GLOW | QUEER POETRY FEATURE: ANTMeN pimentel mendoza

antmen pimentel mendoza (he + she) is a writer based in Ohlone Land (the East San Francisco Bay Area) where he works and dreams alongside students at a university cultural center. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Cosmonauts Avenue, Underblong, and Lantern Review. antmen is online as @antmenismagic.

Why do you write? What compels you to write?
I'm compelled to write for a few reasons, I think. I write for fun, as play, for pleasure. I write to connect, to be in community. I write to process, to document, towards healing (I hope). Also, my tatay's favorite activity is kwentuhan and my nanay was a great storyteller, too. I think they definitely influence my writing.

Describe your work in five words
I watched too much VH1.

What are some of your artistic influences/inspirations?
My families, reality television, Franny Choi's Soft Science, Robyn's music video for "Ever Again," Michael DeForge's Big Kids, Beyoncé's Super Bowl half time show and Lemonade, Alexander Chee's Edinburgh, Kate Bush's album Hounds of Love, Chen Chen's When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on my Switch.

Family Portrait as a Deck of Cards

You never need permission to find warmth.
From this garage, I wail maps home for you.
He won’t rap at the door, spare some mercy.
The seas and sounds shallow in places, too.

From this garage, I wail maps home to you.
Listen for my lighthouse tongue’s mildew glow.
The seas and sounds shallow in places, too,
and days grow short as your waxy wick dust.

Listen for my lighthouse arms’ thunder crack.
Summer creases our family each year
and days grow short as your waxy wick dust.
Fishbone fragile, but August stubborn still,

summer creases our family daily:
He won’t rap at the door, but spare him time.
fishbone fragile, you're still August stubborn:
I need you to know I want you to be happy.

My College Boyfriend Really Liked Kill Bill, or “Not to weigh down one’s thoughts with the weight on one’s shoes” (after Nadja)

I brave a scale after my workout and learn
once again the vast cleft between pounds
and kilograms yet I write toward this
chocolate muffin churning my hazelnut spread gut.

Hating my body exhausts what I can afford
but I sunrise that line item.
Post-fact longing, anatomy and its afterlives,
​corpse corps.
 
I bought these shoes at the discount sporting goods store
and the colors on them match exactly with my favorite machine
at the gym. When the playlist hits, the post-stairmaster/
hybrid elliptical and I merge, like my cardio cog rubber
 
and I turn godmachine (this is not assemblage,
this is the chimera of too many diagnoses and
free admissions to the modern art museum on
the second Tuesday of the month, the same week
 
I finally Google “ekphrasis”).
 
My therapist says my name: antmen, what if
you go to the gym without first being antmen,
he who goes to the gym?
 
My therapist says my name: antmen, maybe it is not enough
to focus on what you do not want to happen—after all,
that’s still what you’re focusing on.
 
My therapist says my name: I see too many writers.
I veer nose-boop close to writing on the erotic
of the sinew, web, and funk—the toes’ jagged impropriety,
 
the peet-worn leather of a man’s sole—but I refuse
to deal in a shared currency with Quentin Tarantino.