Dariya Kozhasbay

Deer And Teeth Picture

Hazel

Lucey

ARCHIVE OF LOVE, BODIES, AND TIME— JUMBLED AS THEY ARE

I almost cried, smelling my hands that smelled like E’s mom’s Verbena soap, This holy liquified body. My cheeks: Pink from his cheap Ikea pillowcase and trying hard for orgasm.

Winter’s desiccating sun shone onto his bedside table, detailing stacks Of tiny, empty cocaine bags. I’m trying to remember what we did But it’s not coming to me.

•

It was dragged and dragged because I said Nothing Is Dragging! I’d lay swanlike on his warm chest, angry at the poetry and paralysis happening inside of me. Time is not lived without suckling the artichoke heart.

•

I figured if we had done it when we first met

Three years ago, R would have lasted

Three times longer, but then he only would have lasted

Nine seconds. Rats scurried by as I told S, technically Speaking, I’d fucked R too, and in the spirit Of explosion, that I would choose her

One million times over. It’s hard to believe

T still kissed me—E called earlier in the night

For the first time in eight months and I answered it, on speaker phone.

Acknowledge the life you spent denying the pleasure of the wind While homesteading on logic’s opaque terrain. To be what? The master of the second dimension?

I screamed into the wilderness of his mouth. Again and again, I shed denser bodies, became a spot of yellow on my collar bone and purple On the left side of my jaw. Things smaller than words Sounded into thick snow were said.

M’s eyes would glaze over after 11:00 and still magical words came Out of his mouth. I felt unworthy Of knowing all he might tell me if I asked. •

A’s lips were like bird lips and her neck almost fell out Of my hand. Her new medication was making it so she couldn’t Cum. But I hadn’t known her before, so there’s that.

• I want to believe that there’s a place where time can die That is good. Where a butterfly lands On my slapdashed desire, its violet wing Easy like a summer linen.

T was late to work every morning, frenetically jamming Burnt toast for me. I’d eat it alone on his living room couch, The light of a new day right there and breathing

Through the steam of my tea and realize it meant nothing When he wasn’t there for me to praise. It’s no longer enough Just to feel myself nurture.

• What will it take for me to pull my numb legs from our entanglement, From the delicacy of the dark blue dawn In which birdsong has begun again?

Listen to the one thing that is not confused, this massive underlayer Of pulse. That it’s massive is terrifying, and even more so— that it’s mine.