LISBON IMAGINED ❋ Ivanna Baranova

during our sad little breakfast by the window

we discuss the patterns in population density
of the last cities on earth we’ve never been to
but know how to pronounce

the cities we know how to pronounce sparkle
and furthermore don’t enact any symptomatology
of dependency or interpersonally destructive behavior

this is why we like to imagine ourselves inside of them
but not inside the bodies of the people who inhabit them

i make eye contact with you
then suicide myself into the sour cream
as if to say “i have arrived”

again i am making it about me always about me

today everyone on earth eats dairy
no one gives a fuck about the film industry the heterosexuals or the alt right
because there are more pressing matters at hand like
the end of our dimming lives as we know them

when i think of june my body remembers all of its lifetimes

i think: if i was in love then i am not now
i think: if i was like a person in love then i am like a person on life support now

i decide that when we do fall back in love

i will invite you to go hopscotching across the viaduct with me
when we cross back into the city i promise to take you with me
where when whenever i go wherever i go

in this scenario

you don’t ask me what’s the prognosis

we fly to pronounceable cities on fresh passports

wash the salt stains from our shirts in hotel lobbies

opt out of infinite regress

opt out of pushing ourselves off every ledge for sport