Confessions of a Former Metalhead

I gave up on listening to people
scream because they hate their parents
and think filtering every emotion
through black is sympathy.
I never wore white or blue or orange
until college; colors couldn’t understand
my angst. Why? I forget.
Old trench coats and big baggy pants –
clothes were exterior emotions.
I smiled too much. I was disbarred
from my friends, ostracized from the religion
of Iron Maiden – I refused to own an album.
I shaved this black hair into a Mohawk
and crashed the Clash. I forgot my friends
and their dyed black devil-locks, I am
a traitor to my past. Sometimes I put
my old Deftones records on and scream
the seven words I remember.

Backseat Delirium

I am your dead lover
tonight, lit candles burning
in your old Cadillac. Saturdays
were never this much fun.

Remember my body, my skin –
it hasn’t missed you. It’s missed
us, our leather and our need
to burn ourselves at the feathers.

We aren’t blue jays, just flightless
angels stuck. I’m on my knees behind
the driver’s seat and your love.
Please make me work for it –

my wings still need a down payment.
Tonight we are more than ourselves,
than our pasts. We are satellites
carrying our galaxies in our mouths.

Dan Nowak is a student at Spalding's brief-residency MFA program. He currently lives in Toledo, Ohio, where he counts down the earth-tone days of winter hoping summer comes quicker. That also sums up his only mathematic ability. Eventually he plans on searching for a PhD program to call home; so if anyone wants to adopt a poet/scholar to their program, let Dan know.