John LaPine
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johnlapine.bsky.social
John LaPine
@johnlapine.bsky.social
520 followers 570 following 110 posts
Gay poet / gape owe it.
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johnlapine.bsky.social
How I think I look when I'm up on stage reading a poem about getting ghosted by another married man:
Chappell Roan at the 2025 Grammys holding a notebook
February 4, 2025 at 2:39 AM
johnlapine.bsky.social
An ad for my chapbook of essays, titled An Unstable Container, says: I wrote a book (it's really good) but don't just take my word for it. Charles Jensen, author of Splice of Life: a memoir in 13 fil genres" says "i couldn't put it down." Marisa crane, author of "I keep my exoskeletons to myself" says "this book made me ugly cry." Krys Malcolm Belc, author of "The Natural Mother of the Child" says "I loved being along for the ride." The ad also includes a QR code to preorder, which navigates to this link: https://bullcitypress.com/product/an-unstable-container-by-john-lapine/
December 11, 2024 at 7:13 PM
johnlapine.bsky.social
Zach Semel - "Skyrim, in Retrospect" in FreezeRay Poetry

www.freezeraypoetry.com/zach-semel.h...
Skyrim, in Retrospect ​ You and I used to laugh / for hours sending our level 70 Khajiit / slinking around the / low-lying plains / near Whiterun, shooting deer in / the ass / with seemingly infinite Iron Arrows, giggling at the irony / that the butt was a site / of birth, of exit / without entrance, ‘cause / really, what’s one more unclean thing / thrown into that / mass of muscle / and digestive sludge / it just makes no sense / to want to roll in the mud / to trade soft skin / for choking on boys’ body spray clouds / we know better / than anyone that men / are imperfect but I love it / and I know cis-men / are so good at thinking / they have the answers but this time, I’m sure / that I don’t want to marry / Ysolda for the hundredth fucking time; no I want to kiss / Redguard swordsmen with faded face tattoos / to hold hands with taut-muscled / elves who make sinister comments / to passersby but never to me; I want / souls that wish / they could once start a goddamn character by picking “Other” / would you think I was serious if I told you I want bodies / that look like yours and that don’t? How have we spent / ten years hopping from stone to stone / over this flowing part of me? / So many questions I never / beg you to ask—is it my fault / you don’t know enough? All those times / that we’d game / all day and my parents / would joke that we’d someday / get married then laugh-- all those times that I laughed too.
December 8, 2024 at 10:32 PM
johnlapine.bsky.social
Hyperfixation
Screenshot of Spotify Wrapped says: my top artist, Chappell Roan, minutes listened 5,161, top 0.05% of listeners worldwide
December 5, 2024 at 4:16 PM
johnlapine.bsky.social
What up, blue folk, my chapbook of essays is now available for pre-order from @bullcitypress.com !! All of my blurbers told me they couldn't put it down, and I hope you enjoy it too!

bullcitypress.com/product/an-u...
Book cover for "An Unstable Container" by John LaPine shows an art installation of two figures falling
December 4, 2024 at 7:11 PM
johnlapine.bsky.social
Search “concert” in your camera roll and post the oldest image:

Zhu, 2018
Photo of a concert says "welcome to Ringo's desert"
November 20, 2024 at 4:36 AM
johnlapine.bsky.social
Meme says "toss your mullet in a bun, drink some monster, put on some hyperpop and handle it"
November 15, 2024 at 10:19 PM
johnlapine.bsky.social
This little piece was published in Rhythm N Bone but it looks like they're defunct now so it's looking for a new home!
Tabitha married young; at fifteen, her husband promised her a house, a farm, a lawn. Two years later, he would deliver; at their wedding, her parents promised them a goat, a handful of chickens, and Lydia, the pregnant sheep who’d die in childbirth the following spring, her body now persevered in the couple’s ice chest, which they refilled with each week’s ice delivery, slabs of ice cooling her pink, paper-wrapped flesh. They planned to run out of Lydia by fall, when the oldest chickens would be ready for harvest and the twins would be born. Tabitha had lost her first last winter; her husband, fearing a lack of nutrition, encouraged her to eat and eat. Each week, he’d make a meal of slaughtered sheep; roast Lydia, side of corn on the cob, and potatoes, baked and slathered with white, hand-churned butter. In August, they traveled into Lansing to visit her aunt, where Tabitha tried her first sorbet, an orange mound into which she’d chisel her spoon, carving the frozen treat like a marble monument, sticking the metal to her tongue, then lapping up sugar until she could no longer bear the cold. She’d let her mouth warm up, then repeat until she’d scraped the ceramic bowl clean. She’d never tasted anything so sweet. Her husband bought her seconds, then thirds. But that night, she awoke, covered with itching hives. She suspected the sorbet, the Lydia, the twins, even the ice. She scratched herself in the dark; her squirming woke the babies, who kicked her from inside in protest, as well as her husband, who produced a match, struck it, and touched it to their bedside candle to discover her rashy, reddening flesh. Palming her skin, he found a brown lone star tick had plunged its teeth into her calf, a brown body biting a brown body. His pale fingers felt, at once, clinical and strange. She pictured her softening flesh becoming chocolate sherbet, frozen cream laced with sugar. She imagined herself falling apart, melting under his hands. On Wednesday morning, the doctor diagnosed a red meat allergy. Indeed, every time she’d feast on lamb, pork, or beef, she’d break out. Even milk made her itch. Her husband promised to throw out Lydia. But something about the itching fascinated her. Soothed her, even. When her husband would excuse himself at dinners, she’d steal bites of pork or steak off his plate, and always wake up itching, cursing the kitchen who must have contaminated her poultry meal. She’d stay up all night, relishing her hives. After the twin’s birth, while rummaging through the freezer for leftovers, Tabitha found a forgotten bit of sheep toward the back. She unwrapped the paper and felt her tongue move toward the frozen brick of flesh. She slid her teeth over the marbled rump, cold ribbons of meat peeling into her mouth. That night, the rash emerged; she scratched until her skin came loose under her nails, the first time, perhaps, she’d felt control in her life.
November 14, 2024 at 3:54 PM
johnlapine.bsky.social
My favorite fall tradition
Google search results for "what is a deductible"
November 14, 2024 at 2:59 AM
johnlapine.bsky.social
Good evening BlueSkiiers

Here's a poem I wrote in 2020 about this joke of a nation!
I am an American I am bootstrap and extra mayonnaise. I am the freedom to harm myself and Windex the mirror. Newspaper cuts through blood the best. There are no others like me. I am an alcoholic toddler. I’m a hungry highway, eighteen drive thru menus whispering poems in dark canyons. An obituary not unlike a cannonpeal. In my mind, I’m an American celebrity. In your mind, that’s an accomplishment. I’m a treat; I’m a crutch. I am wet pleasure. I am the twelve piece chicken nugget combo. America, the beautiful. America, the car crash, America the slow motion panic attack. America, the homeless. America, the smoke alarm is sounding just for you. I’m betting it all on red, white and blue I am an American, no lettuce extra cheese. Beer over bitters, butter soaked burger buns, always room for seconds and desert drone strikes. America, hold the coleslaw. America, what strange biology keeps you afloat? America, your dictionary’s empty. America, that itchy feelings back and I can’t afford the copay. And, America? Can’t you hear them? Their barking approaching like wild dogs? 11 Should I buy a house, or should I emigrate? Perhaps I’ll drink a bottle of wine and start again somewhere else. America, my head’s making that funny noise again.
November 13, 2024 at 3:38 AM
johnlapine.bsky.social
Oscillating between "nothing matters" and "nothing matters"
Meme of two men riding the bus. One looks depressed, captioned with "nothing matters," and one smiles while looking out the window, also captioned "nothing matters"
November 12, 2024 at 8:18 PM
johnlapine.bsky.social
this crockpot, with the meatballs in bbq sauce + grape jelly, or the lil smokies 🔥🔥🔥
vintage crockpot meatballs in a crockpot with barbecue sauce lil smokies
November 12, 2024 at 5:53 AM
johnlapine.bsky.social
Oh baby you *know* a takeout order of beef pho and a Michigan brewed beer hates to see me comin 😏🍜
A bowl of pho and a Two hearted ale
November 12, 2024 at 2:56 AM
johnlapine.bsky.social
when the third cup of coffee hits
a still from the film The Substance shows an splitting with multiple pupils and irises
November 11, 2024 at 8:23 PM
johnlapine.bsky.social
To be honest, IDK how much I'm gonna use this app, I'm always torn between engaging with online communities & reducing screentime.

But tonight I confronted my abuser, so y'all can read the poem I wrote about them.

CW // SA
Poem in which My Abuser’s House Burns Down And my mother is the one to tell me the news because I haven’t told her about what you did last winter. The local station says no one was home, and it’s hard not to imagine it an act of God, and you’d been moving out anyway; you post that you lost books, documents, your wallet, and the bed where you held me like a windwhipped flag holds its pole. Still, your friends start a Go-Fund-Me but several of your pets died scared and choking and for that, I’m truly sorry. I lost something too.
November 11, 2024 at 2:57 AM
johnlapine.bsky.social
Ada Limón - Salvage
The poem "Salvage" by Ada Limón reads: On the top of Mount Pisgah, on the western slope of the Mayacamas, there’s a madrone tree that’s half-burned from the fires, half-alive from nature’s need to propagate. One side of her is black ash and at her root is what looks like a cavity that was hollowed out by flame. On the other side, silvery green broadleaf shoots ascend toward the winter light and her bark is a cross between a bay horse and a chestnut horse, red and velvety like the animal’s neck she resembles. I have been staring at the tree for a long time now. I am reminded of the righteousness I had before the scorch of time. I miss who I was. I miss who we all were, before we were this: half alive to the brightening sky, half dead already. I place my hand on the unscarred bark that is cool and unsullied, and because I cannot apologize to the tree, to my own self I say, I am sorry. I am sorry I have been so reckless with your life.
November 9, 2023 at 5:17 AM
johnlapine.bsky.social
Me if having nostalgia for music released 2007-2016 were illegal
Person getting arrested
September 10, 2023 at 6:02 PM
johnlapine.bsky.social
A year ago today 😭🥺💖🕊️💐
Florence Welch in concert Florence Welch in concert
September 9, 2023 at 10:06 PM
johnlapine.bsky.social
Glizzy overdrive saved my life
A two panel comic. A withered wojak says: the world is a cruel and unjust place. There is no harmony in the universe. The only constant is suffering. Panel two: a blushing wojak says: omg a glizzy overdrive
August 30, 2023 at 5:36 AM
johnlapine.bsky.social
Follow for more recipes
An airplane bottle of Jose cuervo, a bottle of tajin and a mango DQ slush
August 15, 2023 at 11:13 PM
johnlapine.bsky.social
August 11, 2023 at 10:55 PM
johnlapine.bsky.social
I have a poem in the latest issue of Underblong! [Fergie voice] check it out

https://www.underblong.com/john-lapine
Screenshot of Underblong says "John LaPine - when autocorrect turns suitcases into suicide, I wonder if that's apt"
August 11, 2023 at 6:08 PM