Pink Ochre Magazine

after underscores

 

Lace tights tossed over and out of the realm of imagination. There are only so many bedroom conversations we can have without burning through the floorboards. In the circadian hum of your kitchen light I bump elbows with the cabinets & avert my gaze from the skin of your knee.

Outside, storm clouds gather like mourning doves to telephone wires. Small fissures spark from your eyelids & smolder. In the eye of a hurricane all points of contact could have the potential to rip you apart. I said, I want to be made knowable even if through

Vivisection, scar tissue a petulant squatter in the decrepit playground of my body. Muscle memory compels me to grasp onto floating wrecks, conduct trails of paper ships. I just can’t help it. Counting the milliseconds between each inhale,

Exhale. You know I only smoke to remember what your hands looked like cupping the lighter. Your silhouette bathed in streetlamp dust & the sparkling rings on your fingers. Trading lung cancer for seashells and hasty exchanges of memory: a battalion of sea lions emerging

From the froth, a shiny pearl of spit down the line of your mouth. I know there are simpler words I could wrap you in, enough kindling to keep your breath warm and happily intoxicated. So you wouldn’t look straight through me like an arrow that meets its mark.

I chose dislocation over the void at the back of the refrigerator, the metallic bite of the fire escape, and frosted blush on speed dial. There are staircases I can no longer climb and walls I can no longer phase through,

Empty rooms leading nowhere, to be filled with white lies and nicotine. Magic no longer addictive. Champagne remembering its shimmer. On the other side: winter! On the other side: I

Let go of your hand to catch snowflakes on my tongue, like sugared

Daggers falling from the night sky.