Watching Dallas Buyers Club
(listen to the poem, read by the author)
On Parents
Why are they mad at me
for covering up holes in the wall
with paintings?
Isn’t it enough to have heard
my hammer break through over and
over for them to know to ask why?
How
did I not do
my due diligence
when I left poems
about death
on the dining room table—
is that not loud enough
to warrant a response,
for me to wake up
the next morning
and not find the loose-leaf
untouched,
to not have to tell myself that
the paper must’ve just blended
into the tablecloth?
If I could, I’d be the one to find
my own body hanging. I’d
eulogize it, bury it,
because I’ve learned that
the more someone loves
you, the less they want to see.
On Medication
To all my former lovers:
I once romanticized you.
Before, I’d felt such magic
from a toss-and-swallow
that I thought one
pill’s name called out
every nude morning at
my bathroom counter
would teach me trust again—
but I could never finish
and when I told my therapist
that it felt silly to be warned,
If you feel depressed
while on this medication,
it isn’t working,
she laughed,
then sighed,
then said nothing.
Back to Top of Page | Back to Poetry | Back to Volume 14, Issue 3 – September 2020
About the Author
Zach Semel is an M.F.A. candidate in Creative Nonfiction at Northern Arizona University. He is an avid Celtics fan, a wannabe psychoanalyst, and a lover of all things garlicky. Some of his other work has appeared or is forthcoming in Breath & Shadow, Waxing & Waning, the Read650 Jew-ish Anthology, The Nervous Breakdown, and other places.