To be some oddity that I can construe

so that it can be blindly consumed:

starfruit, a braid of chamomile, a love letter

written in crayon. I’ve always admired

how anything without blood & marrow

can be teeming with love in a dream;

how those who crave this world most are those

desiring to exist somewhere between edging & being

edged. A balance of sadism & masochism.

A flourish of humanity rupturing from both ends.

Every now & then, I am overcome by

the feeling of want. I imagine wandering

up Main Street, past the magnolias in bloom &

cigarillo butts strewn along the street, white wicks

lit again & again in a season of leucism.

I am a glutton for many things: small starbursts

of porcelain flowers & smoke hugging my lungs

during winter. I imagine scribbling I was here

in the margin of “call for a good time” phone

numbers & jack-knife etchings of massive penises

on the inside of a bar bathroom stall. How candid a cry

for consolation when it’s nowhere to be found.