A New Poem by Lemmy Ya'akova

Posted on February 28, 2025


all terrain

 

I’ve been here before, but worse, know now

being nice is not the same as being helpful.

 

what’s wrong with me, you ask?

oh, you know. a little bit of everything.

 

my mother called it “moderation”

though she was talking about food,

 

had no idea of its impact. when I was

a child, I cared about half birthdays,

 

the smaller bits of the growing up,

the pyrotechnics of our stomachs.

 

I hear my stomach now saying, you need to

eat something or you will hemorrhage heat.

 

I do what I’m told because there’s a future where I see

them, my own little one bounding through wet grass and

 

jeezus don’t they get tall so fast, I say to the mother

next to me who replies something like, tell me about it.

 

my one foot is still in the world where

you and I didn’t do the things we did.

 

my friend Nick says, alone, we go insane—

together, we go insane together.

 

this must mean if ever there was a time to love something

perfectly, it’s now. will there ever be anything else?


 

Lemmy Ya'akova is an advocate for y2k low culture, an amateur pool player, a popcorn enthusiast and a cat parent to their son, Moose. Their work can be found in HAD (Hobart After Dark), Anti-Heroin Chic Magazine, SAND Journal and more. They’re the author of the poetry collections Overflowing the Tub, Night Gallery Press, 2024 and Tiger’s Tail, General Things Press, 2024. You can keep up with their life on instagram @olive.apologist.