Trash Girl
I can’t believe I moved to Los Feliz
with you—the neighborhood’s cool,
but it’s a trash house. Everything’s paid sponsorship.
How is this your job?
But it’s right for you, trash girl––
I mean, who doesn’t like attention,
but it’s like you don’t care what happens
to you. Like you knew that your pink
hair would make that old guy watch you, that going
to the casino with that literal Prince would be a dance with rehab.
You collect: money, feelings, fasting, obsession, side boob—
who even looks at you? Let’s go out on Hillhurst
with Tyler. He’ll blast music from his car
and do bicep curls. I haven’t had a good laugh
since you thought you could pull off tie-dye
bike shorts. Let’s watch him pick up girls. Come on.
Get up from your trash heap. Your heart is not
your phone. Both are working, just no one cares.
I wish you could see
how you look right now. Take a selfie.
You’ll never know how much of a stranger
you are in your body.
Everybody sees it but you.
That’s what they’re really looking at—
liking, hearting, the disconnect.
We whisper about it in the kitchen
between peptide shots.
This would be a beautiful place to die—
when everyone goes to the beach on Wednesday.
Like a movie: golden hour, you spread
out on that sofa or on the lonely planks,
pills rising over your mouth like a riptide.
At least then you wouldn’t have to keep choosing
this version of yourself. Fuck, it’s so hot
in here. Don’t turn on the AC. It has a hex on it––
Jacob cursed it because he thought it was the reason
he didn’t get that sponsorship. Something about dry skin.
I know you’re worried that living here
is a reflection of you—
these trash people.
You should worry.
It is.
Listening to Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
In the thirst
of the August night,
he confessed
to becoming a mushroom
and told me
my crotch was a forest.
For years, my dreams
had plotted a new life
with room to stretch
into all the corners of me,
to lie lengthwise
and swim in the rhythms
of an unforged self.
But for now,
I’m in a bed alone, waiting.
Listening for things
to be different,
bigger and smaller,
or to stand still forever.
I had a baby—
Henrietta.
She ran around the house
with vines of curls, her blooming smile,
and like slime mold,
always found a way
out of my grasp.
The fan flashes on my face
wet from sweat and tears,
and the sound of Merlin’s voice—
like spores splitting me open.
We are the mushroom.
We are the humid summer,
the darkness,
the little running girl
who will always be and never was.
Ecstatic is loss.
Image by Europeana on Unsplash