ZACHARY M HODSON - POEMS

"Zachary M Hodson is a multi-genre artist based out of Kansas City, MO. Holding a B.S of Psychology with a minor in Creative Writing from the University of Central Missouri, he has spent the last decade focused equally on poetry, music and music/sports journalism. His writing has been featured in many print and online outlets, including but not limited to Euphony Journal, Leveler Poetry, The Literary Nest, Future’s Trading, Skidrow Penthouse, Royals Blue and The Deli Magazine. He can most often be found with a cold craft beer in hand and under (at least) one very fat snoring cat."

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                                    the orange frogs
 
she said people under forty only take one set of pictures
to reduce excessive exposure to radiation she said
the same reason old people are not full body scanned at the airport

​& why she wore a dosimeter 

​she joked my future children [that i will never have] would thank me
 
then
they took three sets of me
 
she smiled considerably less than when i was drinking tracer
 
the words you have a mass in your right kidney ring first like an anvil
clean and sharp
at once more important than deadlines or dvr schedules or the sunset
or other people
 
eventually
the dancing word bubbles are poached by zealous toddlers razing about your head

​the ones not yet euthanized by ritalin

​& you are left with the single word carcinoma
suspended on the lip of every proceeding thought
 
its the friend of the friend of nobody that invited itself to your party
dropping two bags of funyuns and a half case of natty through your glass coffee table
before drinking up your expensive craft beer
& vomiting hummus all over the ping pong table in your basement
 
its a completely useless arrangement of letters otherwise
a bold faced unitasker
the douchebag constantly correcting people’s grammar on twitter
 
those words in that order were not what i was expecting
 

​was i supposed to feel something
 
i have been taught my entire life to avoid that sort of thing
 
& sure i had sometimes mused about a malady like this
never a super deadly one mind you
but something grand enough to hit the back splash
 
i used to drape my hair over my face and faux cry on the trampoline
at other people’s birthday parties
i once shot turtles off a cliff with a water balloon launcher
i tore up my mother’s pta awards when i got caught out past curfew
i stole my father’s last pair of clean work socks
 
i am as unstable as any other
human beast
but this is a weird way to get what was coming to me

​even now as i type
hands elongated and pulsing
i have never been so clueless as to what to feel
 
am i the forgotten child left alone all night after a game of freeze tag
following instructions till the bitter end

​someone should have done a head count before letting the bus leave

​so when presented with wait
or learn
or kill
nonchalantly explained by the doctor i would later stalk online
all choices withholding shades of grey
& results strewn about both sides of the bell curve
 
what do you do
& how do you feel about it
 
these are things no one taught us in health class
 
i know i will eventually thaw
                                                probably
even soon enough to realize
there are times one has to shed a failing shell
& sometimes it takes a bit of the good skin as well
which is okay
 
scars are what keep us from eating the orange frogs
 
again
 

​                                                                   worm food
 
you are the devil
    the gluttonous sloth
you wail at the bedroom wall
calling for your dead mother the fourteen thousandth time
as if she will suddenly appear and take you back at the teat
 
you are a monster
you eat macaroni and cheese with a fork
      you eat everything
you sulk in the back nook like an obese white line on a blueprint
the kind for which i don’t need a legend
plain as the low creaks of dead winter
 
you are a hag
with nappy locks pickled by perspiration
& flat arches that plead for your immediate death
an unfortunate man child making snowmen in your front yard with mashed potato flakes
having never tasted real snow
             let alone seen it
you know santa claus is bullshit
yet still write a letter each year for your mother’s sake
 
you are a weathered face on the mountain
the pilgrimage for a new generation of bloodletters
wide eyed fledglings ripped on the fermented spittle with which you rape them
 
those poor unfortunate souls
vaping like high school science projects
the least noble of gases compounding the most volatile of heavy metals
quite convinced they are previously undiscovered elements
 
they fiercely greet each other side to side in public
seesawing compliments off each other like hand jobs
moderately offended to not receive blow jobs in return
 
they bellow your tenets with muddled gusto
& this year’s boots firmly thrust up the ass of social responsibility
as we good souls of the city dodge the white-out piles of shit they leave behind in your name
 
you watch as they drink each other’s company until swollen and drunk
beached upon the overflowing splendor they create in your name
soon they will outgrow their motley shells and move into PBR tallboys
 
i scowl from the back
chilled
             shaken
                         stirred
                                     pendulous in the november air
i was invited to the party but given a different color wristband
 
in my head i play out your wretched evening ritual
that scorecard you keep of likes and follows and friends and connections
i almost have my thousand
                   can i have a cookie now
as if you would ever give up a cookie to someone else
 
i would plead for a chance
                                           one single legitimate chance you pig headed mother fucker
remove the discriminating shade from my particular cell
but your formula is unforgiving and absolute
to you i have been made fictional
                                                      i am a thigh gap
a nah, i’m cool, but thanks anyway when offered another plate to the buffet
 
i’m old enough to not give a shit about your opinion
 i’m young enough to almost believe that
someday we will both be dead
others will appoint themselves to our roles of self-entitlement
but i guarantee the worms will say i taste better
 
 
 

                  lost shade, volume v: malletbreath
 
there was the kettle drum
who in another life would have been my fulminant lover
consummating the timbre of a single soundwave to the big crunch
 
i regret not her
 not her even in the slightest mind you
truth is
she is quite a landmine
 
but what we could have done
our serpentine trip to the middle would have been marvelous
a triumphant parade to the tip top of the bell curve and holding
decibels above the ho hum of my spying computer’s cooling fan
of which to this day no one knows about but you
 
so be cool yo
 
i watched in pain as she finally gave up her life
years of wasted breathing
scratched very much within the lines on imported paper
acrid twirls of colored pencil lead left to die in the creases of a merlot stained sofa
the creamy under fluff of her militant feminist cat owned the various air currents
occasionally allowing me an attempt to inhale the weight of the room
 
also a callow bearded dreamer in the corner spoke
thick flattery that felt just like all the four by six fuck you for submitting rejection cards
i have stuffed into my favorite childhood lunchbox
you see children
before submittable
we actually mailed stuff
 
i have already mostly forgotten he was a thing
after hours of scrubbing my name and image online
 
this one has hurt the most of all
                                                   so far
 
id prefer to stop talking about it now