Poems & Plays

Tiger Poem (2020)

When The Tiger That Ate Don Lewis finally decides to speak the world should listen

So listen up all my cats and kittens because I have something to say

Yes, I did eat Don Lewis, and I’d do it again—instantly.

First of all, mama loves her sardine oil, and who doesn’t love a man dripping in oil.

Second of all, I was hungry—no I was Famíshed.

Third of all, who wouldn’t take the opportunity to make a predator, their prey.

You see, while Carol Baskins may sound to be bat shit crazy, she wasn’t a product of nothing.

A woman who ran from abusive predator forced upon her by god, family, and guilt to a man 23 years her senior who’s prey spanned nations.

Carol’s womanhood only knew shitty men.

Women aren’t given many opportunities in this world, which is why we all have to do our part to help them out.

“But you committed murder”

Yes. I did, but I don’t see many men out there willing to help, and stand up for women. So, sometimes a Tiger has to do what a Tiger has to do.

“Why did you do it?”

Carol used to tell me stories of how when she would start to menstruate, Don would suddenly have to go on vacation—returning home with a suitcase of clothes that wreaked of other women’s perfume.

So I guess you can say, that when Don saw blood, so. did. I.

“How did you do it?”

Simple. I swallowed. Him. Whole. No need to get gunky flesh stuck between these teeth, I don’t want them to rot.

You see, shitty men can be quite easy to swallow once they learn their place in this world.

And that place can either be side by side with the rest of humanity... or the bottom of my stomach.

The Upside Down (2018)

You start to put on your clothes

While he wanders into his bathroom

Remembering to put on your boxers before your pants

You look at yourself in the mirror, noticing that it’s tilted slightly to the left since you came in

You think nothing of this small change as he leads you outside

You make a quick trot across a vacuous street to your car

But you notice that the lamp posts are standing at slightly less than 90 degrees

this was never the world that you consented to

but its the world that you have been given

You drive home

To get his sour flavor out of your mouth

You stop to get the largest Dr. Pepper that you can get your hands on

It tastes like Diet Coke

You drink the aspartame-laced beverage and start to feel the need to scream

The scream stays down in the well of your throat

Once home

You immediately enter your bathroom, and in the mirror you notice that your hair is slightly darker

The scream starts to inch up the well

You strip yourself of clothes

Of night

Of scent of foreign bedroom

Of world you once knew

Your shower no longer gets as hot as it once used to

While you feel like your world has been infected

The rest of it just seems to keep on spinning

You seem to be the only one who notices

The changing

The warping

The screaming that you want to do, but it’s only at half mast

As the world slowly breaks down

You start to realize

The thing about rape is that it is only visible by the way it warps its surroundings

The disrepair

The dystopia

This is not saying that the act of the rape itself is absent

And that we are left is this aftermath

The act and the aftermath are deliberately warping with one-another

Its warping is part of the point

We should not be asking

“When did Dr. Pepper start tasting like Diet Coke”

“Where did the lamp posts tilt towards”

We should be asking “why”

This was never the world that you consented to

But it is the world that you have been given

But is also a world worth taking back

The scream is now behind your tongue

And you will let it roar

Bus Poems: Observations On The 3 (2017)

"Short Poems" (2017)

Dobbs was tasked with writing poems every single day to track the ebb and flow of his bipolar disorder. The poems were then spliced together and performed as part of another student's senior thesis presentation.