Megan Falley: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Telling Him I Kissed a Woman

 

I cut the pill of truth

with honey, promised,

We were drunk.

Said we were egged on

by barstools, wore dresses of gin.

 

Said I stumbled

onto her face, more so 

than an actual kiss.

 

Spun it as if cameras 

were rolling, an image he could beat

off to instead of curse. Said,

 

It meant nothing.

 

And how could it?

I was straight

as a wedding aisle.

I touched his beard. 

Begged him to stay. 

Insisted,

 

It was only a kiss,

and hoped he wouldn’t hear it

in my voice, how it sounded like,

 

It was only a decade.

It was only a war.

 

I didn’t tell him

there was no bar,

no audience 

 

except the magnetic poetry tiles 

falling to the floor as she pressed me

against the refrigerator, beaming.

 

I did not say I felt more in that 

one kiss than anytime he thrust

his tongue down my throat,

or wouldn’t get a condom,

or wanted it facedown. 

Swore instead,

It will never happen again.

He called me a whore.

I said,

I love you.

 

He called me a bitch.

I said,

 

Yes.

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Megan Falley (she/her) is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, most recently Drive Here and Devastate Me (Write Bloody Publishing, 2018). In 2019 she co-authored How Poetry Can Change Your Heart (Chronicle Books) with her poet and partner, Andrea Gibson. Falley's chapbook, Bad Girls, Honey (Poems About Lana Del Rey) was the winner of the 2015 Tired Hearts Chapbook Prize. Falley is both a National Poetry Slam and Woman of the World Poetry Slam Finalist and has performed her work on TV One's Verses and Flow and venues and colleges nationwide. In the last two years, since Falley began writing prose, one of her essays was the first place winner of the 2021 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Essay Contest, and another was the runner-up for Phoebe Journal's 50th Anniversary Nonfiction Prize as well as nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the creator of the online writing course, Poems That Don't Suck, which has been called "a degree's worth of education in five short weeks." Originally from New York, she now resides in Colorado where she is still awed by the mountains. 

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Dans le Lit, le Baiser (In Bed, The Kiss). Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892.

 

Comments

[Don Berger]

What wonderful compression and lyricism in this poem, with each line crafted yet natural, delivered in how we speak when alert and blessed with the art of song. Each line of the poem is a new opening as we feast on its surprises moving slowly vertically down through it. I didn't know Megan's work before I read this and now I'm going to look for more. Glad you presented this, Terence.

[Indran Amirthanayagam]

Tear off the mask. Wipe the honey off the words. Speak. Thank you for this portrait. Hope to read more of your poems Megan. Yours, Indran Amirthanayagam(Editor, The Beltway Poetry Quarerly) www.beltwaypoetry.com

[Denise Duhamel]

Fabulously honest! Bold narrative with great stanza breaks and line breaks doing double duty.

[gracecavalieri]

Megan is my new poetry bitch. Said lovingly.

Once I hugged (then US POET LAUREATE) Kay Ryan and I was talking and we were hugging and she moved her head quickly and I bit her ear by accident.
The LOC photographer caught this action.
I wonder how much he wants for it.
She hurried on stage with some red on her ear. To this day I hope it was lipstick.

[Terence Winch]

Don: a perfect take. Thank you.

[Howard Bass]

An astounding poem with some powerful imagery and honesty. Thanks for posting this, Terence.

[lally]

another great choice terence, Megan's poem is perfection

[Terence Winch]

Howard: Thanks for your comment.

[Terence Winch]

MDL: Happy you think so.

[clarinda harriss]

I love this poem I would marry it. Straight down the RC aisle. With Farther Casciotti's blessing, I'll bet.

[clarinda]

I meant "so much that. . . ." I was too hot with blushes and passion to control my fingers.

[Masaki Takahashi]

"Spun it as if cameras
were rolling, an image he could beat
off to instead of curse. Said,"

Megan is so amazing! I love this.

[Kyrsta]

Beautifully heartbreaking and a feeling I’m sure sooo many queer women like me have felt. So many haunting images

[Emily Long]

Straight as a wedding aisle! Only a decade! So obsessed with Megan, always.

[april havoc]

I agree with Grace. And speaking of grace, this has it, and hope too, unlike the poem by Ron Filliman last week, but that was an exception, to be honest, in general, love these poets, these pests, so thank you, basically.

[Peter Kearney]

I'll just say at my advanced age: Thanks to a few powerful lines, I'm learning about life.

[Gerald Fleming]

Powerful even before the twist at the end. Thank you, Megan Falley!

[Phyllis Rosenzweig]

Great stuff