Fuck Charlie Kirk

[So, I actually wrote this not long after the whole assassination thing happened, buuut it’s December and I feel like posting more poetry this month while I work on some upcoming posts, so that’s what you get!]

They held a rally for the fascist who died
there were pyrotechnics at his funeral
he said people like me
“should be dealt with like they did in the 50s and 60s”
And I’m still being scolded
for not mourning
Their small-featured martyr
apparently a calm white man with a baritone
deserves canonization for
being killed by the same words
he used as weapons

But when people demand grace and patience
without showing any
then say you deserve no quarter in the same breath
that’s just abuse in a cheap red ballcap
the tolerant have left
and if we’re using words as weapons
then catch the sharp end
of my self defense

I will not be quiet
I will not perform sadness
For a monster, a scam artist, or a grifter
I will not gracefully excuse
the fact that my member of Parliament,
Rachel Harder,
called for a standing ovation for a man who said
he’d make his daughter
bear a child of a rape to term
because forcing people to
give birth matters more than
our pain or our choices
I will not sit down and bite my tongue
For the potential of a career in politics
Because pinching our noses and making nice
Is how we got here

And if this poem makes you uncomfortable
and you want me to shut up
or be kinder
then look me in the eye and tell me
why I should care
about your feelings
more than my own or those of my communities

We will not be cowed
by your cowardice or fumbling snatches for power
we said “this pussy grabs back”
and now it’s got teeth

If this poem makes you uncomfortable
you do not have the right
to tell me to be nicer
and you can’t fucking make me.

***

A writer and artist, Michelle Browne lives in southern AB with xer family and their cats. She is currently working on the next books in her series, other people’s manuscripts, knitting, jewelry-making, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible. Find xer all over the internet: *Website * Amazon * Substack * Patreon * Ko-fi * Instagram * Bluesky * Mastodon * Tumblr * Medium * OG Blog * Facebook

 

 

 

Imposter Syndrome

So I’m staring down forty

over the horizon

and I don’t have an MFA

or a big publishing deal

or a six figure contract

I am crawling away

from the depression nest

of my faltering career

subsided from a bright flame

to coals from burnout

I never got famous as an editor

 

As a writer, I’ve dragged my feet

remembering to tell people is hard

and I’m trying to make it a habit

“Oh yes, I’m a writer and an artist”

it’s easier if

you pretend you’re talking about someone lese

who isn’t faking it: someone who wrote

several collections, a complete space opera series

a couple attempts at literature

a dystopian series faltering

but going ahead

a cozy academic trilogy

releasing now, serialised on Substack and Patreon

                                             

“I go by SciFiMagpie,” I say;

“You can call me Magpie”

 

And I hold my second name

Like a charm in my fist

I clutch that

and my strange pronouns

and my peculiar family

and my gothic affectations

only sheepishly permitted

to myself in adulthood

because I’m too old to be cool

and somehow, giving up on that

made me sexier

 

I take my scraps of identity

and I do my best to weave a nest

not to hide in while I’m depressed

but to hold ideas, hopes, plans

brooding over my future

rather than wondering

how I’d make it to thirty

 

Live like you’ve already failed

and everything else

becomes a gift.

***

A writer and artist, Michelle Browne lives in southern AB with xer family and their cats. She is currently working on the next books in her series, other people's manuscripts, knitting, jewelry-making, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible. Find xer all over the internet: *Website * Amazon * Substack * Patreon * Ko-fi * Instagram * Bluesky * Mastodon * Tumblr * Medium * OG Blog * Facebook

Mortuary Files

 

I put on the locket

that I bought when my parents nearly divorced

and mourned you

although you had not died

 

I don’t rank the people I’ve lost

they’re just an archipelago of scars in my mind

 

In no particular order:

 

There’s K, the former stripper and aerialist

full of storms and fighting wit and pain

 

O, wry and small and deep-voiced

with beautiful insincere eyes

 

A different K, her fragrant hair like a summer storm

and shifting brown eyes

and heady cigarette kisses, her grey halo

 

T and L, a milkmaid and a fairy tale princess

one a competitor and one

a lost love

 

S, with hard firm eyes and

strong opinions;

tea, and tobacco, and a warm laugh

 

Some were friends, some were lovers—

or something like it—

 

I haven’t counted every fallen robin

(to steal from a better poet)

but the strafes and near misses score my heart anyway

 

And now my regard and respect for you

adds a headstone to the rows

perhaps I should have known better, but

 

whisper networks are like telegrams were; they travel fast

but sometimes, not fast enough

and when you need them, they’re too late

 

So the things that other people knew before

are things that I’m only learning now

 

If I’d known them then, would I ever have

seen the magic in your words

or just the plywood and glue and nails and paint

of hollow setpieces

 

Burning it all wouldn’t scour your fingerprints from my clay

I guess I’ll forever have to say “good art, bad person”

but now I wonder how good the art really was in the first place

 

All the awards in the literary world

don’t add up to therapy

 

(and on its own, therapy

Is not always good, or enough)

 

I don’t need for the people I love and admire

to be perfect

or even to know who I am

 

But I wish I’d trusted the madwoman in the attic

because you made your father’s mistake

and I guess it

Runs in the Family

 

I have my own stories and poems to write

and a beautiful new child to attend to

and beloveds

and friends

and an art collective

and an online community

and an immense, overflowing stack of books to read

by people that aren’t you

 

but the people I’ve lost pull me back to

grey and ashes and sepia

 

and sometimes, it’s important

to count what has been lost.

An Open Letter to Neil Gaiman

The day I found out what you did

Silver lockets might as well have been

 piles of ash flowing between my fingers

Nothing was beautiful 

in my basement,  I curled up on a beanbag chair full of stuffing 

And slept until it hurt less 

It wasn’t just the assault allegations

Those were pretty bad, sure

It was the quiet whispers and casual mumbles that 

You’d slept with fans 

Young ones

And even if everything was above board, I couldn’t help but think

If I had lined up for hours or run into you in the right kind of club

With padded walls and restraints on the benches

Would you have ignored me because I wasn’t pretty enough

Or worse, paid attention because I was

We are not strawberries to snatch from the roadsides of life 

And now that I am older and past what Orwell called “the wild rose beauty” stage

And I am a rosehip 

If ever I was a rose, which is doubtful

All I can see are the lines and rows of beautiful tough mysterious Fey young women that 

Keep cropping up in your work 

and kept swirling in adoring eddies around your table at conventions 

You knew better 

You had the power 

You could crush any one of them in the palm of your hand 

Who would believe a young nanny over a famous author 

You used to be the person I most wanted to have lunch with 

Now all I want 

Is to write better than you.

I may never be as famous; odds of that are high and stacked against me 

But I can push myself harder and climb higher and feel something deeper 

And if I can’t, well,

I’m at least going to try.

for you page :)

I'm slightly above average at a handful of things

Not good enough for brilliance but 

Too good to ignore

In an era where skills must be monetized 

But the effort of monetizing work is a hidden burden 

Lurking behind a hill, blotting out a sunset

I'm coming to hate my art

I can string bright glowing glass and sparkling stones 

With iridescent shells to make a necklace 

It's not good enough

I can knit fluffy soothing yarn or soft chenille or 

Perky daring colorful novelty fibers into

Improbably cosy sweaters 

It's not good enough

I weave descriptions and worlds from dust 

And imagined shadows into aching glory

It's not good enough

I can sing trembling lines of poetry and melody

from silence and stillness into colour

It's not good enough

To survive under capitalism 

What happened to the starry future skies 

We used to dream up,

With mechanized wonders and lives of leisure 

And brilliant new attractions and follies

Everything is either popular, for rich people, or carefully faked

I hate my art because

I'm not famous on tiktok

Because at some point art has started to feel like

Palliative care for the soul 

And regardless of skill 

I'm too ugly to go viral 

***

A writer and professional freelance editor, Michelle Browne lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partners-in-crime and their cats. She is currently working on the next books in her series, other people's manuscripts, knitting, jewelry-making, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: *Website * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * Amazon * Tumblr * Mastodon *Facebook * Medium * Twitter  * OG Blog* Instagram * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

 

i sent u my verse, pls respond

 laying out a tender organ

between unskillful fingers;

hands shaking as I offered up a blurry picture of

something intimate, naked, vaguely expressed—

I immediately wished I’d played it off as a joke

instead I feel the creeping slinking regret

the cold drops of sweaty fear in the hollow of my back

because I revealed something private

in public

 

have I made a terrible mistake

and i i i i i

cannot take it back because the internet is forever

 

i am not afraid of being naked in public

that’s a nightmare i’ve had many times over

but i am afraid of being naked on the internet

 

perhaps i wish i could re-coil these tender delicate organs

back into the cavern of my hideous yellow roiling belly,

beneath layers of flesh

hide them beneath the layers of obscenity

 

this is just to say that if u saw my poem

i cannot tell whether i want u to respond

or not to respond

 

but i know enough to be ashamed

Migraine static gender

 Migraines lead to strange dreams 

I slept and dreamed of strange monstrosities, hideous creatures

tangled in the arms of conventional beauties 

my gender is something like a magpie, something like an omen 

but though I have no tusks or claws 

I slouch, my belly hangs low, I am hirstute

Tangles of dark curling hair fall to my shoulders 

or float above my head

If you asked me to embrace a monster, 

my arms would be open wide 

if you called me a beauty 

I would hide my face in shame 

at the lie.

Why not

Writing poetry was always about

falling in love with someone

a certain girl or a boy who made my knees weaken when

the sun caught their deep blue or brown eyes a certain way

when fringed eyelashes brushed on soft cheeks and

white or brown skin took on a hint of rose


but now, I am not on the hunt;

am I allowed to see a muse in the mirror?

Perhaps I can set aside years of hate and antipathy and invisiblity and

fall in love with

myself.

Pretty Things

Pretty Things by
David Bowie was rattling around in my head like a penny in a tin can
late at night I was

building tenuous struts from imaginary castles to real skyscrapers
linking the family I'd been born into with
the friends I had chosen
family is a concept made tenuous by distance and made real by our choices
that's just how connections work

Earl Grey was on my tongue and silver oxide on my fingertips as I
untangled and broke a dozen tiny chains, trying to fix what
errant neglect had done and

I contemplated the Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain 
like a scab or like a lost blood clot left in the tub from a shower that was too quick
a new period in my life, and one that kept going--
damn the hormones

I

considered being a mermaid for half an hour or an hour
whiling away time under a red light, in a few litres of heat and enlightenment


and I
I

remembered the days when pain was an option and a quaint memory, something that
I

had assumed was part of my past; that

brief

moment of confidence that heartbreak and ache and soreness were behind me was
a long time ago

we
talk about the arrogance of youth all the time but I
knew better then.

And now--
I know better
than to know better.

***

Thanks for returning to the nest. Leave a comment and say hi! I want to hear from you. Keep up with the new releases by getting on the mailing list. Buy my books on Amazon, and keep up with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and the original blog. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out!

Fifteen

Maybe it's okay to be
twenty-six going on fifteen once in a while
in Walmart I heard "Call Your Girlfriend" and remembered
a girl who loved calculus and physics and cold crisp clean lines and ideas

I remembered my trembling voice on the phone as I read poetry to
the guy at the Wordfest office and he said
--in surprise--
"that's not bad!"

I remembered the shot of white hot electric energy and the
tickle of sexuality I did not yet understand when
Shane Koyczan read about how to love a woman
and by love I mean fuck with every atom of sincerity in one's being

I remembered the embarassment of being a teenage goth
--slightly--
in front of Margaret Atwood and that
damning sigh of bored frustration after I admitted that I wrote
as she signed "Oryx and Crake" for me

I remembered snow outside my private school's math class
and writing a love poem to my
English-Indian tutor who had
beautiful deep brown eyes and a slightly broken nose and a limp
and a smile that made my young heart quicken
like a startled deer

I remember hiding in the library,
eating chocolate chip cookies and drinking milk and reading books
they were the most reliable friends

And then--I was so very glad that
I am no longer fifteen.

***

Thanks for returning to the nest. Leave a comment and say hi! I want to hear from you. Keep up with the new releases by getting on the mailing list. Buy my books on Amazon, and keep up with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and the original blog. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out!