Window
Swallowing the shock of Wednesday,
I stand on a train. My forehead is crinkled
until
I scribble fuck,
Jess, not even honest in a journal. My
silence all around me: leather-smell and
skin-hush.
The lean and pull into morning and someone’s
satin cheeks.
The conductor, rude one with the why I oughta voice. And the
wondering where you are. Not here to tell me I
look like a painting,
naked before your dragging hair. Not smoking
by the window,
ashing on to the roof. We’re not discussing
dubstep or
conscious rap nor are we surveying our legs,
the striking
difference. You’re not disappointing me with
track marks
or a text message. Holding the pole, I’m far
from the
forest of your chest, or a poem (though I get
off at Brighton and
try to imagine you as a child). I’m not in
your parents’
basement, asleep on a tigur fur. We’re not
watching
stand-up, comatose in t-shirts. You’re not
negotiating dust
or becoming a mirage. I’m not in schoolgirl
socks begging you to come around.
Help
“I have loved my pure Muse but I have not
respected her; I have been unfaithful to her
and often took her to places that were not fit
for her to go.”
-Anton
Chekhov, Letters
I have
traded love for aesthetic.
and you,
bitcoins for heroin.
Bodies
in flower. Loveless dust.
Upset
skin begging for a hint
and a
hand on the thigh, old story.
Such is
the violence of mornings.
We get
up, drive to separate
meetings.
Our portraits rattle,
find a
muse. Or find nothing.
Let out
your big blue arms.
There is
some grace in neglect,
our
found place.
Heaven
When you
fell did it hurt,
oh,
angel-in-disgust?
Angel
we’ve heard on high —
in
thigh-highs,
drooling
angel.
Oh,
lo-fi angel with
shoe-gazing
halo.
Commuter
angel, non-churchgoing
angel.
St.
Aquinas-reading angel.
Indoctrinated
angel.
P&L
angel.
A textbook angel.
American-enough
angel.
Codependent
angel.
Angel in
American Apparel.
Angel
eating egg-rolls,
on
couch, waiting.
Sun-avoidant
angel,
self-taught
angel.
Angel-hairs
black, parted.
Angel in
love.
Draining
box wine,
fetishized
angel.
Angel
interrupted,
unmoving,
unanswering.
Oh,
angel, come with me —
you who
landed with grace.
*****
Jessica A. Gonzalez is an editorial assistant and freelance writer and translator based in New Jersey and New York. She recently graduated from Rutgers University with a BA in English and also writes poetry.
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