Austin Davis is the author of Lotus & The Apocalypse and most recently Compulsive Swim, published in Jan 2023 from Outcast Press. Davis is a homeless outreach organizer and the founder of AZ (Arizona) Hugs For the Houseless. Born in Indianapolis, Davis now lives and writes in Phoenix, Arizona, where he aims to use his poetry as a tool to help those struggling with mental health issues feel less alone in what they're going through.

Welcome to the Poets Weave, I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey. Austin, what poems have you brought for us today?

My new book was just released from Outcast Press. It's called Compulsive Swim and it is a poetry novella about the fentanyl crisis, housing crisis, and mental health crisis here in Arizona and all around the country. I have OCD and the book follows a character who is struggling with their obsessions and compulsions and trying to fight them.

Austin Davis is the author of Lotus and the Apocalypse and most recently, Compulsive Swim, published in January 2023 from Outcast Press. Davis is a homeless outreach organizer and the founder of AZ Hugs for the Houseless. Born in Indianapolis, Davis now lives and writes in Phoenix, AZ, where he uses poetry as a tool to help those with mental illness feel less alone in their struggles. Welcome to the Poets Weave. I'm RomaYne Rubenis Dorsey. Austin, what poems have you brought for us?

Here in Arizona, there is no immediate emergency shelter for families facing housing insecurity, and every week I get at least three to five calls from families who are possibly facing homelessness, mostly, you know, for the first time. This is a poem that I wrote about a family that I care about very deeply, and it's about this complicated issue.

IV.
layla and her kids
sleep on a bridge
that frowns over the freeway
wrapped in blankets
on a yellow slab of foam
the baby is silent despite the sirens
cars whizz by below us
and i pass layla a smoke
so many people
are off to house parties and hookups
shitty horror movies and football games
her son jace says
he spits off the guardrail
the city put around the bridge
to stop people from jumping
it lands on a windshield
and he laughs and i laugh
and i smoke and he doesn’t
the car lessens to light
and i pretend i don’t hear jace
when he asks if joy
is a currency
we should spend
all at once
since we’re bound to be
robbed of it
one of these nights

This next poem is the 6th poem from Act III of Compulsive Swim.

VI.
i used to make fun of you
for watching the weather channel
before bed
but i know it helped you sleep
to empathize
i mean it was smart
to be prepared
2000 miles away
florida might’ve faced
a tornado
because of you
i knew what days chicago
was unseasonably warm
and last june
during a flash flood in dallas
a wave launched an ice cream truck
into the food court
of a shopping mall
to be honest i never cared
if it was cloudy
outside our apartment or sunny
at 3 am
i’d pour us a nightcap any time
of day if you pull the blinds shut
and tell me how happy it makes you
that it’s swimming weather
in wisconsin

This next poem is actually not from Compulsive Swim. It is a completely new poem I just wrote, and it's called "healing is lonely.”

healing is lonely
and there’s no other way
to say it
tonight you cook rice and chicken
by the bed in your socks
in an apartment that’s just a single room
water bubbles over the pot
cars honk and someone yells
from beyond the open window
healing is lonely
and there’s no other way to say it
it feels like something’s wrong
like the past has found its own past to obsess over
and you can finally let it go
off into the water
to bob up and down and worry itself
all the way to oblivion
you remember oblivion
the motel a few miles outside the city
full of powders and pills
missed birthdays and anniversaries
broken promises
and all those months you can’t remember
everyone has rented a room in oblivion in a past life
but this is the next life and in this life
healing is lonely and beautiful and forever
and it’s okay if the fresh skin over old wounds
still feels like it’s not there
every now and again

You've been listening to poems by Austin Davis on the Poets Weave. I'm Romayne Rubinas Dorsey.