timelines
In another timeline, your tongue is murder weapon.
Perhaps mine too.
My body is crime scene was it the night who cordons us? & you
carve chalk into silhouette. You always leave rust behind on the edges. Your moment is
structured that way, like the shadow climbing out of my single exit wound.
In this timeline, you cut your hair & I do not notice. You cordon me
with a smile. My chest wound serrate. I develop a taste for metal teething into
wrist for skin scales mixing with rust for fringe growing into my eyes.
You look the same to me always. Your image is structured that way.
In another timeline, I dislike your new haircut the freed forehead the same pair of
shoes you always wear. In this timeline, we quarrel. You fuck me after we make up. In red-
taped night, I caress tossed waves of your hair after sex how it looks like
an oil spill smells like seaweed how your body stretches
a horizonless blue against mine.
A creature wriggles its way into my shipwreck chest. In this timeline, I feel full.
My body is structured that way.
Perhaps yours too.
In another timeline, we never meet. You cut your hair next to me in the salon.
I look at a pair of scissors. Imagine your body sliced like sashimi you
swimming inside me. In this timeline I cut a strip of Time coil it around you like
fishing rod reel us in. Time snags taut like a muscle you would use
to fuck me in another timeline & snaps. We sit in opposite corners
of the room.
Our fates are structured that way.
Or not.
Perhaps there is another time
line where I cut your hair & you talk
Time into strips & feed them to Me. & a tentacle
to a machine that beats inside my chest
out images, I can’t recognise loops around
your silhouette.
& I am your friend
or not.
We study together. I take your picture.
What cordons a friend from a lover?
A snapshot of
how
Time is your hair
is not structured that way.
melusine
every night / i peel my heels off / watch the pain melt / away into a tail / every night / i swab my face / feel the burn of / scales rippling across skin / my lipstick smudges / into a hue of / sailors’ warning / every night i shampoo my hair / the tub is a purple pool / kelp plasters the walls / every night my mirror / is a black pearl / humming stereo / of an eclipsed ocean / every day i swallow sand / every night i spit / out oily scabs / every day / i slide shells into sclerae / every day i am painfully / in human / every day my tongue ebbs & flows with bottled words / every night the tides wash / the wrecks of my name ashore
kitsune
half fox / half faggot / the men never get my name right / all that glitters / is lip gloss / gold is false lashes / is orb of sequin skin / fairy tail is lace front wig / half flamboyant / half femme / is hands off no touching / is bulging panties / an untucked vixen / half fatale / the men always say i’m trying to trick them / but they find me at twilight / half feral / dance in alpenglow of amber eyes / fingers lost / in shifting fur / seeking dreams of sake / bosom to nestle their heads / to forget moon & meat / to taste cinder & tongue / they come to my shrine / half flesh & begging / to learn how to tame / the beasts
Andy Winter (they/them/theirs) is a gay, non-binary & neurodivergent poet from Singapore. Their works have been published in Cartridge Lit, Corvid Queen, and Freeze Ray Poetry, among others. They were a finalist for the Transpoetics Broadside Prize. They do not wish to be perceived. Find them chilling at whispersinwinter.wordpress.com.