1.  α

today we are talking about how your ring’s torn my finger up / for a year and a half now / and that cute hat / and the scarf / anything that is amenable / to having holes in it really / whistling past the aorta / ventricle dreaming / musclebound memoriam / in the petty deities we trust / we fired ourselves / in the kiln / from the opportunity / left bereft / where’s that zine? where’s that monument to mourning? / where did I go wrong messing / with motivational posters? / you said / I only go to poetry shows when the poetry is about me and I think that is cutting but wise

it is advisable to
only bury something
if truly dead

sitting on the lip of the curb of the Ángel Caído
the fallen angel, lucifiel, snaking around his waist
like an insidious thought process
his splayed wings
reminding yourself
of cutting-board cloves of garlic
you in a grey polo making us mussels
except mussels are reserved for
special occasions and I am
not

you who came to my house
and charmed my parents
glutted me with
your neurosi/es
the embodied nature
of your presence
dead skin forming
a blister activated by UV rays
probing appendages
like a question
before sleep

you are a cataract on
my sclera and I cannot see
but to cut you out whole
or use my
other eye

while it lasts
the world
is soft
in focus

I removed
the ring
today

2. ß

they always say
to write everything,
the ones who
know more

I felt safe in a
dimly-lit karaoke bar
with scantily-clad mannequins
MULTISEXUAL MONDAYS means
no box is safe
from un/solitude.

maybe the mirrors are
so covered with punkx
that it doesn’t matter
what you look like

have you ever
met someone who
so aptly embodied
loneliness
mumbling into a
microphone bad wig
sagging beneath sad-eyed
the stunning disinterest
of everyone when you
start

I missed my cue
three times
as I get
too excited
about things
to funcktion

I like awkward men
naked in public
limp as spanish
anchovies
oinking like
pink embarrassment

I know
my breasts
are perfect
doesn’t stop
me hating

3. ⊙

sex now consists of drowning you
in a claw-footed bathtub
by candlelight standing bare feet
on a white shag rug

you fear always I want you
just for your body but the truth
is you’re a cabbage patch doll
and I don’t know
whose signature that is
by your anus

your bearclaw hands
as you tremble the deep
moonlight within your chest
bublé and I can
almost believe you
were made for this life

just us both
nosetip to nose

a thicc waist,
an envisioned life,
envy-free,
covered in dog hair

again you are smiling
in your sleep
left-cheeked
cherubic

4. א

she said I got good (git gud)
at lying to myself

this has
happened
before

stepping in the heraclitus river / melding auras
with the wrong god
clay feet make for
poor pigeons

a crystal-clear dominion hung up
on a telephone hook
a flat dial tone sombre

we’ve met before

like atoms,
coalmine canaries,
a doomed mission
ary position

why you hitting yourself
why you hitting yourself?

why you pretending that
you can just gemini gander
saunter away
(like you’ve sauntered away
for years)
unscathed?

your spine is weak
they took it
ransom
for a straight answer

powdered vertebrae
knows no reason

5. ⊡

a lump of coal in your perfect left breast

may be
growing pains
may be
pain of death
pain au chocolat

there is no right
reaction to this