Featured Poet: Westley Penland

Good morning and welcome to another Feature Friday! Today is Westley Penland, an incredible poet who’s debut chapbook, Confirmation of Life, comes out tomorrow! I’ve only known Westley for a short time but his poetry is absolutely amazing, I highly suggest checking out his book when it comes out. For now, check out the poems below, and thank you Westley for being today’s feature!

I’ve Always Depended on the Kindness of Strangers

I go to the movies to escape.

A modern day Tom Wingfeild

I’m a Saturday Matinee

kind of day.

Go in when it’s light and come out in the dark.

The kind of person you need to adjust your eyes for.

A discount type of love.

My heart is a glass menagerie

Of ex lovers

Careful where you step

Crystalline Clown fish, betta fish, angel fish, angler fish

Fill the cavities

Like a hall of fame

Of these four chambers

Clogging the arteries

Building walls

-The Great Barrier Grief-

You tell me there’s a fish for me

But there’s a deficiency

Of fish in the sea

There’s so much glass

If my heart pumped again

It would shatter

Could it ever make a beat?

My heart pitter patters.

Never had a rhythm, never a solid thrum.

But it's got strings to strum,

bells to be wrung,

making samples on a broken drum.

It’ll never win a Grammy

Too many old scars

For an Oscar

But maybe it’s something you liked

Maybe it’s a 3 star review

Maybe you’ll rewatch it

Or just find the good parts on Youtube

I want to be a Thursday Night Fan Event

Something people look forward to seeing

I want to be a 5 star review

With an exclusive popcorn bucket

Something you pre-order

To show your friends

I want to be an award winning adventure

With a bad ass score

Iconic and cherished.

But I am a Saturday Matinee

Just something to pass the time.

Bullet Proof

Sometimes I don’t know if I should try harder

Sometimes I think why do I bother

still blaming my lack of love on my own father

Depressions in my blood, yeah it’s a non starter.

Thoughts of violence, my head feels imploded

Would you run from a gun if you knew it wasn’t loaded?

On the brink of danger with nothing in the chamber

Stopped dead by the thought of what it could be and not what it is.

Horrors in the what ifs, anxiety’s tariffs.

Split like a riff down the fight or flight path

You say it isn’t the gun we fear, it’s the wrath

It’s the emotions that pass

Jumping from the train going off the tracks

Or is it just switching gears?

They say guns don’t kill, people do

Say it like it’s something brand new

But if guns don’t kill, then why do they shoot?

Why are they strapped to boots

Waiting for an excuse

To cut through the noose

To amp up abuse

If guns don’t kill then what is their use?

How is there no fault when you can’t spell weapons without assault?

After all, guns don’t talk, they can’t grow legs, but they put power in a stalk.

Knowing any situation could end with a cock of the glock

One pull of a trigger can leave human to rot

I wonder what my father thought before he was shot

Did he beg for forgiveness in front of his God?

Did he think about us and the hell that we fought?

Or did he put his demons to rest in his final moments and simply forgot?

His last act was violent, beating his new family, a tyrant.

Three shots to the back, now it’s silent.

A Decorated war vet failed his domestic assignment

They shoot guns at his funeral, an ironic compliance

Bullets spit on the grave and defile it.

Taking notes so my therapist can file it,

I forgot how to be happy for a while.

So angry to know he died with a smile

That gun took away from healing my inner child.

Shot three times and hit me with two.

All the progress I made felt like no use

I’d never get to tell you the lifelong trauma you infused

The altering in my DNA that came with abuse

The fear of becoming a monster too

That gun took away my power to tell you

There will always be part of my brain that’s loose

A little flap of amputated truce

A bullet wound I can now see through

Every fiber of my being blamed you

But now there’s no one to give this hate to.

Guns don’t just kill the people they’re aimed at

For good or bad we’re all attacked,

And no one should get closure like that.

And I’m glad you’re gone

I know for certain you won’t hurt me again

That barrel is empty now

Unloaded and smoking but

Still pointed out.

Still the dread of striking fear

After a decade dead

Because you’re still here

And I’m still running from concealed wounds.

Shots in the dark still hit something

But if you never saw the gun

How do you know it was aimed at you?

Guzzle down the muzzle

Teeth fit like a puzzle

Pieces you never find

Shrapnel lodged in your mind

Sweat beads fall down

Thoughts swimming, don’t drown

Fingers move to the trigger

Fear couldn’t be bigger

Click-and you’re fine.

No bullets in the gun this time.

My First Rodeo

They go fast

Giving me all my directions

Swab this

Wipe that

Sip this

Brush there

That I actually say this is my first rodeo

I don’t know why I said it

But it wasn’t the only time I did

It became a mantra

I’m the anesthesiologist

This is my first rodeo

I need you to mark what ovary we’re keeping

This is my first rodeo

Have you ever had a difficulty with narcotics

This is my first rodeo.

Okay- that one might have been a lie

But the mantra

Allows time to slow down

And sometimes I miss the way 

People used to slow things down

For a female me

Gave me enough time to

“Let me get a pen”

And take notes

Don’t they realize 

How much everyone could

Benefit from slowing down

After all

This is our

First Rodeo.

Kismet Forces

We rotate like

the sun and the moon

Around this wide world

Missing each other

In mathematical happenstance

But unlike most cosmic forces

We couldn’t chart

when our paths would cross.

It just happened one day.

By sheer luck.

I realized in our eclipse

That I had been blocking out an

Awful amount of light

Your brightness reminds me

That light is currency

In the cosmos

Gods and Goddesses

Exchanging stars in our path

So that they can align us

And I never knew

Being seen

Could thaw out

These arctic craters

Deep in my core.

A global warming

Raises my body temperature

And I am on fire

Burning for you.

I am washed with your sureness

Standing ashore the last island

In my ocean

Not sure anyone else

can see me

-like you do.

Like tides in the sea,

I’m pulled into your orbit

By kismet forces

And then pushed out with self-doubt

And we fall into an Archaic rhythm.

Something older than

Time itself.

My heart beats like a drum

Thumping in my ears

The first time you

say my name

Because I know

in an instant

I will grow in this light

This invisible string

Will strum a heart song

all its own

And I want to be owned

by you.

Knowing this needle is

Threaded so meticulously

Stitching you into my life

Like the patch that was

Always missing.

Blanketing up the bare skin

That long since turned blue

In the darkness

You bring these pieces together

And remind me that

I am worth covering

That my heart is

no longer recovering

That it is time to open

This atmosphere

And let light in.

1 Nut on the Inside:

Chicken wing……

CHICKEN WING

I hear this demonic voice

in my head

Screaming a craving into

My cerebral cortex

And I’m ready to forfeit

Because I know where

it’s coming from

My left ovary

Leftover from surgery

Enraged she was left behind

As the rest of her

System was pulled out

From where it grew

My umbilical black hole

A time warp that once

Connected me to my mother

I didn’t know my belly button

Would be unsnapped

Like that

My hairy navel

Swollen and puffy

The ways the scars stack

I got an inny outty button now

And I hope

There’s no umbilical cord left

Disconnecting my womb

Tender are my wounds

I lend my ear to my leftover

My lonely gonad

The last island of femininity

Is fuming

Drowning in an ocean of testerone

She Screams

YOU WANT A FUCKING CHICKEN WING

Is this how pregnancy cravings are?

I’ve spent more years

Not eating meat

But I can feel this desire in my core

I imagine how good flesh will taste

How crispy

And crunchy

And wet

And salty

It’ll be

delicious

These thoughts take over until

Nothing will satiate me

I want to devour

Life

She wants me to destroy

life

A decade of plant based

Bullshit

More or less gone

I cave and feed her

Until the screaming stops

My doctor

after all

told me

To listen to my body

Bio

Westley Penland is a poet, an award winning chef, a child nutrition specialist, and a dreamer. He often writes of queer liberation and what it is like walking through this world a crime on legs as a transgender man. His work can be found in his debut chapbook, "Confirmation of Life", New {Words} Press, Alien Buddha Press Zine #69, and in the upcoming "Stormwash Vol 2" set to release April 2025. You can also follow him on Instagram @simply_the_wes and/or TikTok @Poetry_by_wes