makyo

Author, Beat Sabreuse, Skunks

Recovering techie with an MFA, working on like a kajillion writing projects at once. Check out the Post-Self cycle, Restless Town, A Wildness of the Heart, ally, and a whole lot of others.


Trans/nb, queer, polyam, median, constantly overwhelmed.


Current hyperfixation: SS14


Skunks&:

⏳ Slow Hours | 🪔 Beholden
🫴 Hold My Name | ✨ Motes
🌾 Rye | ★ What Right Have I
🌱 Dry Grass | ⚖️ True Name
🌺 May Then My Name

Icon by Mot, header by @cupsofjade


Back at my first poetry workshop for my degree, I was given the task of writing a sestina. These have always sounded like a whiny brat going off and refusing to change change anything, just kvetching, so who better to write it from than the best worst fox?

Anyway, not canon, so it is over on AO3, as well as posted below.


Remember Qoheleth? Poor fool could never forget.
Never realized that he still had change.
Never cared, despite his job, his own story.
Remember? Do you remember and laugh?
I know that all my words are bound in snark
But all that hides is asking why.

My dear, did you ever ask why?
Sure, you knew the reasons, the drive to forget,
And you know the how, because of course. My snark
Is here to obscure. I am not sorry. I will not change.
Only, I wonder. When he died, did you laugh?
Cry? Sigh? In the night, tell yourself a story?

I, artist of nonsense, will ever tell my stories.
The stories of too many reasons why
You took your bet. For some of them, I laugh.
Sad laughs, laughs where you shake your head. Forget!
Silly man, but sillier bet. You, also, must change.
I cannot demand, I am not you. Only hint, smile, snark.

Again, I do not apologize for such snark —
I am trying being polite — only thank you for the story.
At my lowest, I might sigh, nod, hope for change.
I am not low. I am only perhaps-polite. I bow and ask for whys.
I have done my work, my level best to forget,
So I only hope for reasons, reassurance, commiserating laughter.

How silly! Hoping to hear you, of all, laugh.
But nothing else will cut through snark.
I hope that, one day, you just forget.
I hope you forget to tell it and lose your story.
I hope I need not ever ask you why
that you, too, forgot about change.

In the end, I think I trust that you will change.
In the end I imagine we will meet and laugh
over cups of coffee about forgotten whys.
We each have our own brand of snark,
so I see no reason we might relive this story.
I see no reason not to just forget.

My dear, I write of change with offhand snark,
but what I hope is to laugh over some new story
and to never remember to ask why we ever forgot.


You must log in to comment.