The Great Reset
Fuck trigger warnings
and the new normal.
Give me danger.
Late-night
standing ride
between train cars:
our sweaty hands
clutched side chains
to avoid falling
onto the tracks.
Pre-dawn drunk beside
the lake: insistent
police spotlights
swept the sand
after the beach closed
for the evening.
We hid bottles
under shirts, as
reckless waves
drowned our laughter.
Now, we block
apertures, stand
upwind from crowds,
pray that nothing hits us.
When you’re
scared to breathe,
every part
of you belongs to
someone else.
Your body,
a willing sacrifice.
Your mind, a stain
beside the tracks.
Throw a few
more limbs
into the flames,
smile as you
watch them burn.
After every
molecule vaporizes,
you will finally
own nothing, and
you will be happy.
Sodom and Lot
Fistfuls of cinders
on the Washington coast,
scattered like weeds
to indifferent waves.
Ocean’s jaws open wide,
swallow your body’s remnants.
I remember how
your arms encircled
my drowning shoulders,
pulled me to solid ground.
Your mouth uttered
my name like chocolate,
its cadence warm
as a radio deejay’s.
Then your frozen eyes,
long, hairless legs,
and genitals, grown
shrunken and useless.
Don’t turn around: run faster,
until you reach a more genial place.
No one will ever find us again.
No one will even remember to look.
Deities
Eros keeps
me returning
for juice,
holding out
my tarnished cup
for more.
My cranium
overflows
from the thrust
of his words,
and I spill
the fluids
all over myself.
He dribbles
down my chin,
makes dark stains
between my breasts.
Eros brings
entire scrolls
of new verses,
recites them
one after another:
until the next
thing I know,
I’ve melted like wax
into his mattress.
Though my cup
is half-spent, and
my thirst unquelled,
I am clutching
the handle, and I
am singing.
Winning the Internet
Laundry in moldering piles:
brain slack, disheveled. Your eyes fixed
on the same spot for hours. Everyone
knows the answer, repeats endless lines
as if repetition can forge truth from opinion.
Chatter of magpies on shaky branches,
mad rush to dominance. Typed words
on an illuminated screen, thumbnail face
inside a circle. Speck-sized, easily eradicated,
like a persistent fly. Rush forward,
grab the spotlight. Your keystroke joust
goes straight to the solar plexus. Watch
without expression as bodies fall.
You lose track of how many.
Soon you will forget their names,
and they yours. But for now,
nothing is more important than victory.
Dumpster Fire Press 