Poetry By Tiffany Pate

Judith Jackson CC




Straight Girls: What is the Name of the First Guy to Ruin Your Life and Why is it Josh? 

September 2004

A few short weeks after puking up my 21st birthday, 
A zebra drinking from the watering hole with its back 
to the lion crouching in the brush.

I like to pretend I knew he was there the whole time,
the crushing weight of him set upon me, a comforting
delicious tearing through my flesh.

The bar with him and her. She is yesterday's news
She is Old Girl. and I am New Girl. Both of us figure it out 
when he makes her ride in the back seat and drops her off first.

Hello. I've waited here for you... everlong.
It's warm and boozy and fuzzy and rose. I am ripe.

October 2004-April 2005
He finished himself off in the bathroom our first time
A week later, he hangs up pictures of his ex-girlfriend
The Ultimate Forever Girl. 

Over Christmas break, he sleeps with a different ex-girlfriend
After Christmas, he takes the pictures down and treats me like a person
Every time one of us ends it the other decides it isn't over
I’m his blow-up doll.
​
May-June 2005
Is there something less than a hollowed-out 
husk of a person stuffed with synthetic fiber?    
My best friend, who had just been raped, destroyed, and mangled
says she wants to set him on fire. Not that guy. Mine. 
This is what it means to care for someone more than yourself, 
I do nothing to earn a rescue, her humanity, her compassion--
I failed to give her mine. Some things cannot be forgiven.

July 2005

The bar with him and another Her. She, the freshly minted New Girl
I walk home alone. Drunk and crying on a bench in front of the Daily News building,
The moment I become a bottom-of-the-toy-box, ratted-hair, marker-stained Old Girl. 

August 1-6th 2005
We rewatch The Boondock Saints—the first movie we ever watched
back when he invited me to his apartment, he was high on Vicodin— 
he fucks me one more time before he moves
If I hadn’t caught him at the bar with New Girl #17 the next night
it might have kind of almost been sweet
But it still book-ended things rather quaintly.


​
Tiffany Pate began pursuing a career in writing after 15 years in the criminal justice and social service fields. Her work has appeared in Manastash Literary Journal, Four Leaf Collective, Wordcrafters.org, and The Borgen Project Blog. She is earning her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University, with an anticipated graduation date of July 19, 2026. She is currently working for the state of Washington.