(something boiling over)

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Dirty Imbecile, The Happy Fits // Stock Image, Miya Folick // The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa // The Weight, Amigo The Devil // THE ART OF BRIAN LUONG, Brian Luong @artofbrianluong // Coul As A Ghoul, The Voidz // Happiness, Taylor Swift // The Offing, Andrés Cerpa

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When the light hits me it cuts my face in sharp angles, spider webbing out like shattered glass.

You’re only ever backlit by a warm halo, the line of your jaw softened by the glow.

I’ve tried to stand like you, straighten out my spine even though it hurts, but it doesn’t change. The sun hits my curls and gets trapped. My face contorts it all incorrectly, my Art teachers explaining perspective in High School would be pissed.

My values are all wrong.

Maybe I’m too short. My back burns, blisters, smokes like dying charcoal.

I can’t get the contrast right.

If I keep my room dark and don’t leave, if I squeeze my eyes shut tight and believe I can camouflage myself maybe I don’t have to worry about it.

Is that too scary?

Do I look like something else?

[strapcreep]

I dreamt of a body dump, amongst a corn field

the outline of it was lush with rich soil and blueberries sprouted from it in huge unrealistic stalks, intertwined with

pink dogwoods that didn’t grow from the branches of a trunk.

Sometimes I remember how my childhood best friend’s mother uses two trees to mark a grave.

(a son that died before he really had a chance to be called a son)

Would she understand

if my mother (who also believes she is mourning a dead child)

told her she had a son who is only beginning to have a chance to stop being a daughter?

Does that make me the soil that feeds the roots or the bark?

Am I the grave or the blooming flowers?

If I ran to the mirror

fast enough in the morning when my eyes are bleary and my mouth is dry, would I see that blossoms have taken the place of my sclera?

Am I going to start finding tart blue skin in my teeth?

[strapcreep]

May 1, 2020

Even at a young age you argue with people who classify your hair color as “dirty” blonde. Already the unachievable idea of perfection, which you don’t associate with uncleanliness, is something you strive for. Taking this as an insult you combat it, blotchy cheeks and teary eyes, with the heated rebuttal of “Sandy!”

You’re looking into a handheld mirror while your dad emphasizes the importance of learning how to drive. Gashes are forming on your soft cheeks and across your aquiline nose. He thinks it is necessarily to know but he isn’t offering to teach you.

You watch your skin, severing and sloughing off bloodlessly in fatty chunks. No mess, just the rapid melting of thick wax Opaque like hot glue and semen.

You hook your push up bra with the clasps against your chest and wriggle it around your torso until it’s facing correctly. He looks at your tits while he gives you a ride to work.

Sometimes hair is just brown.

(ok to rb)

[strapcreep]

When Cain strikes Abel with his stone Abel’s nose will bleed from impact against the ground and Cain’s will bleed from exertion

Cain’s brow furrowed in concentration Abel’s brow furrowed because it is the only form his smashed skull can manage.

I am tasting dirt as a farmer biting his lip and tasting dirt as a shepherd whose teeth are shattered, leaving tongue exposed to the cool earth.

I am Cain and Abel but I am CainandAbel both dying at the fall of stones; first born and first dead(murdered).

I will tell you what Cain does after Abel falls but before he does. He grieves. It doesn’t last long, but it lasts forever.

I will tell you what Abel does after Cain falls. He takes a shaky, wet breath. He sits up with effort and sees his own crumbled face on the ground. He turns his head to a riverbank and begins molding clay.

He forms a new face. He tries to make it softer. Smooth out the edges, this time. Deepen the smile lines, maybe.

Then, Abel will wet what remains of his gnarled flesh and apply the new clay. Scrunch his brows, wiggle his nose, see that the lips align.

Cain is not really dead but neither is Abel really alive.

Someday Abel will raise his hand up with a rough weapon enclosed in his (my) fist and recognize the arm as Cain’s. He will look into Cain’s eyes, Within his own irises, Within his own (remodeled) skull, and feel a deep familiar sadness that he no longer attempts to communicate.

He (Abel) will nod once, in solemn understanding, and Cain will bring his arm down and CainandAbel’s nose will bleed and CainandAbel’s brow will furrow and CainandAbel will taste the dirt and he will start to mold clay again.

He will find a new band to love. Watch a few new films. Maybe get a new haircut.

When CainandAbel’s arm raises CainandAbel will understand with a growing disappointed resentment. He will nod only once, lips pressed in a thin line, clay mask flaking.

Then Cain will eat his own tail like a starving man, and begin to wet the earth.

Abel’s hand will be calloused in the same spot on my right thumb that never softens and Abel will feel it through Cain’s hand on his shoulder when he attempts to calm him before they realize that they are drenched in gasoline and holding matches. They won’t have the flint strip but the matches will light all the same.

[strapcreep]

Flashlight, the Front Bottoms // How It Is, Maxine Kumin // Just the Same but Brand New, St. Vincent // Hide, Rainbow Kitten Surprise // Voicemail, Antarctigo Vespucci // Burn, Phillipa Soo

[strapcreep]

May 7, 2020 “Beta Fish”

As a child my dad waterboards me in the shower.

As a kid I swim in community pools and my grandmother calls me her little fish. I keep my eyes open despite the burn of excessive chlorine. (She has to jump in, pearls and all, to save me as I flail in the deep end.)

I play mermaid in the warm ocean off Florida’s coast by crossing my legs underwater and extending them how I imagined would mirror a tail. I always get pulled too far out to sea and struggle back to the shore.

In middle school I jump into a duck pond with the first girl I think I have a crush on. She shouts theatrically for help just to see if the older boys on the basketball court will come to her aid. After my parents find out I consider leeches and the shit of geese while I walk home, my jeans weighed down by our misadventures.

In high school I fantasize about drowning myself in the bath.

When I’m eighteen I go swimming shirtless for the first time. I feel like I’m breaking a rule, but the sun blazes during California’s summer and I feel so at peace in my boyfriend’s backyard.

I start dozing off in the bath.

When my fiance can handle the stimulation we go in together, a tangle of legs and flushed cheeks. I run my fingers over the soft hair on his thighs and let my hand linger. His skin is warmed by the surrounding water. Mine is heated by the love I feel for him. He gets out and I soak a while longer.

We are nineteen when he answers “no” after I ask if he will let me wash his back in the shower.

I am twenty and in my moments of lucidity I think that being drunk feels a bit like swimming.

I am twenty and I am pouring Belgian Whites and bagged Moscato down the drain.