I HAVE NOTHING BUT TIME
a field of wheat
a soft-boiled egg
I shit on your lawn
at sunrise
it rains
a woman sorts cans
under the magnolia
wings unfurl
in the hole
you made for me
I chew your bones
in my sleep
place an ember
on the carpet
the manic birds
watch me
reject my wrist
each month
I lie down
I get up
aerate my pussy
in the dead
of day
to admit
the pink wind
is your finger
in my mouth
is not a display
of longing
it’s an exercise
in painting a pearl
to resemble an orange
to sit in the company
of my own trash
to eat a sugar doughnut
on the toilet
q-tip
potato rind
dino floss
FOREPLAY DIALECTIC
I love you : Come meet me in my soundsystem
You are a field : Under the sternum
When you think of me : The wound seeps clear fluid
What happened to your bowl cut : A gas station will ache
The river is full of whitewater : Hold my throat like an expensive jar of jam
The ache is an indestructible ache : A ball gag is a hymn
This trail leads to the top of the mountain : An ingrown hair dies and is reborn
This trail feels like an indirect route : Stop writing about lights
The word inflammation traces back to Latin for to set afire : My hair is on fire
Come meet the inside of my medicine cabinet : I paint my tongue a redder red
A hospital gown is not the opposite of a rainstorm : The lamp is on fire
The stranger talks about his wife : Resurrection is an abandoned washcloth
My therapist has a bad eye : On the days it flares up, I feel closer to her
SENSODYNE
My computer complains
of a misplaced pain
color distortion
malaise, I am working
on writing what I know
cloud formations
klonopin hacks, carving
away this sheet mask
with a butter knife
my sharpened thumb
burning lavender to delete
the white wall, making lovers
cosmically disappear
in the banquet hall eating ribs
propped up on my elbows
on the bathroom floor
it’s my routine
how they cum
when they see me
at my most deadpan
while avoiding eye contact
with my scar,
don’t worry I will cover it for you
with my hand
I am still a shy squatter
walking through the grocery store
with Plan B and arugula
behind my back
I am writing an elegy
to my perforated mouth
AUTOIMMUNE
arrow
pierces
electric and dull
hovers
makes no noise
bathtub
forearm
Vicodin
plum
canker
abdomen
piece of
tarp
over
underwater in the ocean in the bathtub in the operating room the ceiling circles itself the IV monitor makes sounds that are cut into squares the panacea dries a hardening white drip drip snag mine darling vile lie back hum
fibers grow
together a sutured mouth
still swallows
Cleo Abramian‘s work has appeared in Foundry Journal, Hyperallergic, and elsewhere. She is currently an MFA candidate at UMass Amherst’s Poetry program.