the patron saint of asexual poets

like all things, it is to be earned, so

to be Loved is to pay the price.

taken from its rocks, dies the edelweiss.

it was too delicate to bring home, though

all Love is built on sacrifice.

i ask her to at least be precise,

so that at least the death comes slow,

because to be Loved is to pay the price.

your role is to bring your partner paradise,

so it’s to hell i go

since holy Love is built on sacrifice.

can you only kiss me once? twice?

please be gentle with me, but i know

to be Loved is to pay the price.

i have to believe that this is Love, the greatest vice,

with my body tied up and wrapped with a bow.

true Love is built on sacrifice,

so to be Loved, i am the price.

that’s romance at a distance, that’s love at a glance. what else was i

worth when you said you were glad i didn’t like touch like that just for you

to turn and talk porn, sex, erotica. intimacy as violence. i do and i don’t

regret not kissing you drunk that night, the next morning, my sister’s birthday. i say

to be loved is to be on their leash always. intimacy as a collar. good dog, good girl, roll over.

pulling me along by it you say it shouldn’t be like that. sit, stay. wait for days

to break down, break the news, i overfill my cups. the page of cups reversed

is in the minor arcana, death upright is major. i vomit to your favorite song

like intimacy as venom, hands unhinging ribs, wringing out intestines. you give a cigarette

to an asthmatic with a smoking addiction and call yourself the god i don’t believe in

and leave like one too when i suffocate on my knees. you’re an angel with advice to give. take

72 hours. leave without looking back, i beg for you

to go, some nights to stay. sit, stay. good girl, drive away.

between moving in and moving out. Don’t go

anywhere; sidewalks are your favorite myth. The bar’s

just across the street from the elementary school. “Mom’s

gone, come over and bring friends just try not to wreck my home.”

Hike back for a week just to sit together in the old church parking lot.

They’ve built another school next door just to fill the empty space with lots

of airless trailers. Storage unit. Storage unit. At this rate, real grass is gonna grow

where the mini golf course is supposed to be. Dead-end road. “Please just come home.

there’s nothing new, there’s still nothing to do, but I miss you. We’ll go

another state over for the fun of it.” Closed bowling alley. The license plate game your mom

used to play gets easier to win these days. More land cleared and sold. The bar’s

on the floor for something good. Money’s on a hardware store; finally get some new bars

for the backyard fence. Pothole. Pothole. Atrocious road. No more fresh Christmas tree lots

and by the way, they cut down the big one in the church yard, the one that someone’s mom

used to string up for Christmas, now they just put up an electric display. You got to grow

up with this place and now you hate it. How sad. How unfair to it. But yet you still go

on about the art of hating, that you have to love something to hate it right. That’s home.

That’s the place you used to belong. You witnessed the burning of Rome, the fall of home.

Coward-bred, coward-born; always going to blame the bluff town for keeping you bar-

red from the life you dreamt of. Storage unit. Any longer here and you’re gonna go

insane, and all the stupid things you say when you’re seventeen. Parking lot.

Grocery chain. Gas station. Confederate flag. Unclench your fists. Say “you’re welcome.” Grow

up already. Private living community. Pretend to be the polite girl your mom’s

coworkers said she was. Gated playground. Freshly removed monkey bars. Mom’s

favorite beach has become a vacation hub. Marsh drained to build more tourist homes.

Old Town, old church, Old Oyster Factory Park. Selfishly beg to not change. You gotta grow

up eventually. Christian chicken. Ghost jobs. Closed on Sundays. Better to be behind bars

than drowning in one. The kids chased from the churches fly north. The other lot,

getting engaged in their teens, swears they’ll flock back like spawning salmon; they can go

hours out and still come back to restart the cycle. “By the way, they closed the indoor go-

kart track already. Sorry you missed it.” Swamp Field. Club lacrosse. Mom’s

tradition. There’s nothing left for you here beyond pluff mud, palmetto bugs, lots

of disappointed advisors, wisdom teeth. Trade a dying town for a dying art. Everyone says home

is where the heart is, but yours must’ve changed. Coffee shop. Designer store. Set a high bar

to reach; you can’t thrive without a plan. Hospital. Water tower. Grow up, grow

out of your old clothes. Go home. Say you’re sorry. It’s better to be caught dead

anywhere but here, be anywhen but seventeen. Meet your mom at the bar, swear

to never see each other again. Gotta cut the split ends to grow healthy. Storage unit. Empty lot.

just meaningless sex,

she leaves with the moon-lights out;

arrivederci.

and a mother. Still explosive. Mixing potassium and water causes another scene again.

Chase a high if it gets you running, follow the blueprint. Addiction is the family’s best friend.

Get creative. Even Frankenstein feared the monster he made. Overdose on caffeine again.

O Sophia, sundrunk, shoved in your closet with you. Eaten alive by our schoolgirl secrets,

tell me when it hurts you too. Bless me, suffocate me. I dream for you to be seen again.

Retire 17, leave no legacy, erase the history. Such a shame it fell onto someone like me,

unremarkable, egotistical. Find solace. Remember I’ll never be seventeen again.

Magpies despise owls and tainted sparrows. I couldn’t make her love me if I tried.

Just too much for prospective eaters. Look at this, I’m looking green again.

Reflections don’t look right anymore. The body’s not right. The face isn’t pretty. Picture

imperfect. My ribs are gone now. For what? Looks like the mirror’s being mean again.

Baptized in the fountain of youth, huffing gasoline and burning dopamine. I wish my world

was small as a tangerine. If I run back to God’s Grace I might finally be clean again.

with her absence. adorned with a rotting wreath of laurels,

clinging to the poet’s virtue and excellence with bony arms

crossed over the chest. brown eyes refusing to stop beholding

the sick yellow sky of the coast. i can’t fathom to think about

where all her color went, possibly all poured into her paintings;

the still sea life’s animator succumbing to a still, stiff death.

pour out all the medicine, pour yourself another drink

to cope, pour half of it out at the end of the night, don’t even pretend

to be able to swallow past the sobs.

there’s carnation petals dashed across the casket. no violet

funeral flower will fill the empty space or put the air back

in my lungs or make her laugh again. she left in a flash and fire

and there was nothing left under the ashes. there’s no safety to be found

in candles of childhood scents or sea salt-stained shirts; the dog’s pacing

around all her old spots. no painted seascape vases of condolence bouquets

takes the sting out of the pity dinners. sell the (now) extra car. no sermon

about plans will ease the terror

of forgetting her face.

Mother Hen’s left her feathers everywhere

they shouldn’t be. she left with her job unfinished, one chick still

hadn’t left her nest. she can’t come running

when her little chick cries. i have to keep out of the kitchen; dreams end

with tears because she’s not waiting

and working in there. she left enough behind to craft brittle seagrass wings but nothing

to teach how to. Mother Hen can hear but not see,

she will not make her way back to me.

there’s nothing left to show for her, no grave no mound no heirloom.

she paid her ferry ride in cowrie shells and we sent her off

with a pink bow. if i knew

what dreams meant i would’ve listened a little harder. good luck

she called, good luck

she took. burn the shells to ashes and purge her of the illness.

rub the salt

into the wound. saturate the ash

box with salt water. even if time is the tide, surely it’s still not unreasonable

for the child to beg

for her sandcastle and all her shell decorations to be untouched

or to cry

when it washes out despite it. some god

the ocean is, to take her when she loved

it so. if the child is selfish for asking to keep her, then he’s just

as guilty for taking

her for himself.

The Mother of Pearls left her paints to dry

out; under the blue shell, green sand dollar, red crab, all hung low enough

to keep eyes on us, but too high

for me to ever reach. the dust catches the late noon sunlight as it settles

in the empty bedroom, a million

little stars of dead material, dancing around the site of demise,

clogging lungs, spoiling appetites, watering eyes.

Our Mother

who art in niente

if i call your name

can you tell me

if you still love me

from wherever that is.

from sand and parasites in rocky estuarine reefs

off the coast. When I was young I didn’t know

that they meant my oyster was sitting in the Chesapeake. No one told me

I’d be sitting in dirty water, begging to rot before the disease

can get to me. Suffocating in shit water would be nicer,

would be easier than watching everyone get plucked

out, scraped for whatever they can get. Instead I carry

the misfortune, the unluck of getting to watch

the want eclipse the need. Over and over and over and over-

fishing. Three percent of history remains. This

is the bay I’ve inherited. Fuck you, how dare you?

Actually how could you? This is my grand inheritance. This

is the great earth, where I can hold my whole future

in maybe a hand and a half. I’m scraping coffee residue

out of cups looking for an answer in anything, praying

to different rocks for a change, analyzing dreams for a prophecy

to cling to. “Julien, you gotta look ahead. You gotta think

about your future.” Okay, I’m seeing blood and bricks, bottles smashed

over heads, kissing the star-boots paid to be paved in the boulevard.

It’s impossible to sob through smoke-fucked lungs,

heaving with plastic-shredded intestines. The city is gray and God forbid

God flashes a rainbow if the clouds ever let up. I watched

my lighthouse crumble and wither and die

in her bedroom; so sorry I only have ink blots for you

to diagnose me with. By the way, that one looks like another oil spill.

Sorry, we can’t do much about this one or the last or the next because that’s profit

lost. Sorry about your reefs and your fish and your oysters.

Just pass me the cigarette, the bottle, the blunt, the pills, the pen, let me chase the high-vice

of the next generation. All I’ve got to look for is waking up

to new scratches, just some proof I didn’t miss the rapture

and the blood is still flowing. There are graves to dance on

before I get in one. But God, fuck. The world is ending

and I have a headache. They’ll steal the spots off a ladybug

just to have more to show Charon. I hope they drop

something on their way out so I can pay my own ferry off.

Else I’ll be pickpocket-ravaging the anglerfish corpse

as she shrivels on my shore.

Where are my oysters? I was promised an oyster.

the prey that knows whose jaws it runs into.

once fooled is an accident. twice fooled is a lesson.

thrice fooled and Mary gives up on you. and yet

we just get worse. take me here in the green. think about it.

call it modern art. modern poetry. the contrast of

the beauty and the scene. the heart and the teeth.

a want and a need. the devotion and the consumption.

spring and winter. pollen and blood.

life and death. love and sex. do you carve

with a knife or your claws? are you

a woman or a wolf? do you tear

with your fingers or your tongue? can i call you beautiful

before you go for the throat? i’ve got a burning

itch in my gut when you’re around, you could start in there.

or you could try to take a look at the flutter-thud

of my heart. i’ll do whatever you want. be whatever

you need. i’ll sit here, laid out for your dinner, warm fresh

frozen fawn. a note taped to the front

DEAD DOG

PLEASE EAT

and just put me down. we don’t have to talk

about it. i’ll clean up the bile. you won’t have to know

about it. i’m poised beside the highway. i’m ready

to become roaddeer. deerkill. buzzkill. i crash the party and leave bloody.

what else is meant to happen? and what happens now?

i need you, you hold me,

you eat me, i sob about romance.

there couldn’t be more. couldn’t be less.

it could be better. could be worse.

but by god, this is it.

i am devoured.

to have done what we’ve done. the sunrise shimmered

with the same shade of blue and yellow we held each other

to. your face was red and your eye was black. i didn’t know

what to say, and it feels wrong to say i’m sorry about it

now, sorry. i didn’t know what to say, so i stood there

and let you wail. wail and wail and wail. i’m sorry.

you screamed until your chest hurt, i could tell

by the way you breathed. i spent so many afternoons and nights

pressed up against you that i learned a little. it hurt you so bad

to let all that out, but it hurt you so bad to not. what did you want

me to do? you wouldn’t let me touch you, but what did you want

more than that? i’m sorry. but whenever you’re ready,

you can come home. you can come home years and a day later

and i’ll be right here. the sunset will glow

with a deeper, more mature blue and gold, but it’s still the same sky

after all this time, isn’t it? your face will still be red

but i’ll still be soft. you’ll lunge and i’ll take you in my arms like nothing

ever happened. i’ll hold you and give you the you’re just as beautiful

as the day i lost you line. you’ll look at me and ask how

i can remember you and i ask you how can i not? we were girls together.

you’ll start crying and i’ll tell you about my dream

about you so you laugh at me so you laugh. i want to see you

smile again because i’ve missed it so. i’ve missed you so.

whenever you’re ready, i’ll be waiting back home.

i’m sorry. i miss you. i love you.

is out. we had a candle, but a cop pulled someone over

right outside and instead we’re bathed in blue and drowning

in noise. we’ve got half a bowl of cookie dough

to go through, dropping lumps on the baking sheet

one by one. we’re more stoned than Saint Stephen,

but we’re floating in the sea those lights send

upon us. you know, we’d get through this faster

if you didn’t cling to me like this. wrapped around

my waist, sitting your leg between mine, glued

to my arm, cupping my cheeks, you keep shifting

every minute. looking at you, all of your blue beauty,

you open your mouth but all i hear is a muffled car door

slamming shut. you stare, expecting answers

to leave my mouth instead of smoke. i just stare

with stupid, swamp grass eyes and tilt my head up to you.

if i strained my ears enough and had half a sober mind

i might’ve been able to make out the cop saying something

resembling words. you pity me, like you should,

and you bring your sapphire lips to mine. you aren’t going

to save me. one day, you’re going to take

your hands where they don’t belong. you’ll reach

into the cookie jar for these then-stale cookies. i’ll throw you out

and i’ll spend the night puking, sobbing and spitting

that i hope you cut your foot on the shattered bottle on the sidewalk

that no one’s swept up. the cop car outside gives one last whoop

of its sirens and for a moment we think we finally went deaf,

but the blue lights still whirl around the room. we’re still

bathed in blue, but now i can hear the cute yawn-gasp-noise

that slips past your lips when you stretch. you make me use my words

to ask for another kiss, now. we’ve still got half a bowl of cookie dough

to go through. i think i lost the spoon somewhere.

and see what She becomes. long curls and short skirts.

eye candy for me, not for thee. so much makeup

that She leaves stains on my cheeks when we kiss

that i almost don’t want to scrub off. nails so long

and sharp that it makes me glad we’re only using lips

in this dark corner of the party; She rakes streaks that ripen red

all along my arms and shoulders. She giggles and twirls

as She dances, She knows all the world is Hers

to hold. i’m left blind by Her heavy perfume. Her jewelry jingles

with every jerk and reach and grab. She whispers and sighs

as She tilts my head around, she knows i’m Hers to keep

in the palm of her hand. Aphrodite in heels atop of me,

i am no better. this is what real worship is.

or displace the man and replace him. become the man

but more. buzzcuts and button-ups. muscles and tattoos

accentuated in the lowlights, piercings sparkling in the highlights.

half-finished bottle between Her fingers, heady alcohol breath

between Her lips, well-worn jeans between my legs.

She chuckles and whispers against my skin with that confident voice.

She lets me touch and hold like i’m learning a map in braille. in our dark corner

i might as well be. She knows the body better than…

do we really have to keep bringing up men? he couldn’t dream of comparing;

She’s everything he wish he was but isn’t, and She has everything

he wishes he did but doesn’t. keys on a carabiner clink

every time She shifts below me. She has a bush more sacred

than those in Eden were. how could anyone want anything less?

but God gives a halo to every girl between, too. praise be

to dresses and suits and sweaters and tanks. She flaunts an attraction

that would make Sappho proud and an angelic glow.

eyeliner you could fly with, cologne you could drown in.

She was given a universe and She chose to be all of it. glossy lips

leave shining trails on my skin as She follows with teeth.

blasphemy could never be an option for me. She’s everything

and nothing the world wants her to be. and when it ends

over it, i hope the Rapture never comes so Girl’s Night lasts like this forever.

and i hate the way smoke clings to the back of my throat.

i want to bite, to taste flesh and blood to soothe,

but the sting of her mint toothpaste rings through my veins when she bites back.

smoke clings to the back of my throat;

wrapped in skin and heat and passion, i can’t breathe.

the sting of her mint toothpaste rings through my veins

with every threat she whispers softly.

i can’t breathe wrapped in skin and heat and love.

i know, love. i know, love. i know, love.

she whispers every threat low and soft.

hell comes to the desperate in a ribbon-wrapped heart.

i know love, i know love, i know love,

and it only comes to me when she’s in my bones.

hell comes gift-wrapped to the desperate hearts,

unraveled by nails like knives and teeth like guns.

she only comes to get inside my bones.

she looks like flowers, but she feels like fucking fire.

dissected by nails like knives and teeth like guns,

i want to bite, to taste the flesh and blood, and to pretend to be loved.

got jumpscared on main and took it as my sign to start my summer writing sooooo yeah that’s fun