At our burial
there will be Tiger Lilies. McDonalds will cater, and ugly pictures of us will play on slideshow, 1987 (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life on permanent loop in the background. Everybody has their own ideas of romance. I knew this wasn’t yours the sound of a kitchen timer, the smell of burnt as I hard-boil myself alive, like a lobster or a bald white egg, I thought, maybe this is how I love myself, through constant burials, a new coat of feathers and lipstick, out with the old in with the new, how can I dig this grave any deeper? On D-day I dress in expiration dates meant for apples, so I smelled of apples, and you smelled of elsewhere, I wanted San Diego, an Air BNB with a blue-eyed husky, a pit bull, two cats, sweatshirts on the Pacific and breakfast eating sunrise, the snap of Nylon, fingering Mars among the stars, the hush of cicadas and a summer moon. The coffin comes September with a stick shift where we sing early 2000s pop punk and slip into dusk like a coat or a corn husk, I blink serrated. On highway 101 I watch forest fires. I strip down like Las Vegas. I ask, is it not important to hold burials for parts of yourself? Perhaps plutonium, two defibrillator paddles, an electric current at exactly the right moment would revive what could not survive on it’s own. The cogs of a watch glued to my palm, a Dali clock melted on my shoulder like a dumb parrot. The next time I see you I will not be the same.
Games
You’re with the boy and the boy turns you into different animals.
This time, obviously a deer. You drink Dogfish Head IPAs and play Texas Holdem and get uncomfortable around his friends.
You attract his attention. You do a good job.
You feel like a home after the home has been abandoned. The boy is the opposite of a mirror.
Remember Greek Easter, a pig roasting in the backyard. This time, you are the pig. Take everyone’s advice.
Watch how he fights with his mother.
Chloe Marisa Blog is a poet and educator from Huntington, New York. She received her BA in English and Creative Writing from Binghamton University where she won the Alfred Ben Dixon Award for best honors thesis in 2016. Her poetry often explores the ways in which anger, shame, and sexuality are tied to the development of femininity. She loves wisteria plants, oyster shells, and clunky black combat boots. She is currently an MFA candidate at New York University.
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