distress tolerance

Scout Faller

you can withstand

anything for thirty

seconds, He left

me in a panic

i’m hysterical

seductive but not

attractive, He wrote a song

about the version of me

He’d like to keep, i shouldn’t go

into a helping profession

you can break

it down further

i wouldn’t know

what to do with children

three sets of ten

the version he

likes is an obsession

with Him, ten

seconds is fast, He bends down to

tie my shoe and when He

stands He’s pissed

i remove the parts that

care there’s less

we’re not speaking, He might

be sorry or i might be

stupid, He opened

the passenger side

door and i slid in

jumped in—i find

myself in a copy

of Moby Dick a gift

a statement about

what i like, i grind it

up and swallow it

on my hands

knees crawling

through His landscape

cold and red

for ten seconds if i

run into Him again

one for each finger

what’s the worst

that could happen

INSTAGRAM POEM

Scout Faller

i write for my audience already

inside eyeing this line

up and my eye is highly visual

eye was working on binding two

voices in a poem, i made a braid

of language and waxed thread

fed the computer wrote the poem posted

it but, neurotic i kept retreading

old ground rebraiding the braid re-scanning

the scan reworking the words

about leaving my girlfriend

for writing a kind of brassy

jewelry of mourning i asked

if she would give me a clipping of her hair

to add to the poem, i mean the braid i mean the

post i mean your eyes for a moment

i would like to loop that around

and keep it in a locket, if at all possible,

i’d like you to like it, could you

like it please like it

Scout (they/them) has words in HAD, Bullshit Lit, Hot Pink Mag, and Ursus Americanus press, with poems forthcoming in the tiny and lowly dirt children. They live in San Francisco with their girlfriend and their cat. They’re on instagram @boredgeoisie__. You can find more of their work at scoutfaller.com/poems.