Dominic Lounds
and wonder if I have been unbodied since birth,
if I could ever shake myself back into my skull
or if it’s a lost cause kinda deal,
if I could eat Kettle’s Salt and Vinegar till it corrodes
a hole in my squirming tongue and still not feel a thing;
poke my pinky tentatively through,
Doubting Thomas to my own troubled sinew.
Saint Peter raises an eyebrow at this metaphor
from over by the sour straws and I yell
Fuck you, you’re a fairy story
and can’t quite make myself believe it.
You land at LAX and the sky is gray. You feel cheated: it was sunny in Newark. The palm trees are skinnier than you imagined. They look kind of silly, swaying in the wind against a backdrop of so much concrete, like overgrown teenagers out of place at a school dance.
You take a Lyft to your short-term lease. “Welcome home,” the driver says, and you don’t correct him because you like the idea of being from here.