dine-in blue
apartment complexion
drunken truths
siphoned the blood out
your quivering clavicle
the devil in retrograde
asking why you stopped
chasing liquored narratives

you miss expensive drinks
midnight strolls between
unkind buildings
gnawing at your shoulders
a welcoming window’s glow
every one a fantasy
begging to be loved
by a stranger’s poetry

it’s always outside
staring in
you don’t
have any friends
because you can’t
let yourself
trust anything
without invitation

a particular taste
for what ails
an empty glass halfway
past the condensation
of your starving breath
mist that claims
the space between
all that you have left

you stole their faces
and you learned
their languages
but your voice
doesn’t match their tone
and they don’t hear you right
when you open your mouth
to mimic the things they say
or maybe you just don’t understand

you ask yourself
“is this womanhood?”
as you go to piss
in a public bathroom
and a strange man
casts his shadow
staring and masturbating
and you pretend
like it’s all a dream

and you learn
how easy it is
to be liked
by strangers
when you’re pretty
like a girl
and your dick is big
and available
and desperate
for any attention

you’re worthwhile
until the amusement wains
it’s easy
to stop seeing
you as a girl
amab in drag
playing pretend lesbian
unlike them
you can’t fit in

sooner or later
you forget
your own movement
your permission
to speak
to look like anyone
in their own eyes
you relearn
it’s easier
to pretend otherwise

couldn’t make out
what you had said
hiding behind bergamot
incensed haze diluted
deep breaths pulled
back against the high
feeling our tongues tie
tangled in the other

silk threaded flesh
lacing through
honeydew strands
dripping down
from the shy gaps
in a mutual smile
form seeking reform
softest warmth adored

there is a place for you
in the tangle of us
undone, under closed eyes
pulling closer, pushing out
whatever breath is left
to yield in silence
i will keep it closer
our home in one another

what could we crave more
the blanketing cherished most
in a body where we keep
all pur painstaking orchids
bathed moon meadows, lonely
clovers; counted possessions

we can’t help but recreate
from uninhabited houses
springtimes relived without
strangers as family
doorways barricaded
razors in pillowcases

what could be taken
from what was given
all that had to be
relearned in reflection
a new way to smile
on our own terms

you belong in kind
rooms that cry with you
a sanctuary of unbound walls
i can hold you here
because you hold me
no longer afraid

you are ripened
for exploitation
cashed-out open palms
hammer gripped
garbage bagged
three layers tight
bound, soaked, dripping
maws scattered to dust

delicate plastic
wrapped around
your lips
cam light shine
begging to be kissed
drink piss
til you’re starving
for it, bitch

come crying
coked, cut, fucked
bruised up cunt
laugh like fire
through your mouth
taped shut
sit still
its not enough

you’re not afraid
enough to love
ugly fuck
masturbation bankrupted
diagnosis male
loneliness deserving
suffer slow
your credit card’s saved

you’re stepping out
side of the apartment
a blade pocketed
fingered cigarette
against your lips
bruised indigo
sucked strap
dehydrated

every street
lurking stranger
has your pornography
in an open tab
some of which
you shared yourself
some of which
you didn’t

it doesn’t matter
maybe she’s sorry
maybe she’s caligula
it’s not their business
it’s not yours
so stop staring
back, they don’t belong
in your eyes

what is there
to atone for
or forgive
we’re burning both ends
it’s easier
instead to carve
out an island
a body of your own

to be weaponised
to be politicised
emaciated meat shielding
slightly less emaciated meat
they will pay you
to do as you’re told
and you will grip
your knife

doom paralysis calls
a thousand sirens
and they are all
for you
and if they aren’t
for you
than they are
for everyone you know

for if you aren’t
the guilty
you are still
the implicated
a forged signature
carved into casings
of bullets and bombs
ready to victimise

you have done no wrong
but they won’t stop
until they see you
burning
you bathroom rapist
you groomer witch
you tranny freak
you terrorist / sympathiser

and it’s always
the rapists
the murderers
who decide the blame
and there is nothing
you can do
but shout into crowds
louder than you

and you hope
in time it will change
a revolving door
of the same suited men
twirling, unimpeded
as you delay the desire
one more day
to jam your head in its gears

it’s always up to you
men will enable men
and you will remedy
the consequences
until you can remedy
no longer
and it will be you
that wears that failure

making up
for lost time
everything
i didn’t get to
survive with you
all the life
we never got to lose
together

i close my eyes
and see us
as broken children
mending
like we should have
it’s silly
i know
to yearn for dreams

but we’re here
now, trying
our best
for ourselves
for each other
as consolation
for not having
what we do now

i will keep finding
what is missing
and bringing it back
to you
always
a home
shared breath
scraps of us

always a stone’s throw away
from the bottom of a river
they present to you
a dumb corpse in pixelated text
and they ask of you
to find aspiration in that
misgendered brick
sinking deeper into earth

do you trust in their desire
to see you as more
psychologists and police
at your doorway
addressing a deadname
asking why
you cut your thighs open
a decade ago

yet you have explained
before and again
and will continue to
explain until you can
no longer see
your own face
speaking numbly back
your own words

your humanity
is a self-castration
and yet
they will not allow it
on your terms
calling forth
public humiliation
rituals unsubsidised

so you try to stay
kind hoping they won’t
hurt you
like they continue to
hurt anyone unlike them
because they promised
they would stop
eventually

you cannot help yourself
an endless feast
of faux allegiances
friends traced over fascists
a cacophony of recorrected sentences
argumentative search engine
subservience
what’s another word for “braindead”?

and i thought i was suicidal
drain another riverbed
indifference perpetual
fingertips poised
over generative deathnotes
slit wrist automation
if it makes your life easier
what is the harm in neglect?

bred to lubricate machinery
pour your hopes and dreams
into thoughtless routine
serve the cannibals well enough
and you will be rewarded
a warm spot atop the mass grave
how gentle an embrace
your systemic compatibility