folio : Forty-five Ottawa poets
A Road Map
Drawn in Eyeliner Like
casual references we found ourselves
3a.m.
Wired and wet from the rain
80s Night at
Barrymore's doing
something
Goth take-over on a
dance floor in
a dream state
where femininity was
strength Courtney Trouble (“ISO”)
gender a playground
White eyeliner and a red veil
transform me into chthonic / club-kid / goddess
Self-discovery under black light
spooky nerds in
home-made dresses
dropping
movie lines
like casual references. We found ourselves
in chat rooms lj
groups
where
everyone is the gender they want to be
small city queers
we skipped the Lookout
for Industrial
Tuesdays
our baby-femme aesthetic
all
velvet and pvc
First girl kiss on a dance floor
as the lights came up at
3a.m. Wired
and wet from the rain
late night fog-walking
in
a too-warm December
The thick mist so
ambient-evocative
we were vibrating
with it
Skin hungry and sensual
Every birthday a chance to be
regal glamourous
our pre-club kosmesis
doing something
transsubstantive
Shapeshifting in the sodium flare
This body made my own
this
desire made
something more than
pining
All of us sweaty
grinding
seen
Reaching for each other
In a dream state
VIII
– Kiss Of
What
I long for is unity
Not the unity of homogenous
monoculture
Sameness
stretching on
in
a gross facsimile of forest
Matchbooks
reaching skyward
A tinderbox
wide
as continents
I
mean the unity of intertwined
roots Ecstatic dance of morel
matsutake
the
kiss of fly agaric
birch
and alder turning
my
body to soil
What I’m Working On Right Now
Thanks to a Seed grant from the City of Ottawa, I have some support (and am on the hook) for creating a second full-length manuscript. This one’s an exploration of queer body as ecosystem, and as component part of ecosystem, playing with valued bodies/landscapes and bodies/landscapes that are considered valueless, how extractive economies come into that in different ways, and I’m writing it through the lens of an ancient Sumerian goddess. It’s interesting watching which imagery comes easily to me and what I have to stretch for.
Allison Armstrong (she/her) is a queer, polyamourous leather femme living on unceded Algonquin territory where she does magic and makes things with her hands. She has work published in Grain Magazine, Enheduana Journal, Pink Disco, Hustling Verse (Arsenal Pulp), and elsewhere. Follow her adventures online @amazon_syren
