Don't Quote Bukowski
Love is a dog from hell
That's what he told me
He was an assassin on my heart
and a suicide bomber on my psyche
“Don't quote Bukowski, it doesn't make you cool”
I yelled from my cage
Every time he'd fight me
Other bitches bite me
But I come out on top
Only to be dragged out by my
Tiffany heart chain
Still in defense
I'd sleep in the corner of the bed
With a knife, hammer, and mace
Just far enough at the end
So I wouldn't get pissed on again
Every morning he'd hug me
Tell me I was his best friend
Only to be kicked in the stomach
Until I bled
That night, not so many years ago
I was pulled out of the bed
Onto the floor thrown
Beaten, cut, my hair in his hand
Our puppy watching from the kitchen
Wondering if I was dead
When I finally came to
Months after injury
Eyes opened to reality
My cone taken off
My bite was intense
But my bark, rabid and vehement
Rebel Mom
I didn’t crawl out of heaven—
I was dragged through afterbirth and asphalt,
still smoking from the wreck.
Nails cracked, eyes lined in venom,
I came screaming with a switchblade lullaby.
I was mothered by wolves
and MTV static,
raised on bar fights and Bible shame,
tattooed with every time a man
called me crazy
and I made it fashion.
Rebel Mom
It's not fun it's survival.
They wanted a Madonna—
I gave them Medusa in ripped jeans,
stiletto gospel,
a daughter of none
and the mother of every broken girl
who ever painted her pain in lipstick.
I breastfed rebellion,
slapped God in the face
with my postpartum grief,
and taught my son how to ghost a system
that never wanted him breathing.
Don’t tell me to smile.
I built this life from the ashes of No.
I baptized myself in eyeliner and gasoline,
and honey,
I’m still burning.
I speak in tongues of gasoline,
write spells in Sharpie on bathroom stalls.
I am the last cigarette before you confess,
a crucifix made of safety pins and spit.
My womb is a haunted house
with trapdoors and treasure,
and every scream that ever tried to cage me
echoes back as a war drum.
I kissed death on the mouth
and told her I wasn’t done.
I raised my boy with bite marks
and blackout poetry,
taught him to bow to no one
but the music in his own fists.
I am not your archetype.
I am not your salvation.
I am the blood-soaked backstage pass
to your mother wound,
a siren on fire in a stolen dress,
laughing while the world calls it blasphemy.
Rebel Mom
It's not fun it's survival.
Cass Corridor (Detroit, 1994)
Cass Avenue rattled under my boots,
beer bottles crushed to glass dust,
graffiti bleeding down brick walls
like the city was cutting itself open.
Detroit’s busted teeth flashing
under streetlights that blinked
like they’d given up hope.
The air - there's something special about Detroit air:
burnt rubber,
gasoline sighs,
piss steaming in the alleys.
A busted speaker coughed
the last notes of Motown
dragging themselves down a stairwell
into the night,
clinging to the last scraps
of their own magic.
I watched a man nodding out
on a stoop,
arms folded like snapped wings,
and I wanted to write him
into something holy,
wrap his bones in verses,
give him a line that lasted
longer than the fix in his veins.
I kept moving.
Past murals rotting down the wall,
past alley rats fat on the city’s
garbage heart,
past a gas station's empty walls
where teenagers tagged
their names like saints
rising for one last resurrection,
past the corner where
you could trade anything -
hope, blood, the future
for one more shot
at daylight.
And Detroit!
God, Detroit
wasn’t just a city tonight,
but a howl,
a long-throated,
drunkard’s hymn,
a Bukowski bar fight
against the coming darkness.
I wanted to write it all down.
This city is an elegy
with steel nerves,
muscle memory
of smoke and fists,
this city is a heartbeat
pounding against the slab,
refusing to flatline,
this city is poetry
with its throat slit,
singing crimson notes of life,
fading.
I kept walking.
Because we walk the ruins,
stand at the crumbling edge of town,
watch the horizon ignite
on Devil's Night
and when the whole world explodes,
we don’t run.
We open our mouths,
swallow the flame,
and write the burn
down.
Know God Know Monsters
I've never been one to say it outloud
I've been scared I could be wrong
Better to err on the side of God
Then I woke up one day
Realized I was playing the fool
There's no more God than I am He
No genie to grant my prayers
No God No Monsters
Know God He's not there
Know God Know Monsters
It's written everywhere
I've been lied to
Told lies myself
Thoughts and prayers to comfort others
What's a thought?
Just a gesture of kindness
A prayer?
Another way to perpetuate those lies
No God No Monsters
Know God He's not there
Know God Know Monsters
It's propaganda everywhere
When I took Jesus off the cross
He became a man just like us
No immortal being
Holy Trinity
The only person responsible for me is me
I can beg and plead for what it's worth
Whatever happens is supposed to be
No God No Monsters
Know God He's not there
Know God Know Monsters
Fuck your thoughts and prayers
Lisa Bennington-Love is a Detroit-based poet whose work blends punk grit with lyrical intensity, exploring madness, recovery, memory, and identity. The author of four collections, including Paper Monsters (2025) and Love Letters & Suicide Notes, her writing has been praised by Exene Cervenka of the legendary band X. A longtime force in the Midwest’s underground poetry scene, she brings over 30 years of experience in poetry, photography, and design. She is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University, where she was inducted into Sigma Tau Delta, the international English honor society.
