“they wish i didn’t plant myself / on the ground like a black seed / waiting for an uprising to bloom / while their song pollinates the air.”

“we decorate the wall / me, makeshift animal tasting his body & / man / what species invented boredom / a god’s plague / lust / Before kissing he asked me which body / I wanted & sighed / like surrender / when I held myself.”

“i am moaning / for everything they took— / my home, my kin, and / yes, even, / for my predators.”

“no matter how many hands take aim / her own will always be the surest. jade / -veined & her eyes jaded as envy & all / the more precious for the colour.”

“someone I love is praying in another language / I don’t know all the words but I know / what it means—oh g-d of my specific trauma / o god of my specific hunger / blur my face / it has been splattered into someone else’s / lazy joke”

“It’s enough. Teeth are temporarily purpled in real life and blacked-out pixel by pixel onscreen after a bloody scrap. Something inside the boys is glad to erupt. Chaos commences. The boy welcomes an elbow to the temple with a roar and a punch to the thigh. A cacophony of violent joy strolls through the house, awaiting the inevitable misinterpretation.”

“i summon the soft texture of love from absence’s mouth / leaning into the sickle moon’s quiet body your warm breath close / before i fall away from you into my own knowable place”

“there’s so much to grieve over. / for instance, my ribs, / waiting to lie down in the / grass, waiting to become. / playground for beetles. feast for crows / i call this: inevitability. ”