Dear Future Boyfriend
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Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz is a dizzying dervish of a poet, an astounding talent, a deft lyricist whose patented take on this dopey world is dazzling in its originality. Everything she encounters is fair game, and she jolts us into unexpected, delightful recognition. -Patricia Smith, "Blood Dazzler"
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz is a flash flood of uppercut quotes. Reading her work tempts me to lean over to the people next to me, and say, “Hey, you gotta see this.†Do not miss the opportunity to absorb this woman's work, page or stage." - Buddy Wakefield, "Live for a Living"
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Dear Future Boyfriend - Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
Dear
Future
Boyfriend
by
Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
A Write Bloody Book
Long Beach, CA USA
Dear Future Boyfriend
a collection of poetry
by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
Write Bloody Publishing
America’s Independent Press
Long Beach, CA
writebloody.com
Copyright © Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
No part of this book may be used or performed without written consent from the author, if living, except for critical articles or reviews.
Aptowicz, Cristin O’Keefe.
1st edition.
ISBN: 978-1-935904-71-7
Interior Layout by Lea C. Deschenes
Cover Designed by Joshua Grieve
Proofread by Sarah Kay
Edited by Derrick Brown and Sarah Kay
Author Photo by Alex Brook Lynn
Type set in Helvetica by Linotype and Bergamo (www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com)
Special thanks to Lightning Bolt Donor, Weston Renoud
Printed in Tennessee, USA
Write Bloody Publishing
Long Beach, CA
Support Independent Presses
writebloody.com
To contact the author, send an email to writebloody@gmail.com
Mother
When I told my mother
I wanted to be a veterinarian
when I grew up, she told me
that vets kill puppies and kittens
and stick needles into horses
and bunnies with cancer.
When I told my mother
I wanted to be a zoo-keeper
when I grew up, she told me
that animals in captivity
are still wild animals, and hence
could attack even the friendliest
of caretakers, usually tearing them
to shreds and eating their remains.
You see, my mom and I
had a lot of time to talk
about these things: I was the last
of the Aptowicz brood.
Always too young and too small
to go on the backpacking trips
and nature hikes that formed
my brother and sister: the scientists.
No, it was always just Mom and me,
a stack of books, and NPR coming through
the radio like the voice of God.
Mom never liked my career choices much,
but I knew I was on the right track
when one day, over a bowl of alphabet soup,
I asked her:
Hey Mom,
how come there are such things
as bad words?
And she said:
Honey,
there is no such thing
as a bad word.
Only words that aren’t
appropriate for all situations.
For instance,
you should never say
the word shit
in front of a nun.
You see, she gave me that:
she gave me the gift of words;
she gave me the power of words,
and I never considered it a privilege.
But my mom grew up in a time
when words were being redefined,
words like gender, power, class,
and revolution.
She grew up in a house
where a wrench spray-painted gold
would serve as a shower dial,
and a father overseas would somehow
support a wife and four kids
left stateside, being my mother,
her sister, and two sons
who wouldn’t even recognize
their father when he returned home
four years later.
Eating meat once a week,
recycling shoes to the next kid in line,
and using your babysitting money
to buy groceries,
even my mom knew the score.
So though she was top of her class,
editor of the school literary magazine,
editor of the school newspaper,
the National Merit Scholar with
the three-newspapers-a-day habit,
she still had to hear them tell her:
The scholarship
is not going to be for English.
If you want to go to college at all,
it’s going to have to be for science.
So my mother, the biologist,
met my father, the chemical engineer,
and together they produced three beautiful kids,
one of which my mom would make sure
wouldn’t feel the burn