"guzzle I," "guzzle III," "guzzle IV," "guzzle VII"
guzzle I [i have no urge]
i have no urge to pronounce myself prey
so thin-limbed its terror looks like dancing
i want more of everything
including mortal thirst
the verb to bless is rooted in bleeding
false cognate with bliss
the beauty i’ve learned is still slick
with the blood it erases
for years i compare translations of emptiness
like with the right word i’d know what i meant
touch me the way initials touch a tree.
deeper. please.
guzzle III [somewhere nearby]
somewhere nearby is a forest on fire
i looked at the sun. it looked like the moon.
i wrote the word real with a knife
and showed no one
i looked in my heart
and all i found was blood
when i say blue i mean blue
no, blue. deeper.
i steam up the glass
of the real and scratch
a fly lands on my knee
it washes its hands
guzzle IV [the thought walked in]
the thought walked in, demanded veins, branches,
wires. what if reality is only consensus?
a sapphire crushed by a slow-motion hammer
an axe, a lake, a sky blue as burnt eyes
you told me you scraped your hands to the bone,
then held them up—miraculous, scarless
once again i quit hunger but still feel my body:
anemia, nemesis, anamnesis, amen
in a dream i walk through a burning door
when i wake nothing is obviously changed
guzzle VII [you were kind]
you were kind to your mother’s cat
or not cruel. she can walk through
walls, you said. i want to believe naïve’s
the wrong word here. but i believed.
there is a theory that made in [ ]’s image means the ability
to create. to imagine, redesign, disobey. disobedience holy.
i like to try on personalities, you said, and see
what other people reveal. or maybe you said,
what i can make them do. we took the train to the end
of the line, let the night drink us like glasses of water.
symptoms are creatures changed by their naming
and i was nameless, a lumen, a flute.
loneliness is when we are closest to god
someone writes on a forum.
clockwork, before the last bus of the night
you started to cry. sleep here, you said.
another time, i can cry on command.
another, i made a woman with my mind
and wrung her neck. when i say belief
i mean something to plead to
at the end of the mind.
you knew what i meant.
