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.