Ariel
I woke to chiseled walls.
Though the jagged hole,
the grey ocean—
your taut, coarse beard
an extension
of island paradisio.
Probing, as you ran your fingers
over your scalp, you kept asking
kept pushing me to ask myself
How did that feel? how did that feel?
Child, study,
naked,
airy, genderless,
I was too sane.
I was whatever
you made me. When you wanted
I spoke as thunder.
Hurricane
There is no outlet.
Rain has shut off the roads.
I have spent hours watching a hooked semi-colon
spinning across the news screen leaving a bright red
line in its wake. A loud,
relaxing noise takes over as water rushes
out of the showerhead and I step past
candles lit on the sink. The last hot water.
Body wash foams against my skin, building,
as I think, Let your childhood go.
Tired, drizzly fodder.
You’re not who you were then anymore.
You were never abused. You were not.
I open my eyes to the curtain illuminated:
dolphins swimming across the plastic aqua expanse.
I turn the water off and hear the muffled
sounds: the drain, the room
above, the fan spinning cool air shifting
the steam. A spider dangles from under the airless,
rusted green radiator.
When I swing my hand across it, its string
sticks to my skin. It looks at me with its teeth.
Against the building, gaining, the wind
pulling harder.
