“We have much to learn about you, about your body”

“Sometimes, belonging to a place means longing to leave it. Sometimes it means knowing you can always go back.”

“Call this depression on a midnight chime where the dog comes out of a clock and yelps 12 times to compete with my own.”

say elevator. say sidewalk.

say water different than
your mother says it,

cradling the edges inside the bowl
of your mouth.

The other day, the tyrant said, hate has
no place in our country, while naming the
wrong city where the tragedy occurred,
and I thought: Is man no more than this.

Should I pretend
the desire was new? The list of girls I still
want to be is mental.