Jack Meriwether

How To Celebrate Cheaply

Pour wine into a thimble and cheers.

Dusty lasagna. Glitter cheese. Birthday cake.

Economy of intimacy means an open bar

and poorly translated sex talk.

Sex as landscape, lover as terrain.

Economy of love means you go to work

with cum stains on your jumpsuit

and I'm writing this on the back of a paycheck

which bounced.

Rationed intimacy means vegan foreplay

and no, I'll sleep at your place tonight, salud.

Looking for the party, we kiss

by the entrance to the home for the criminally insane.

We spin our wheels in derelict tenement pop-up galleries.

We say this place must cost a fortune. We whisper

free-range, cruelty-free sweet nothings, happy birthday.

I use your body to remind myself of mine.

I fall asleep hungry

and wake with sugar in my mouth.

A Case for Makeup

I have walked into rooms bare-faced

And bled capillaries onto wooden pulpits.

I have confessed

And torn tendons

Into burning roses

Watching it ash from a dark balcony.

My acne scars told you the truth.

And when that was not enough

I drank the saliva

Evaporating from my tongue

And told lies so divine

Your ears burned.

I cried on the steps of the cathedral

While you screamed the truth

Shall set you free. Yes.

Naked skin will disenthrall you.

The truth shall throw you into the night

Genuflecting for a self to wear.

Jack Meriwether is a writer and performer from Ohio, currently living and working in New York City. Their writing has most recently been featured in Leste Magazine, Dum Dum Zine, and The Dandelion Review. Jack's writing explores queer identity and desire, which they incorporate into their movement-based performance work. See more of Jack's work at jackmeriwether.com.