Ryan Travis

Suicide Poetry


He's....a....

grad-u-ate

of...the...
Shatner...school
of...
poetry..reading..

with..a..
minor..

in Adam...West...

He...

pulls..

each..word..

A...veteran..
of..the..
dram-a-tic..

pause.

ever..so..important..

each..word...
so...critical.

so..
smooth..
is.. each.. line...
it's..

almost..like..

sweet..cream.

but..

the..

pause...

loses...

the..meaning..

the..

pausing...

never..

stops..

and..
the..

piece..

grows...

too..long..

it's........

poetic....

suicide.
 

Thinner
 
Fashion is killing our women
the trend to be ever thinner
Girls wanting that....
Oh, so, heroin chic
Models thinner every year
Even the cartoon representations of them
are as close as you get to human stick figures.
 
There's something wrong
 
When a 9 year old girl says to me
she's too fat.
 
there's something wrong
 
When 12 year old girls are forcing themselves to vomit after every meal
just to stay thin.
 
There's something wrong
 
When TV is riddled with weight loss ads interspersed with food ads
and the world's best fed nation is obsessed with getting thin
when in so many countries people are
just trying to eat one meal
just trying to survive.
 
When fashion dictates lifestyle
and fashion is putting women of all ages
in hospitals and graves
then there's something wrong
with being thinner. 

Secrets

A poets reading triggers memories of my own first sexual experiences
with the boy next door.
My best friend, maybe a year and a half older than me.
During sleepovers we'd play games;
touching, pinching, licking each other.
The first time he said to me; " Check this out."
and taught me how to masturbate at which I became a pro at
A master of the quick pull off even to this day.
And the time he said to me; " Check this out, it feels sooo good."
and he placed his mouth on my cock and gave me endless pleasure
at a time before pubic hair and cum.
Where only prepubescent males can know the joy of multiple orgasms.
I in turn doing the same for him and thinking what a fun game.
So naïve and oblivious to what we were doing
Not understanding the word blowjob
Not knowing what we were doing was sex and considering myself a virgin
Denying the fact that, this and other experiences occurred, but knowing they had.
Memories of these experiences have flooded my mind throughout my life
and I never told anyone about them in full detail.
I think back to the time in Pennsylvania with my much older cousin of at least 10 years.
Playing on the front porch, him in the bench swing eating a green pepper
while I bit at his crotch through his jeans
still to young to understand that this was considered wrong and him not stopping me
but it never went much further
I think of the weekend I started my journey to manhood
and my most embarrassing moment of my life.
On a weekend away with this boy from bible school to his island home.
We locked ourselves in his room
and stared at women's naked breasts in Cosmopolitan magazine and getting aroused.
I showed him the game I had learned so long ago
again not knowing that this was considered "Gay" activity
and what I was opening myself up to later.
Taking him into my mouth I pleasured him till he couldn't take it any more
and he hurriedly ran for the bathroom
in the guise of soaping his hand up to jerk me off
and how I feverishly did it myself, feeling the tension
and that what I did might be wrong
When he returned he found me staring at a clear and milky substance in my hand
and he said "What's that?"
I said " I don't know but it came from my dick."
and he said "Cool."
 
 That following Monday, back at school, while sitting in our bible lesson
one of his friends turned to me from across the room
and gave me the giving head sign.
Feeling what I did was wrong
Angry that he shared our secret
Scared of what it meant
I had my parents take me out of school
never telling them the truth as to why I wanted to leave
making up other stories to cover the truth.
 
Carefully hiding and denying to myself these things had occurred
Secretly holding the desire to do them again
Joining in on ridiculing a friend that was suspected gay
and terrified that someone might think I am
or find out my secrets
 
Running into my old best friend in my teens
The uncomfortable truth
and the aching to talk about the things we did
and what they ment
Forever estranged
Till I found he has died in our thirties and taken the secret with him
as far as I know
 
I think of all these things and in this year of coming to terms with them
and who I really am
Losing my fear of admittance
understanding that I've lusted over both men and women
but not labeling myself as more than a sexual being.
 
 
This is dedicated to my best friend as a child Rob who taught me pleasure
and my best friend now D.A. who opens doors for us all.