Fuck Yeah, Sierra DeMulder!

24/7

sierrademulder:

In America, there are
a few things you can
count on for being
always open: Denny’s,
Seven Eleven, the diner
that no one actually enjoys
but everyone eats at,
the only Chinese buffet
for miles, Walgreens, AA,
coffee shops filled with
insomniacs and addicts,
gas stations, Walmart,
ATMs, women, always
unlocked, always the gate
with no keeper, yes, come
on in, we’re open.

- Sierra DeMulder

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BEAUTIFUL

sierrademulder:

It has become a struggle to get dressed
in the morning without hating yourself.

In the mirror, you see a sack of fruit,
a loveseat dragged to the curb. You know

this is not true. You know this is plight
of those with mirrors and cloth and legs—

yet, still, you do not want to leave
the house. It is spring and you are dough

before the kneading. The man who
loves you from across the country tells you

your body is his home but you do not want
to believe him because why would anyone

want to live in a sand dune. He is a tourist
in a warring city. He only sees it when

the lights are on, before the shadows spill
like blood into the streets. Do not leave

the house. Do not even open your doors
when he comes knocking knocking

knocking with those words that can
make you feel but can never make you be.

- Sierra DeMulder

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WRITER’S RESUME

sierrademulder:

SERVER – Your Favorite Restaurant
(June 2011 – The Rest of My God-Forsaken Life)

• Provided prompt, friendly customer service to people who enjoy pretending I’m uneducated.
• Successfully applied skills such as being looked at too long or operating a soda fountain or being looked directly through like a ghost or a fleeting hesitation for eight hours a day.
• Oh, you’d like another side of chipotle mayo, sir? Absoheartattacklutely.

BARISTA – That Trendy Place That Is Overpriced      
(August 2009 – June 2011)

• Demonstrated excellent personal control when asked if I knew how atrociously expensive our cookies are or why in the hell are we out of bagels.
• Endured the ever-present mating dance common to men who just don’t get it and young women who are stuck behind the counter. No, I don’t want to talk to you. They pay me to talk to you.
• Where I learned how to fake everything.
• Where I learned how to crave anything.
• We are out of bagels because you probably sinned today.

NANNY – Damn, Your Kid is Cute  
(The Night He Was Born – August 2009)

• Successfully rocked your son to sleep in my arms 274 times. Taught him sign language. Supervised his first shower when he was six months old. I remember braving his tiny body against my own, feeling his heartbeat like the most fragile insect. I guided his hand in and out from under the water and for the first time, I saw—
• Had to constantly remind myself that he was not and will never be my baby.
• And yet, it is almost impossible to train your heart heel like a good dog.

POET – At First, I Hated That Word
(since the beginning – when I have nothing else to say)

• So, what are you poems like?
• What do you write about? Sad stuff?
• What are you going to do with an English degree?
• Poetry is dead.
• I don’t get it.
• You seem really angry.
• Are you, like, always sad?
• So you actually make money at this?
• This: what makes my heart wake up and wake up and
• the only tattoo I was born with
• the only language I am fluent in
• what I pray to
• what I pray with
• from beginning
• to end
• it was never a choice
• it is the only choice
  
  

- Sierra DeMulder

(via howtoleavetheozarks)

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EXODUS 33:20

sierrademulder:

When he doesn’t want to look at it,
to rest his cheek against my thigh

and peer into the pink tenderness,
to examine where my body becomes

and unbecomes itself, I can only assume
that it is true what they say about God:

it is impossible for man to look upon the face
of the sublime and not be ruined by it.

The splendor would be insufferable. How soft
and quiet it is, where the world begins.

- Sierra DeMulder

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THIS, TOO, IS NOT FOR YOU

sierrademulder:

Between 6am and awake, you dream
of your professor calmly explaining
how much she enjoys your poetry
while slowly cutting off your index finger.

You wake when the knife hits bone.
In the kitchen, you drink weak coffee
and chop onions for the omelets with
a dull knife.  You crack an egg

and two yolks fall out. Two wet coins.
Two golden eyes floating up at you.
Your grandmother once told you
this was a sign of good luck (but she

also kept a small bottle of holy water
on her dresser and would smear
the cross over your forehead when
you had a cold). You dump the eggs

down the kitchen sink. Outside,
the wind ties itself around your bare ankles.
The smell of mud. Dried worms in the driveway.
A deer carcass on the side of the road

makes you think of him. You wonder
what makes you so attracted to rot. 
You realize by noon you haven’t
said more than twelve words:

good morning I no thank you don’t
love I’m sorry well enough. The dull sun
slowly disappears down the drain.
The birds sing and this, too, is not for you.

- Sierra DeMulder

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