“ONEIRIC CAROUSEL”

kitten, are you sick enough to 

fantasize getting hit on Park?

let me tell you about bloody nosed 

nights of crowded looney dreams, 

it’s us in a bathroom stall

and she holds me red lipped,

between the salt I confess

all she knows, 

we are beauty, womanhood, 

and glass

elsewhere I separate the yolks,

feed the pigs, spit life out and 

my teeth too, savagely I try to plant

the fuckers back in, staring in

blurred mirrors, God I’m running 

out of time, out of space, out of breath,

at the market, it’s a shock, 

sleepy boy chews on tuna like it’s gum, 

loud and open mouthed, here

I thought he was vegan

the blond confesses love down

at the country club, and I’m

leaning on his neck like a horse,

it is lucid and tangible, a piss and

a pill, I’m confused, what is life?

it feels real but I can’t read, an

alarm? muted screams, we all dance 

in big circles, sweat it out, somehow

bittersweet to leave but always a relief 

to arise unraped.

M.L. February ‘25