your british mom doesn’t call me a dyke | since i stopped drinking | cctv footage of two women kissing
by Ky Lohrenz
illustration courtesy of by Ulysseus Yarber
your british mom doesn’t call me a dyke
but
but
gave me
enough
body scrub
to drown
myself
in the guest-
room tub
cut her
kindness
with a fork
in between her
teeth
between
your mouth
in my hot red sun
& i guess that isn’t the same
but
she stunk of
non-gmo fruit
&
a house smells
like nothing
unless you don’t
belong there
sometimes,
i picture you
eating
a kraft single
off my sternum
in the kitchen where
she called me scum
do
you?
does that help
you
remember me
before,
we spent
thirty-two hours
in the bathtub
boiling
into peach
mush.
i licked pastel
from your legs
until they pruned.
you bled
the water pink
each month,
you bleed for the both of us
each month
i pretend
an egg drops soup-
like down my spine
& name our future
kids. until
shadows
start sloughing
backwards off
the walls into
a pelvic echo
&
maybe
if we get out of here alive
i’ll take you
in your childhood
home. maybe then
you’ll be close
enough to watch
an egg drop or
have our mothers
meet
or watch
dirty water
flow
so easily
between two
heads.
i haven’t cleaned your tub since you left.
so i can count
these red rings
like an oak.
a new life with
my fingers stuck
inside you. still unsure
how long i can last
in a body
made for salt.
since i stopped drinking
i drive with the lights off
to know a black out.
car against roadkill
against
against
how a cow sounds
when she cries. something like
screen doors something
ominous. his face
i see in hayfields farmers
piss on or burn in the winter.
i age each time
i take this drive
this dive into
a dead red barn
state.
triangle roofs
rotten wood paneling
choking on
thin skunk air.
sheep sleep standing
in the dark
upright bleating
this whole county blue
again.
sunday nights are quiet here
like blonde hair
on the back of her
thighs like bloody gums
like a hot hand on me
before i got fucked.
like his
whisper
in my throat
that whole
time in pieces
still.
when I squint at the road
i think i’m dead. some
static state. like a tongue
the color of
red barns
triangle roofs
rotten wood
paneling in a
broken jaw.
if i squint
i see myself in the arc of the moon
if i
thrust the color of an open wound—
triangle barns red
roofs rotten panels
choking on a harvest of
clouds hang low tonight.
mouth against
red dust sky
against roadkill
against
something
in this dead part of
myself revived.
there will be no
bad surprises
with her fingers in
my mouth. ecstatic.
cctv footage of two women kissing
sometimes i watch
mechanic moths
collecting in corners—
four wings that move like
fifty. gray & ugly.
some distraction
from
how they tackle
bodies in these man—
made lakes. watch us
squirm beneath them, these moths
we are, craving
the light of their
pretty little cunts.
decimating us
so good
i forget
we’re losing air. so good
my un-
hinged
body shreds
itself.
sometimes i smell the sound of wind
cat litter
cocaine kitchen
sink
i will drown
in it again
with my knees
pools below
them
pulling me upward into their humid cavern.
years ago,
his pull instead.
a buoy, a boy.
up & down
&
i write this backwards
forwards
& i’m still
lapping up
dish water
in the deep end.
i stutter
with his fingers in my mouth. resist the urge to chew.
i’m coming out
of myself now.
unravelled,
reravelling
i mean there was a time
i thought feeling meant
swallowing
enough
sharp objects
to cut myself
from the inside
out.
i mean
i mean
it took skill
to collect all those
men inside me flat
like paper dolls.
i’d die of paper cuts if it wasn’t for you.
i’m a moth attached
to the light of your lips.
zap me so sharp
i explode
back into the heat
of myself.
spit in my mouth
like a sonnet.
until you’re carved
in the shape of a lamp
on my chest. i can feel it,
fluorescent heat, yours.
about Ky (she/her)
Ky Lohrenz is a queer experimental poet from Houston, Texas. She is the Associate Press Poetry Editor at Sunset Press based at Kenyon College. Find her work in streetcake magazine.
Twitter: @kelohrenz