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Twist

By Olivia Qi

Illustration by Allen B. Thangkhiew

Split seed 
Scattered fluff
Pollen out of bounds
Brushing past
Open palms
Dandelion twisting in the air
My head’s a sea of gray.

My mind asks body
How much harder is it to stay buried beneath the earth
With nowhere but to grow?
And my cavern body her eyes are gone
She cannot read the question.

I’m in love with sweat on close wound fists
I’m in love with the sound a bolt door makes when knocked upon the second time
These escapades of pressing into wind
Turned cold
Take me in
Away from this long drawn pelvic shiver.

I only fuck banks on Sundays after 5 pm
Undress movies 20 minutes late
Making love to the broken pieces of myself I find in the bodies of another
And then to watch them drop again
And then to pick it up
Off the floor.

When did I peel the snake and crawl inside its discard skin?

Why do poems about the sweet never write themselves so easy?

On the phone my mother says:
You’re scared because you love like me
You pour it all
We don’t love easy
We don’t love in the shallows.

It’s so simple to sandpaper drag your legs dry on this empty beach
To fuck in dive bar bathroom stalls
To show and tell what sits between your legs like the modern art woman
Hung inside her bullet proof casings
Fantastic easy stories
Much more fascinating
To stop
Pull words beneath the wave

The gate creaks open and shut
And now I’m leaving
It’s been 3 years-maybe more
Did it always do this

This harsh metal scream?

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Posted On: August 20, 2024
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