Two Poems

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dinner party 

when someone thinks you are someone and you know you are no one, don’t you let them? don’t you soften like whipped butter and let them cut / scoop / measure / mix? don’t you let them decide who you are? don’t you become what they make, and don’t you say thank you? don’t you trust their hands? don’t they know what they are doing? aren’t you desperate to be eaten? you are a blood orange tart. you are a plum. you are a rack of lamb. and when you are bleeding all over the plate, isn’t that what was supposed to happen? 

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daddy

you ask me to spank you so i do 

i am getting free

i reach between your legs and lick my fingers

you shudder under my palm, my fist, my nails, my tongue, this goddamn wooden spatula

i am getting free

i ask you if your parents spanked you as a kid and you say no, did yours?

you shudder under this spatula

this spatula i’m hitting you with reminds me of my dad’s wooden spoon

i ask you if you know this spatula

you say it’s called a pervertible, an ordinary thing you use for sex

i’m hitting you with my dad’s wooden spoon

i think about everything that becomes something else

you say it’s an ordinary thing transformed

my dad’s wooden spoon, me, you, anger, love, desire

everything becomes something else

you ask me to spank you so i do 

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Eryn Johnson is a queer breathwork facilitator, energy worker, and writer based in Philadelphia. She writes to remember, to heal, to process. Her poetry explores the impacts of religious trauma and internalized homophobia, telling stories of survival and of becoming.

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