{"id":1143,"date":"2019-09-04T13:09:14","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T13:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2019-09-28T17:29:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-28T21:29:00","slug":"brown-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/2019\/09\/04\/brown-room\/","title":{"rendered":"Brown Room in the White House | Editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

by Hokis,<\/strong> senior editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n

first published in <\/em>Caustic Frolic, Liminal Spaces, Spring 2019. <\/em> <\/a><\/p>\n\n

Part I<\/span><\/strong>
In the House around the corner.
\u201cI just want to know what it feels like\u201d
he said to me, my pants pulled down and my arms held above my head.
(labor day before junior year)

The large cork board to the left.
A poster of Kiss, in full make-up (disguise).
Spinal Tap (the mockumentary),
Farrah in her red bathing suit (buffet of descriptors).


The bed was filled with water.
The walls were brown.

My right hip froze in fear \u2013 32 years later, 
the hip soldier grips when I grieve.

\u201cI just want to know what it feels like\u201d<\/strong>

Those words, all alone, sitting in my memory.

Just. Those. Words.

I just want (to invade you so I can learn)
I just want (you to give in so I will feel something I want to feel)
I just want (you to sit here quietly and do what I say)
I just want (you to go along with the lie that this is right)
I just want (you to realize your place in the world)
I just want (you to lay there and wait for me to understand something I don\u2019t currently understand)

There. That is it.<\/strong>

Wait. Wait.\u00a0<\/em>
I need to pretend you aren\u2019t here, so I can ________.<\/em><\/pre>\n\n
Part II.<\/span><\/strong>\n\nI was 4 when my cat was attacked by the neighbor\u2019s dog. She was being thrown around like a chew toy in my front yard. I ran into the house for my parents\u2019 help. I ran in, loud, dramatic. Unconcerned with what was happening inside. It was an emergency. \u201cShhhhh, this is important. We are watching this.\u201d The news. Politics. The noise of politics takes up space. MY space.\n\nIt was 1974. The news of Tricky Dick\u2019s House.\n\nI froze.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\nI waited.\n\nMy spacetime came. It was too late.\n\nThat night, my cat sat in the disposal side of shiny, stainless steel kitchen\nsink. Panting. In pain. Dying. No vet. No pain killer. No mercy killing. I sat in the sink next to hers. Comforting her. Not wanting her to be alone.\n\nWaiting for her to no longer suffer.\nWaiting with my cat, knowing suffering comes and goes, and\nall we can do is listen and be with.\n\nThe waiting to be heard. The waiting for the death.\n\nDeath, the consequence of waiting.\n\nIt changed me inside.\nInside\nMy four year old\nself.\n\nI was the only one not interested in Tricky Dick.\nI was the only one interested in listening.\nI was the only one in the second sink.\n\nMY life would be full of waiting for others \nto discover, to learn, to \u201cget it.\u201d\n\nMY role was to wait and let them learn.\nI became the master of waiting.\n\nMy hip soldier tells me when I wait too long.<\/strong>\n\nIt reminds me that not everyone wants to live a life defined by this purpose.\nIt whispers to me \u201cSome people will take advantage of your waiting.\u201d\n\nSometimes waiting is beautiful.\nSometimes waiting is compassionate.\nSometimes waiting is a slow fuck.\nSometimes waiting is rape.\nSometimes waiting is death.\n\nIt is funny, the way life teaches us to discern subtle meanings. \n\nhaha.\n\nI don\u2019t want to learn this.\nAnd I don\u2019t want to wait.<\/pre>\n\n
Part III.<\/span><\/strong>\n\n2017.<\/strong>\nTrump\u2019s House.\nWhere tricks are turned for dicks\nand souls for phallacies\n     #Metoo.\n        Permission granted \u2013 forced \u2013\n          [BROWN ROOM. BROWN ROOM.] \n          (remember. remember.)\n\n1974.<\/strong>\nNixon is the decade\u2019s distraction.\nThe abstraction of the world\u2019s ailings, \ndosed down to the TVeaspoon we can swallow, \nand still keep down.\n\nGets us just angry enough, \nbut not angry enough.\nIt happens in that little box \nwe can turn off.\nIn that other neighborhood.\nIn that other house.\nIn that other person.\n\nNixon distracted people.\nNixon killed my cat.\nNixon raped me.\n\n2018<\/strong>\n24-hour news\nPocked sized TVeaspoons\n\u201cLikes\u201d and \u201cFriends\u201d\nTrump. (the decade\u2019s distraction)\n\nThe resulting cognitive dissonance\nsilences altar boys\nand\nchildren in cages\n\n\u201cBe quiet and wait.\u201d They will say.\n\u201cWhat happens in the meantime?\u201d I reply.\n\nMY ears turn towards the sounds inside\nMY House,\n         inside ME.<\/pre>\n\n
Part IV.<\/span><\/strong>\nInside MY house.\nThey move towards the attention they seek.\nFamiliar way of connecting,\nor, perhaps \nthe familiar ache for connection.\n    Mocumentaries.\n    Political satire.\n    Women in bathings suits.\n    Altar boys.\n    TVeaspoon sized playgrounds.\n    Fallacies.\n    Rightness Anger.\n    Truth in politics\n    Truth from death.\n\n    (Truth, I do the same)\n\nIn MY house,\n    I ache for marathon ears.\n    I ache for exposed eyes.\n    I ache for vouchsafe hands.\n    For not waiting until death do us part.\n    I don\u2019t seek reporting.\n      (new(s)fallacies\n       and the hushing of trickster dicks)\n\n    I seek to share stories.\n    ME stories.\n    YOU stories.\n    WE stories.\n\nIn MY house\n    I no longer wait. \n\nI listen and speak for MY soldier hip<\/strong>\n       in MY inside\u2019s\n              outside voice. <\/strong><\/pre>\n\n
A piece I wrote in July 2018. Sharing in solidarity with the brave Chenel Miller as she reads her impact statement regarding to the rapist Brock Turner on 60 minutes<\/a> I hope I never have to share in solidarity ever again. I am certain I will.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CONTENT WARNING: This poem describes the sexual assault of a teenage girl.  It is spoken as a matter of fact, but spoken nonetheless. <\/p>\n
Image from @MyDaughtersArmy Twitter post<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,15,164,161,168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-weekly-feature","category-editorial","category-politics","category-metoo","category-the-white-house-occupant"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/EDolN_eXUAAaeqC.jpg?fit=732%2C651&ssl=1","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1577,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions\/1577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lineriderpress.com\/headlinepoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}