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because it is my seventeenth birthday in twelve days
the year i’m 17- soda fountain rag
it was a lonely future for the lightlust youth
she was fourteen in denim cut off shorts with sticky iceblock a-drip down her forearms. she looked at me twice or three, but she never asked my name. i bit my teeth and sucked away a juicy, stutter-y hello (and the almost outloud thought of- ‘what a coincidence huh, we’re sucking from the same flavour popsicle. real good though ‘cause gee, isn’t it a hot noon?’). but then she left and i was alone.
he says, stick insects scratch skin!
my lovelight, you don’t want that
i want to be a hippie
grow my hair long and braided to my waist, daisy chains around my neck, shirtless on a field that is ochre dirt beneath our feet and frangipani, eucalyptus earth-breath
i will never wear makeup because i am beautiful and we won’t wear clothing because we are beautiful and at night time you will play your guitar and i will sing songs that belong to the night, that tomorrow will forget
there will be a fire that floats violently into the air, making warmth and crackling dead leaves and wood
and we will make love so often. so very, very naked and lit skin by the milky moon. deep inside we will be all shivers and our breath loud but quiet within the circle of cicadas
i miss you more than just a boy missing a girl, i miss you as a storm without wind, only rain, quiet rain
i am
a small insect crawling up your thigh in the small, dark of the night
a splinter in the palm of your foot, skin red and rejecting
sand in your eyes and mouth, in-between your wet toes
cancer. in your lungs and breasts and brain and skin.
but i am yours.
there is a fairy caught in your throat and you speak magic like a preacher speaks jesus, only i believe you.
my name is nirrimi and i like sucking icy poles until my mouth is numb and taking pictures with my eyes shut. i am a dirty, old man stuck in a sixteen year old girl’s body.
& this is where i am dreaming today.
love n