not a perfect person by Kristin Lueke
not a perfect person
Kristin Luekei have been ashamed. for the way i crave
a little violence. how even now, surrounded
by prayer plant, thriving, i worry what i’ll miss
when i’m gone. i worry that i worry just to prove
that i care, that i want, knowing what i do
about wanting—its making & deliberate
dissatisfaction—nearly nothing, enough
to know better by now. still i want
quiet. kindness. an end that comes gently.
call me a clown, i’d like to be loved.
just not too much. lord, let me never
be needed. i’d like my first rodeo back—
the day i learned about mutton-busting, inhaled
deep sweet shit & earth, corn ground & fried,
watched sideways, through sun-struck braid
of breathing bodies, mothers whose lives
i know nothing about gripping their children
how a child grips small fistfuls of wool,
told to hold on—always, in the end, helplessly.
& i, too, helpless but to marvel a minute
at the man who first built a fence around horses.
forgive me. i laughed when they fell.
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ABOUT KRISTIN LUEKE
Kristin Lueke is a Chicana poet, essayist, and creative strategist. Kristin is the author of the chapbooks here i show you a human heart (2025) and (in)different math (Dancing Girl Press, 2013). Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, as well as Best New Poets and Best of the Net, and appears in Sixth Finch, Wildness, HAD, LETTERS, Variant Lit, Poetry Society of New York, Frozen Sea, Maudlin House, and Heavy Feather Review, among others. She was a finalist for the 2024… (more)
Read more poems by Kristin Lueke • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Follow on Instagram • Bluesky • Website • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
- Explore other works in pursuit of: desire • vulnerability • shame • Or browse the index
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