by Gion Davis
Text your glamorous friend
in their better city something
incriminating and selfish.
Buy a vibrator with your
royalties. Prefer men
to landscapes. Listen
to that Joni Mitchell record
with the big scratch
on the B side. Live inside
the scratch. Feel
like everyone who loves
you is a better person
than you. Try to sink.
Try to drain. Get your
ass grabbed. Spool
apart like honey
in a homemade
centrifuge. Wrestle
your sister to the ground
until the neighbors
call the cops. Stay
home from the house
party. Spend your
birthday hangover
looking for the naked guy
with the infected lotus
tattoo. Find him
strung out under
your roommate’s mom’s
crocheted quilt
on the living room
floor. See the same band
fifteen times. Wear
your friend’s slip dress.
Snort ketamine off
her fist. Laugh when
someone who saw your
tits ten years ago says
he’ll miss them. Remember
that a fluke is a worm
or the man who was killed
by a deer that ran
through the plate
glass door of the bus
he was driving and kicked
him to death in his
seatbelt. Be told you
will forget everything.
Remember it
anyway. Become
angelic in your
hospital bed. Feel
left out when the hawks
circling you speak
to each other. Return
to your body like a wasp
into the vinegar trap.
Learn to love this,
the only thing you’ll
own forever.
Gion Davis is a trans poet from Española, New Mexico where he grew up on a sheep ranch. His poetry has been featured in HAD, MAYDAY Magazine, Sprung Formal, and others. His debut collection Too Much (2022)was selected by Chen Chen for the 2021 Ghost Peach Press Prize. He graduated with his MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2019 and currently lives in Denver, Colorado. Gion can be found on Instagram @starkstateofmind & on Twitter @gheeontoast.