Lyd Havens
Lyd Havens is a poet, performer, and Harry Styles impersonator originally from Tucson, Arizona. Their work has previously been published in Winter Tangerine, Cosmonauts Avenue, and Up the Staircase Quarterly, among others. Lyd is currently an undergraduate at Boise State University, studying creative writing and history. They exist at www.lydhavens.com
"Invocation for my Own Voice"
O, all the places I’ve yelled
while still coming off as quiet:
into an ocean. Across a mosh pit.
With a mouthful of pillow and rage.
All those humid dive bars I had
no right to be in. At poetry slams.
Do you know how often I think
of the hinges on all the doors in
my childhood home? I think
of how they squealed and whined
and begged when my father
came home angry, then left
the same way. I’ve always been terrified
of raising my voice, so I’ve learned
all the ways I can safely make a
racket without beginning
to turn into him. I am a floor
covered in bobby pins. The heaviest
pair of feet christening a flight
of stairs. O, what a clamorous lineage
I was screamed into. The first time
I actually yelled back, it wasn’t
at my father. It was at a boy
I had a crush on. He called it cute.
Said I didn’t look like the bitchy type,
but that was a good try. Lord, give me
the strength and power of every man
who believes himself to be
the most scared knife-prayer. Just once,
I want my throat to drip in garnet stones
and spite without feeling the weight
of guilt I should have never been
cornered into. I want a healthy coping
mechanism that still allows me to be
heard. Where do I find something like that?
When will the hum of the happy hour crowd
downtown stop feeling like
the anger management class I never
got to take? When did being angry
become synonymous with being alive?
Is this what I was always meant to be?
Once, I wanted to stop having a body,
and I guess now I have to be all voice.
Last summer, I told my mother I was
thinking of buying a pocket knife, in case I ever
needed it for protection. She looked me
up and down, like I had only just started
being her child, and said,
That’s ridiculous. Look at you. You’d be better off
getting a whistle.
O, all the places I’ve yelled
while still coming off as quiet:
into an ocean. Across a mosh pit.
With a mouthful of pillow and rage.
All those humid dive bars I had
no right to be in. At poetry slams.
Do you know how often I think
of the hinges on all the doors in
my childhood home? I think
of how they squealed and whined
and begged when my father
came home angry, then left
the same way. I’ve always been terrified
of raising my voice, so I’ve learned
all the ways I can safely make a
racket without beginning
to turn into him. I am a floor
covered in bobby pins. The heaviest
pair of feet christening a flight
of stairs. O, what a clamorous lineage
I was screamed into. The first time
I actually yelled back, it wasn’t
at my father. It was at a boy
I had a crush on. He called it cute.
Said I didn’t look like the bitchy type,
but that was a good try. Lord, give me
the strength and power of every man
who believes himself to be
the most scared knife-prayer. Just once,
I want my throat to drip in garnet stones
and spite without feeling the weight
of guilt I should have never been
cornered into. I want a healthy coping
mechanism that still allows me to be
heard. Where do I find something like that?
When will the hum of the happy hour crowd
downtown stop feeling like
the anger management class I never
got to take? When did being angry
become synonymous with being alive?
Is this what I was always meant to be?
Once, I wanted to stop having a body,
and I guess now I have to be all voice.
Last summer, I told my mother I was
thinking of buying a pocket knife, in case I ever
needed it for protection. She looked me
up and down, like I had only just started
being her child, and said,
That’s ridiculous. Look at you. You’d be better off
getting a whistle.
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