Masturbating for My Life

Mickie Kennedy self-pleasures in the face of certain death

Discordia does not, it turns out, hate everything. Every other week, we share a piece of new or gently-used work from an artist who's earned our respect.

There is art that moves us, and there is art that moves with us. This is Fellow Travellers.

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Masturbating for My Life

Frequent ejaculation may slow the progression of even the most aggressive prostate cancers.
 — A.W. Smith, Urologist

So bored of my porn-glutted hours, I’ve begun 
jerking it to straight stuff. 
Today, I’ve settled on an older German nurse 

dispassionately milking a sperm donor, 
stroking with the intensity 
of a woman who doesn’t flinch when she snaps 

a chicken’s neck. I’m trying to match 
her furious rhythm, so fast 
it burns. There’s something 

thrilling in the sexlessness—
her lubed-up gloves 
glinting in the fluorescent light. 

Out of nowhere, my nurse is replaced
by Randy’s face. A call. 
Another call. The man I love, a king 

of terrible timing. His voice 
is frantic: Honey, there’s a bird. A dying 
bird in the middle of the driveway. 

What does he think I can do? 
I’ll be there soon, I lie, 
returning to my task. I’m not 

some avian Jesus, I’m just a man 
who’s moving through 
another fragile cure. A gloved hand 

squeezes the donor’s family jewels.  
It looks like they might burst. 
He writhes. I writhe. 

Randy calls again, 
but I hit ignore. I’m yanking myself 
inside my life. If something needs to die, 

let it be the bird. 

“Masturbating for My Life” first appeared in Black Warrior Review 50.2, May 2024.

Suburbography

I stand at the door and cut my porch light on. 
My neighbor stands at his door
and cuts his porch light on. His neighbor 
does the same—everyone tries so hard
to be me.

The Day After Mom’s Funeral

The ceiling is warped, patches flaking. 
The gutters gone. 
Even the roaches have fled. 
I’m here to salvage what she loved—
photos, dresses, a ceramic cat 
she kept on the mantle for years. 

I find a drawer crammed with expired parking tickets. 
In the attic—orphaned lamps, a toaster 
with a melted cord, two beige rotary phones. 

In a satin sewing box under her bed, 
a canary-yellow vibrator, hooked like a claw.  
I flick the switch and it sputters on 
for a few quick seconds—a last electric gasp, 
chattering like a pair of windup teeth. 

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MICKIE KENNEDY is a gay writer who resides in Baltimore County, Maryland. His work has appeared in POETRY, The Threepenny Review, The Southern Review, The Sun and elsewhere. His chapbook *Glandscapes*, published by Button Poetry, can be ordered at Glandscapes.com. His first full-length book of poetry, *Worth Burning*, will be published by Black Lawrence Press in February 2026. 

Follow Mickie on social media @MickiePoet or his website mickiekennedy.com.

Interested in being a Fellow Traveller? Email your poetry, prose, visual art, etc. to discordia.sucks@gmail.com. We pay (not much), and pieces are collected a few times a year in a small print edition.

WE ALSO HAVE A POEM ABOUT EATING ASS