Theo Ellin Ballew
Winter 2022 Edition / Poetry
Not the Same Guy
Theo Ellin Ballew
NOT THE SAME GUY
You got that big house blown up with a broken token. Only the slowest voices reserved for footprints like yours, in this wake-up day. Don’t you run inside, thunder. A kingdom of causes, you’ve got: gold
and I am made your main red high. Higher—and you touch me down the line. Like a citadel I blow, standing like the sea, watching you
take my bed. I am sick from some oversized juice or tea. I hum. And I hug. And I don’t start,
I just don’t start believing.
Instead I build a bond with my own worn fatigue. I am wild, I
grab my eye, never been more quiet in my life.
Theo Ellin Ballew (deepest known matronym Srebrna or Silver) writes poetry and code. Their writing has appeared in journals and art spaces such as Action, Spectacle; 3AM; Juked; Litro; Bone Bouquet; The Wrong Biennale; Tagvverk; screen_; El Quinto Piso; Electric Literature Organization; Bandini Espacio Cultural; IK-Projects; and Yeah Maybe. Theo has taught computational poetry and cyberfeminism at RISD, NYU, Brown, Brooklyn College, and The New School. They hold an MFA in Literary Arts from Brown. They grew up in urban areas throughout the greater Southwest, mostly in Arizona.