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Wraith Mode

All that was       and is       and will be—
I reject. I rebuke. To have my love follow
you on a plane somewhere and have its body
come back to me. No thanks, kid.
In bed, I reached so deep inside you
I forgot where I was headed. The last girl
taught me claw machine. Claw and see what
you get this time. Winner gets chicken din.
Let’s try that again.
My Gemini Venus shuffles around
Costco with tiny paper soufflé cups,
tonguing sample crumbs from aisle to aisle.
You’re wrong, you know. Hope is still the starring role
in hopeless. What would it be like moving
through a word like Vienna.” It’s like the sickest word,
or one of. Like something I want to feed
soup to. Imagine it like the gooeyness
of a newly expired clam, liquefying
in its shell. Kinda stinky, kinda cute. Rip.
If this body was a word, it would make
a tearing sound. Earcandy, devastating.
The word would take the shape
of your senseless nosedive into a simulation
without us. Something with a thousand legs,
or wings. See-through. Hey.
What comes to mind?

A comment on an interracial PornHub video

“A lonely, insistent shark, blindly following the scent of blood-pumping dick. Nevermind that he’s a sundown town. Her thirst grows fangs, dreams of coating him with trembling melanin. It’s kill or be killed out here. It’s ride or die, necklace or noose, backshots or gunshots, or
being shot in the back.
The trick got the goods, she gon’ use it. But how the pale moon curves
against the soot night, who here really pulls the tides?”

Tenant

I’m at this party and the lights are all out.
I mean, I threw this party and I never showed up.
The landlord moves through my walls and asks me to
cough up rent. Rent comes out the same way
it goes in, rancid clear. The landlord
doesn’t like to chase. I fall asleep in the tub
and wake up in a cupboard. I walk to the front door
just as it vaporizes. Every night there is missing
furniture. Too many forced entries in broad daylight.
The landlord keeps raising the price.
I rest my cheek on the porcelain, coaxing the
pennies lodged in my liver. Wait for my teeth
to break. The landlord stalks me by the window.
I shred eviction notices in the garbage disposal.

Arumandhira Howard

IG: @stiiickyriiice

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