read

Salt steaming off the skin and softened fingertips entirely brainlike beneath a gentle rain the conditioner burns your eyes You cannot see your belly but you can taste the damp hair the naked legs and the whole sad world of touch and color just beyond this plastic veil Out there in soft focus the well-adjusted whet their nail clippers and casually incise Slide supine into the shower drain and be swallowed whole.

It seems I was trained to win from the beginning but please don’t film me in my feelings please do a photo instead. Yeah, I work at street food I’m the one making the waffles I’ve been trained for love from the start and I can have as many free waffles as I want. Please don’t film me while I’m feeling things please do a photo instead do a photo of me making waffles I could even share some of the free ones I get with you.

After school I used to take the bus around Seattle. With some older girls, we walked through furniture stores and sat down on the beds. Sometimes I thought of stealing but my fingers were too small. And I couldn’t wait for growing, for my eyes to wake up, for watching more reels of rocks thrown over bridges more clearly, for my hair to grow long, and my nipples to shrink. To find my way home, I spoke with every old guy on the plane I said it over and over to taste my own perfect name. We loitered until closing, contemplating tables and lamps. I’d put a desk by the window and a big, fluffy rug. Jasmine, who shared a bedroom with four brothers, suggested a code on the toilet bowl. I found it strange when she thanked God for finally growing up and declared myself an atheist. But still I cried when I heard the uttered Shma at night, male children at the mall with mom, Christians on hikes. I grew and grew and filled the whole store up to feel fingers on my back at the long day’s end. I swiped to the top of my camera roll to see if I’d make a good friend. It’s the Last white rhino of all the good things you need to buy. On a bus to somewhere else, got off before your bus arrived. Here I pressed my lips together, prayed for rain between our knees, and imagined a new house that could surely never be.

Adult, my adult, jealous of your love and the way you do it Adult, schedule on the wall jealous of your Sunday the way you do it left blank on purpose left blank for Sunday My adult, jealous of your face kissing the Cartoon touching the Cartoon kissing the Cartoon and the way you do it I am ten meters from the place you crawled to earlier this morning when the street was still off but the places you crawled and the way you did it I’m almost proud, adult.