poisoned! at the buffalo wild wings
i’m at the south street wawa at 1:15am reeking of sex when i text kale that it turns out not only do i like being bitten, i like biting. this coupled with the fact that i like blood – kale asks me what the difference between me and armie hammer is. when C was biting my lip i almost asked her to make me bleed, then remembered the pain, which i don’t particularly like. okay, yes, that’s obviously a lie, but it’s true i don’t like the amount of pain it takes to bleed by teeth. my own or others. i do it because i’m the less stubborn bottom but causing other people pain makes me squeamish. and still i like to bite, but the sturdier the better. watching bones and all with kale last week i was disgusted w all the tearing of flesh by teeth. it reminded of the time i bit the top of E’s left breast and felt something give. they cried out and i recoiled from their body, from my self. i went somewhere far away from my mouth.
SXSW
further out in the desert the saguaros get weirder and weirder. they grow tails, wooden legs, hemorrhoids, eyes like angels. i don’t see a gilded flicker but i do spot a cactus wren and a black throated sparrow. both lifers. on the way back to the airport, a saguaro riddled with buckshot. i want to commit an act of terrorism against the NRA when i drive by their headquarters on my way south from philadelphia. i see a lot of cows in virginia. i think about playing KENO but as soon as i get to tennesse i take a terrible shit. i wonder what makes cow patties so round, and have to stop at every rest stop to wreck a toilet. the hills and hollows are just foggy enough that i can see sunshine made material. i make it to knoxville and watch one waitress manage an entire restaurant, peyton manning staring me down over my cobb salad and cheese bings. if you see a good omen about a bad omen, what does it mean?
[i go to the movies, but when i get there]
i go to the movies, but when i get there all i want to watch is porn. i split the difference by doing poppers the second time i see the batman in theaters. also the second time i see the new spiderman. every time i see a new piercer i say im not a bleeder, but when my first bridge piercing went funny there was so much blood i thought i had somehow started weeping. it pooled in the corners of my eyes. narrowly missed my white cotton dress. i both started and stopped doing poppers shortly after i left rehab, but ive been measuring my life in terms of movie releases for years. when i dont think ill make it to the next marvel movie, i get a new piercing. today i lived long enough to see wakanda forever. when i saw my piercer last week they told me no new piercings, but tomorrow im getting dinner with a friend.
sterling-elizabeth arcadia (she/they) is a Best of the Net winning trans poet and lover of birds, cats, and her friends in Philadelphia. Her work has been published in Delicate Friend, Stone of Madness Press, ANMLY, and elsewhere, and has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.