Photography by Chanel Irvine

 

we laugh in our rummage sale kitchen

flat soda water mixed with room temperature despair

are we lost?

who asked that —

you say, it’s not a question; the question would be “who didn’t?”

 

sometimes i think about kissing you — not like a fantasy

 

i just think about holding your face, tender. stroking the part of your ear that curls like the beach near my house. my old house.

maybe i am lost.

 

later on you’ve complimented my hair; possibly for infinity: but

there’s not enough time to be anywhere

else. right now is too fierce.

 

you step over the splinter floorboard to come outside, kind of shinning like a madonna

 

i don’t particularly know what a madonna would look like — we must all have our own madonnas

the night has already ended,

but it was never meant to come; not Tuesday.

 

i roll you one

because you sat down —

and i don’t attempt to find the lighter not just yet. i can hold it here for a moment, toe-tapping;

you haven’t refused

yet.

 

and you (this) makes me think of golden

light; filling me; rusting me. away.