uncategorized

plastic
what are you but plastic
a cold, hard thing
lifeless on cold, hard tile

making me something
cold and hard
a tin woman
trembling inside

how did you sink
your claws into me
how did I let you
dig, dig, dig so deep

am I the only customer
of your printing press
the curve of your quill
staining even the sun

I am blind to anything
that is not you
try to reconcile the
push and pull

justify the highs with
the twisted relish of
those delicious lows
the never low enough

limbo limbo you sing
and I bend backward
to find out
how low can we go

my diary is covered
in moments we shared
photos timestamped
by my dedication to you

a single number
is enough to destroy
to starve, to zombiefy
my entire being

every time I think your
sharp talons have dulled
you whisper sweet lies
and the scars resurface

plastic
what are you but plastic
a cold, hard thing
alive in my lifeless mind

I don’t remember ever being beautiful.
Must have been, at some point.
Kindergarten maybe?
All I know is, by third grade,
My tummy was a tad too
Big to be beautiful.

But don’t worry. This isn’t a poem
About hating my body. Actually,
I’ve always quite liked her
Despite, despite. She was always
So strong. Utilitarian. Through every
reinvention, she always looked
Like me. Reason enough.

I have longed to be beautiful though.
Nothing to do with appearance.
I’ve longed to be beautiful because
Beautiful things are loved for
No reason but
existing.

Don’t worry. I’ve had my share
Of love. But, off. Always felt so,
Utilitarian. I used to love
Being loved
For a reason. My intelligence,
Often, reason enough.
Until I lost my reason. And love
Never had much to do
With reason anyway.

A horoscope said that
I had a talent for making things
Beautiful. It’s true.
I surround myself
With beautiful things. And
They say beauty is in the eye
Of the beholder, and I have an eye
to behold beautiful things.

It’s true, I have strong reason,
So utilitarian. Reason enough. But
Better yet there is beauty
In my eye. I’m the off-white
Just right shade to bring
Beauty into focus when others
Don’t see. And I think that’s
Beautiful, and reason enough,
To be loved without reason.

I sold a mouthful of teeth for breath reek, for rot, and for wreckage
For a set of ribs and a rate of exchange.
This was the conversion:
patience (substitute for suffering) is equal to lbs lost.
I dealt in irregulated heartbeats for a stomach I could
Bounce a quarter from.
Bartered a year of sugars, starches, stillness
For black coffee and bloodletting.
Months in the toilet with an acid spatter smile.
Punch the clock, hour fast by hour fast I was getting holier
Because I bought into the give and take of girls, of men:
The tears, the circumvention, and the currency of need.
I played roulette, I shorted the supermarket.
People have sold their souls for sillier reasons.

Now, they tell me that this was a crime. They tell me that I’m paying.
One year of penance for one year of pride.
Drill a tooth for every pound lost, every glance gained.
After all, I did some petty crime.
I used myself as collateral, slipped the noose of the “set point”.
And now, you all get to sit in judgement, critiquing my methodology.
Disavow my avarice all you want. Shake your heads all you wish.
I have but one defense:
The devil is a broker with an unbalanced scale and I was just
Trying to underweigh a feather.

The paper bird I’d created fell from my hands, dissipating into the water.
The black dye in the pulp clouded the silver mirror.
Swimming to the surface, Golden light erupted from her eyes.

Quietly, her gaze told me to follow her, so I stuck one hand in her eyes
my face followed after, and my lungs filled with her honeyed water.
If I breathed too quickly, my throat would be filled with a solid mirror.

I breathed slowly, looking at all the bird showed me in the water,
watching my hands turn into coral, pink and yellow reflected in the mirror.
I wondered how she would see my new hands, would they be pretty in her eyes?

I looked back up, searching for her, but in her place was a fish the same gold as her eyes.
Her billowing tail followed behind her like a cape, heavy behind her in the water.
My face turned pink, laid before my coral hands, I was also scared of the mirror.

I grew jealous of her graceful flow, loudly announcing her gait in the water.
She turned to me and blinked, I never knew a gilded fish could close her eyes.
I wondered what she saw, my tough coral cheeks ate at the mirror.

The colors in my hands reflected her scales, the pink and gold floated up in the water.
Were we really the same two people, making sure our eyes didn’t look into our mirror?
I wanted to hug her, just how long had she been lying to her eyes?

It drifts to sleep and levitates
above postlines and vacant lots,
past snarling dogs and alleyways.
Has breakfast with the girls,
walks herself home from the bar—
un-catcalled, un-lured, un-armed.

She pauses on the park bench,
becomes one with darkness,
and this time, she is not afraid.

The TVs go on in the windows,
and she does not hear her name.
The men in suits have other things to discuss—
like horse races, and families,
and maybe even how to please their wives.
For once, the crowds do not father her.

In the waiting room,
she is not asked why she is there.
She is not chased with pitchforks and picket signs,
not threatened by your God.
This body is not asked to repent for all her sins.
She is not made an example of,
she does not become a premature crucifixion.

It is dawn now,
she walks past the butcher and the dealers,
the other bodies on the street,
walks past brawls and car alarms,
and this time, she is not afraid
.
When she makes it home again,
she reminisces about freedom.

Where does the sun sleep?
The pit that it hides in,
does it still shine even when not seen?
Are we still golden when invisible?
I mean, are we still golden after so much black and blue?
Are we still golden?

I have spent too long holding in my stomach
Sucking in fat that is beautiful
And meant to shine in the sun
Hiding my thighs with fabric
My skin wants to be seen
I want to be seen
I want to see me
And every fold and dimple
That catches the gaze
I will never hide myself again
From the wrath of insecure men
Or insecure culture
I have arrived
In all of my fatness
Displayed in joy

I hide everything.
My curves, my arms, my heart.
Away from the light.

In Sickert’s painting of a woman,
Nude, half-reclining, is only visible,
Shadowy and dim,
In diffused moonlight.

The iron bedstead, so like our own,
Frames her form paused
In a moment between
Staying and leaving,

So naked and beautiful,
Caught contemplating the action
That will happen next, and
I am reminded of you.

The bedlinen still warm from you
After you leave, and me
Holding in my mind of the image
Of you remaining

Long after you are gone
To attend some distance domestic task
On the other side of Woodward Ave.
And the world— the far westside.

– Doug Tanoury – February 26, 2025

As I stare at myself in this mirror,
I realize that I will never be extraordinary.

Standing in this body that isn’t mine,
a body simply being controlled by others
unconsciously.
I live for them in these moments,
in this body—
a body that’s just ordinary.

My soul picked it.

So, I begin to pick myself apart,
down to my most untouched self,
my truest form being enhanced by the soft glow.

Trying to compress myself,
back into an essence,
into nothing but light and my emotions.

This physical form isn’t the real me,
so I’ll keep digging
until I see myself bleed.

only fragments
whispers of words wielded summers ago
shadows of ink scrubbed out of carpets
scars of paper cuts and typewriter keys. nothing
remains completely.
the echoes of dreams and clay moulds of wishes. i can smell the chalk white, the blank page.
a hoarse voice, a dying tongue, rings out from before.

At Dusk Each Day
i like to wallow and turn my fountain pen over in my hands
like a sand timer. i like to listen to my stomach growl,
a chained dog,
i like to wish that i could claw myself out of this life.
i imagine the whiteness of it. the peace. the feeling of morning air.
the unseasonable chill of the summer clouds. i try to forget
my faults. i fantasise that
i am faultless.
At Dusk Each Day
i am a statue, sitting cross legged on a double bed,
wishing i had a lighter. i am empty i am full
i am lost an agitated shell against
the setting sky.