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PLEASURE CRAFT ❋ Stevie Belchak
This work comes from the collection Pleasure Craft, which was shortlisted for The Metatron Prize for Rising Authors.
I MODEL MY HIPS AFTER MODERN NOSTALGIA
schedule a virtual
appointment
to view
my sadness
over many
small windows
I find it useful
paying to have
unlimited access
to squares
I can fall through
hell
serotonin
can’t keep me
peaking
with the tulips
craning
my neck’s
vertices
above the blur
in my bedroom
here
I feel multi-use
and bad
for the suburban woman
in me
buying an instant
dewy glow
like a torment
of wanting
I fear
I am
pro-
collagen
swallowed
by balloon sleeves
and folding words
into high
performance
limbs
on my mattress
I press history
and chili
powder
between
my legs
to make newer
and even
sadder rivers
across my floor
is the gray sky
fishtailing
its big
fat organ
I want to pull it
over me
like a tarp
of crushed cashmere
its
uneven texture
lengthening
over my bones
so tenderly
like
here I am
typical
being buried
alive
by someone else’s
compassion
indistinct chatter
this
character limit
I am sick of
communing
through latex
and a mouth
piled thick
with cotton
seeing others
outside
this poem
revolve
mechanically
as pure
economical units
round and round
and round
the drain
it’s horrible
watching all
the hair
on earth
diptych in silver
white streams
spooling out
from our individual
trembling
we are
so very scared
being this
natural
and Edwardian
just trying
to stay alive
in the present
it feels impossible
googling
heat maps
and loneliness
the shadows
of flowers
to remember
an approximation
of their unfurling
the whorl
it took
hundred of years
to evolve into
and being redirected
by de facto
preferences
we’ve come
to expect
perhaps
that we have always
been conditioned
to double click
on our innards
tuck our bodies
under
the thick
field of static
digital holes
deemed
seamless
and so
very accessible
if only
I could truly operate
unchaperoned
in the dark
working
to finger
the quiet
around me
like some kind of
remembrance
I am writing about
life
and death
heaven
hell
the relaxed fit
of my bust
ready to open
here
upon touch
or another’s
facial
recognition
it’s hard work
to appear
somewhat ordinary
my tongue
purling its long
body into
a warmer feeling
of clonazepam
in order to stay
in the room
with you
I have to massage in
dopamine
reality
giving a little
at its corners
as if it really
could
disappear
in me
the surest
easiest path
anywhere
is folding up
the ground
so why
do I keep
elongating
my presence
flattening
my abdomen
in retrospect
I suppose it’s
to get
a little closer
to the parts
I’ve redacted
thumbing
my polarized surface
cellulite
poorer
chat function
to understand
my lack
how I can
make my body
kind
of meta
so I can finally
crawl out
of this middle-
class comfort
find my way
onto another
page
on my phone
clicking
Show More
to remember
people
dancing
thinking perhaps
one day
I can own
the shimmering
grass
my tongue
pecking
at all
its glitter
I imagine
it’s just
that good
I THINK I AM TOO HEAVY WITH THE MEMORY OF RAYON
and pulling
myself
barely together
in the shower
my body running over
all of its edges
trying to find
another
in this space
of elegy
at 130 decibel
I am holding in
all of my orange
dresses
and thinking
a lot more
about fractals
of subdividing
subdivisions
how distance separates
my cells
they tell me
the smallest versions
of trying
are somehow
in me
that I was made
to make
and remake
burnt sugar
in what is left
of my womb
when no one
is watching
I resect my bowels
with a certain
affection
like a black widow
aching
for original beams
a more
quiet oasis
my hands
are littered
with shareable content
it’s how I stay
connected
to other women
secreting silicone
gel and
paralytics
like a flower
I run my lips
along siding
and stucco
to feel more alive
eating away
at the repeat
traumas
the relics of apology
I have opened up for
I store them
under my tongue
in some
small victory
flick them
back and forth
like between
two people
they remind me it’s time
to start moving
to feel better
I let my fingers wander
back into my body
cutting my voice
from out
of the air
when no one else
is watching
or here
in the room to notice
that I have
even gone
I AM SO VERY LUCKY SOAKING MYSELF STRAIGHT THROUGH
It’s going so well I’d like to lick your gigantic brand essence.
For real, it’s like magnanimous the negative space in my heart.
I am flowering at scale with on-demand effort.
I am blossoming lustily out into deeply oceanic pheromones.
The feeling of burgeoning is inside me like a soft bouquet of rolling papers.
I mistype lawn party when I see things blooming from my crumble.
It’s like a celebration—refastening my big white goose feathers.
It’s like a soiree—being strapped to a gurney on a tarmac.
I am living it up like the state’s regulatory body.
I am making the most of creating the only real texture for miles.
They say cloud nine is a superior grade of plastic injected with essential oils.
They say you can binge drink kool-aid while others go out like sparkle around you.
They say you can get down.
That you can be merry.
That you can even live in clover.
And, I’ve been all alone making advancements with formal constraints in the bedroom.
I’ve been seeing enormous success cutting my hair to get closer to my buyer persona.
I’m loving that I’m able to touch the word spacious with a little more satisfaction.
It’s stupendous to see how I am quivering-like for your viewing pleasure.
It’s exciting to watch myself hit it big with a memorial to my inseams on a waterbed of vipers.
I’m so very lucky soaking myself straight through with tamarind and whiskey.
I am going to town and putting the flags out for all the courtesans to notice.
I am letting my hair down and kicking my heels up with proper social distance.
I am getting it on with my new pillowy form and all of its extremities.
I have it made with my body moving rapidly outward.
Let me live a little extravagantly like a teaser for a reboot.
Let me sing aloud with this brightening vitamin-C serum.
Let me savor all the outdoor hardware in multiple finish options.
I want to be so very high and with you dancing on this hog.