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Forthcoming Book

Hello and welcome to my website! You may have noticed that I haven’t posted anything new since November 2017, and I have a pretty exciting excuse!

Since attending Naked Heart : An LGBTQ Festival of Words in the fall I have been focused on assembling and creating a larger collection of my work, and decided to start writing a manuscript for my debut book of poetry. Since November I have been working on this project and also writing for publications like Them, Canadian Art and Prism International. In December was accepted to The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and in January I raised $5000 (with the help of so many of you!!) to attend! I had two weeks at the end of January and beginning of February to work on this manuscript alongside some of the most incredible people and landscapes, I gained so much inspiration from the land. Since then I have been working with different events and festivals in the maritimes and Ontario, and I am excited to share this work with you whenever it is finished.

-Arielle Twist

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The Girls

I can flirt ferociously with lust
spit fire of cautious songs
pulsing of hormones and rage
that I acquired over time
I am intimidating to you, of course
I should be as I am visions of desire
you are told not to have /canthave/
I am the girls you jerked off to
under covers in your dorm room while your
cute cis white blonde skinny girlfriend was away
I am the girls you match on tinder with /againandagain/
left, left, right, left, right, repeat
swiping so you can ask these questions and validate /dirtyfuckingdesiresdaddyhadtoo/
these girls you crave, pumping out cum
like lotion to moisturize the dryness of
desires pushed onto you /soboringsobland/
I am the girl you pick up in your car at 3 in the morning
looking to get that pink cock sucked by
a goddess of another name /trannyslutsaresoeasyright?/
when in reality it’s the boys like you who are easy
Because while she has too musters up all her resilience
to even want to taste your body, you just sit back and watch
making her feel like a secret /causewhatwoulddaddythink?/
even though we all know he has his secrets
And she calls him daddy too when he grabs her neck
I am those girls you take on dates in dark rooms
back of bars where only rats will see her beauty
and in these dark caves you are kind /Imissthisboyinthedark/
here I learned darkness is safer than light
because light makes the boys like you /leavethegirlslikeme/
I am the girl you found love with in those dark holes
love that you abandoned for being too much
too trans? too brown? too fat? too femme? too tall?
I am the girl who knows I am too much
the girls you left so she can find you in someone else
who can handle the women oozing from this cock you loved /toomuch/
I am the girls that you continue to fuck behind curtains
in a bed where you are gentle and caring /whatareyouthinkingrightnow?/
because I can’t stop thinking about when you left me
for strawberries and cream, even though caramel is sweeter
for this woman who’s easier to fuck, easier to love
/butintheendsheismeandiamher/
and in your eyes, she is sky and I am dirt
I am the girls who learn my boundaries by fucking you
because you crossed them and built them up like boarders /funnyisntit/
that your white bodies are so use to building and tearing down at will
funny that your sex feels like colonization in this body I called home
/andisthiswhattruelovefeelslike/
because I became this girl who stopped showing up at 3 in the morning
The girl who knows I am not a secret
The girl who finds pleasure through open windows
The girl who is desirable more than fuckable
The girl you won’t have
The girl you can’t have
The girl who was intimidating
The girl in dark rooms
The girl who deleted tinder
The girl full of estrogen and rage
The girl who loved you even behind those curtains
And the girl who loved herself more than men
but that scares you, it should

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Constellations

I haven’t felt lovely
since I’ve felt your lips
pressed against my body
unconquered territory
this thing called no-mans-land
filled with a galaxy of nerves
constellations discovered
traced with tongues
on the paper of my skin
the sounds of sunbursts
mimicking moans of each other
your voice echoing though dimensions
oh, and did I mention
I loved you here
and I’ll never forget
the way your orgasms
remind me of comets
shooting across the starry
skies of my chest
how you looked at me
while moons collided like our bodies
unruly and destructive
creating new worlds
in the fire of old ones

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Under Uprooted Trees

There are days
where I don’t
remember my name
losing track of
who I am now
and what I was
before

A husk of faux
masculinity.
toxicity.
this shell of
a man who
never existed

losing control
of names I chose
and names given
losing track of
selves I killed
buried under
uprooted trees

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Newfoundland

1.
I often think
about baths
shared together
in distance

songs shared
guitar played
with fingers, you run
through my hair.

Lips dripping
intoxication
as you put your body
in mine
the first time

Beer and cum
all I taste
as you kiss me
goodbye

and I watch
you leave.

2.
gone
islands of
waves and rocks
consume space
                                 between us

communication
over screens
snapshots a life
                                  that’s not us

this place you
call home
this girl you
call mine
                                  It’s not me

I delete
The evidence
Baths shared,
Music played,
Beer and cum
                                 Gone

Like the space
Between us

3.
can you grieve
men who are
still here

wanting to
fuck you
fill you
with their bodies
that you pretend
were lost
in ocean
that kept you
apart

can you grieve
a ghost
you killed in
jealousy

let them
eat you
taste you
savour you
in their mouth

are you allowed to grieve?
for the girl
this man loves

the girl he sleeps
next to
instead of you

as he fucks you
in her bed?

Can you grieve
men who are
still here

Fucking you

 

© arielletwist

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To the man I call dad.

to the man who taught me that masculinity is more complicated than a fighting rage of adrenaline and testosterone, that it can look like holding and loving the caregiver and her children that the men before you left behind in death and wounded masculinity.

to the man, who like magic kept us safe in a world that is violent for me and my siblings. a place that is filled with such hate and destruction you continue to hold our complexities with a yearning to learn and a stumbling, ever-changing  understanding of what its like to be us.

To the man, who showed me what loving a femme looks like and how I should be loved as the femme I am. How you show her such powerful devotion and care coming from a place I didn’t even know existed in men, a place that is soft, a place that is love.

To the man, I will never grow up to be. I am forever grateful to you.

© arielletwist

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Hands

These hands hold Power, with their thick, long fingers like tree roots they are buried into the soil with my ancestors as they harness their brilliance and power that’s keeps me grounded to this land.

These hands hold Rage, for my siblings who are missing, murdered, displaced, isolated, sold, raped, and lost in this place we once called home.

These hands hold complexities, of once being strong and callous for the masculinity forced by my colonizers, as well as the soft and hard femininity held and nurtured by the strong women who surround me, the femme spirit of my kokums before and the girl who didn’t have a childhood.

These hands hold Maps, carved into my skin by the creator of where I will go, who I will love, what I will accomplish, and when I will die and be reborn.

These hands hold pain, Burning and aching pain felt by my bloodline, intergenerational trauma running through my veins, beating in my heart and spilling on the floor in a pool that I had to cut out.

These hands hold these words, that I kept inside myself for too long worrying about how I will look, what you will think, or will you even listen.

These hands hold the creativity, spinning and dancing from my mind on to this page, a beautiful dance of letters and sounds that I wish I could speak in my mother tongue.

These hands hold guilt, for when you grabbed me and spun me around in your arms making me fall for you over and over and over. Different name but that same white skin, strong jaw, deep voice and need to take what is not yours.

These hands hold you.

© arielletwist