Jessica Lawson’s poetry has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Cosmonauts Avenue, Dream Pop Journal, TL;DR, The Thought Er
swallowing
to taste admits :: involvement in :: the body parts :: where air sets down
not eating is an activity invert vitality is not and not eating is less a not than a thing a knot in throat that demands none pass
to seal a grin :: as gate against :: the world that is :: the food in it
not eating neither is inertia not eating not eats in a movement there remains not animal remains but remains a motion in the jaw that signals the passage of food not passing a hinge and a safe pausing at the airway to let pass but what lets pass and what passes
to rest a tongue :: to put to bed :: as if in winter :: garden plots
not eating moves through the body as an activity its own breakdown of what is taken in but what is taken in when eating isn’t and what is put out this belly does not inflate as a quiet balloon yet what am i swallowing if not air
to watch the cloud :: heavy with threat :: when water darks :: itself in place
not eating is too deep for kink but i walk through its pleasure the way air walks around sex that broke skin i walk to a garden to lift this shirt and in not eating see each rib in turn announce itself and the pleasure in their greeting is a new and dangerous unmouthed fuck
to make a girl :: to crack the mold :: against her chicken :: head her slut
not eating autoerotic autoerase lifts the number of fingers needed to pluck an exposed rib from the vine break it to pleasure breaking is next to godliness cumming is next to not eating is me removing my own bone hold my bone as a handle to snap to free the rib to hold this part of me apart from me to glory over bone to put rib in my not eating mouth and suck its tip like a cock i stand here sucking my own rib’s cock sucking tongue darting desperate like the face hole of a fallen baby bird i become a baby bird my body cracked a robin’s egg i was raped years ago and after nothing passed inside not even food not even not eating and not eating is a nesting in fuck not eating goes back to the garden only to dress my loins in thundercloud
to hear them out :: to eat me out :: to out my bones :: to bone myself
to be a girl :: to inside out :: to fuck myself :: to never eat
what am i swallowing if not air
Skinning: A Pre-Nup
the undersigned promises to break her like a banana in the event
of dissolution start cut at crown knifing through ghosted fontanelle
promises to section longitude from her head there cuts deep meridians
meridians to cunt breasts not belonging together
make her to strippings muscle to the wind if only the peeled off
protect as if from rain
the children gripping ankle skin
Queer: A Pre-Nup
the undersigned agrees to send air along the tracks of her spine
not knowing her queer queer this kind as always disappearing
the affected party’s desire collects in crescents of ears and others
leg not spread only to expand she fucks the shutters inward
when undersigned and affected pass a street in couple only one
body need contract under gravity of assignment to this and only
this undersigned untold because she never wanted to
scramble to show what her love meant in wake of not meaning
more the undersigned cums the rubbery nub of pencil
erasers affected mouth her tongue disappears in its collection
Heaven: A Testimony
the undersigned nightmares with the seasons memories of a death
that turns the calendar on in dreams the undersigned a child again
chases the body before the body becomes itself a quiet flat line
for all other heartbeats to thunder around
the nightmares undermine as weathering the undersigned tries
to stand a promise next to death dreams of being body large enough
adult now to block with selfshadow a heart dead already
the undersigned harvests new dreamhearts in waking hours
i am the most recent in a series of your attempts to save her
promising yourself taller than tales as she must have looked in your infancy
all your atheism knotted to a fist that pumped me cumming
work a finger through me passageway to spirit work me out ouija
god can’t have her love in your place (but)
the night mines under mine her body dies again
in the tunnels you made me
with child hands
you left them behind skins shed in transit to the next doomed hips
you found fresh love hating me for the rot we are all consigned to
Heaven: Witnesses
when we named an unmade baby after
your dead caregiver we named it
after the last unmade baby from another
failed lover childhood night
mares to unbuck your strength cold sheet
another unblocked death here
and another each of us belonging
more to another than to dying or you
we stand in a row
the women you could not save
holding each a baby
as corsage
stinking
from a death that was not waiting
and always is i was
arrogant to hope
my own children realer than hurried skin
to bind the dream of your book finally shut
god is the birth canal you can’t get back inside
you hate heaven like you hate the taste of milk
your every nightmare is a witness
of your insufficient outrun
my every nightmare is an epiphany
of heat and guts
our baby lives in her egg
blinking stunned
Convulse Map
for Ciara, Chyna, Jaquarrius, Tiara
Everyone with proper identification has a choice in the material composition of the thing they bite down on. Brace to buzz. The switch flips and open tips of fingers turn portal for dozens of nerve spiders, missives through the body. They send the electricity through imagine the joints light like cities while keeping bugged lightening at bay. Who is listening. The children are not old enough to be used converted couched conduits to exchange a knowing hum with the conversion therapist hum to drum and mine too young but luckily for the city council it is easy enough to shade an age. All of this is to say I grew up in Indiana and I am dyke enough to smell burnt hair from a mile away. Four women were murdered this week four women this week were women this week murdered for women this weak panic defense budget national curiosity a natural interest. Everyone certifies their birth into the current. It tells a story to the sea on its way. It makes an excellent spark to conversation, I’m told, if you can cover it in paint white enough. The power that lights a sign is not the power I wish them to rest in. A dream is a wish in quiet wallets, license to spill details to quiet reports. Someone is in for a shock. I light a candle tonight and prepare to seize, biting nothing but the air that makes my face.
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