RACHEL STEMPEL
Softboy Origin Stories
Tender is a four-letter word,
coats your tongue lavender.
You learn confession as apology and love
all the meat that comes with it—
weight and kneecaps. Nomenclature
is a daisy-chained war machine.
When your voice, all gravel,
erupts, it comes
with the ash of theater.
Sound is earworm, is parasitic,
is, you know, easy to mistake
for closeness. How, over thick
strips of bacon, you find shine
in grease and I'll believe
you because it sounds better.
How, you tell the waitress
it's my birthday
because it must be
someone's birthday
and it's not a lie
but a substitution.
Rachel Stempel is a genderqueer Jewish poet and educator. They are the 2020 winner of the Matt Clark Editors' Choice Prize in fiction from New Delta Review and their work has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Nasiona, SPORAZINE, Penn Review, and elsewhere. Born in Ukraine, they currently LARP as a Long Island townie. (failedturingtest@outlook.com)