By Lana Valdez
Reminiscing on a Prosperous City You Once Ran Away to
You drank Bellinis at hardware stores with crystal chandeliers and
tried not to get him in your photos,
the gluttony on both your faces,
marked. You had no predecessors,
only ancestors laughing at you,
at your silk scarves from the vintage store,
the cheap wallet, a prop.
A prosperous city, a pseudonym for your socials,
but he’ll find you anyway, you should never worry, he says.
By Cristal and candlelight
you take your steaks medium rare,
the ones that will be his ruin.
You used to come here with your mother, now it’s a hideout.
How did you come to own the shelter, you ask,
the luxury homeless shelter for young girls?
In the Middle of an Impossible Summer
where your gums stick to the roof of your own mouth,
you have a choice.
Don’t tell me about poison
when all the lizards are hiding, when no one
rises in the dark to feed the ocean,
to clean the heaps of trash from her banks.
There are rocking chairs in the swamp
eaten up by the storm and this town was never small.
A sleek slight of hand, our backyards up to our temples.
Tell me this is true in your mind,
tell me you understand, it was never your poison.
Debating on Whether or Not I Should Buy Groceries
on the first of the month when I still haven’t rewired my brain from last month, a spectacle of sleepless eyes like saucers, of oyster dinners on the bay and dry nosebleeds. When you’re living out of a suitcase you have nowhere, nowhere to put your vanity- tracing lipstick on perfect skin, searching for the perfect spot to sit with your shadow, the shades odd and drawn. If I was worried about buying eggs, I didn’t show it, busying my mind with my reflection, burying the rampant gray hairs down, down, down the drain, shards of glass and pulp gathering at the bottom.
LANA VALDEZ is a poetess and thought daughter currently living in New Jersey. Her debut collection, “I Rot,” is available via Filthy Loot, and her work also appears in Spectra, Expat, Dream Boy Book Club, and others.