A. Deshmane
THIS BODY IS A GUSHING BLACK VOID
i’ve written, maybe all i can manage, about
girlhood and the inky stains it’s left on the
inside of me. now, monochrome diagrams of
my liver all betray the black spurts of liquid
that ensue every time i avoid walking past a
mirror. maybe when showers ended in dark
pools at my feet and streaks down thighs, i
should have realized. good girls, i would
learn, don’t wake with blackness dripping from
the sides of their mouths in the morning, after
the sheets twist into constricting hourglasses
around their sleeping forms. unwitting, i
plucked strands from my eyelashes and
prayed that the stains on my mouth would
recede by the morning. dysphoria billowed
bubbled up: when the mirror betrayed hips i
hated, i tasted ink, rising, bitter, behind the
wisdom teeth i never had removed. still, i write
as screaming about black patches that blurred
my vision, until hands of light relief extracted
me, dark and mangled, from my misery.
in which i crave for the boy’s blue brain matter to splatter the tiling
if his hippocampus, gelatinous, dribbled onto
the slick tile floor, i’d scoop up what was left of
it. grasp it close, peeling hands interlaced, to
shield it from the sun. i’d mold it into
something that’d afford me an hour of
comfort. poke this portion of his brain through
the gaps in my skull. it’d fill the hollow spaces,
snug, and i’d have lived his golden boyhood.
then it’d stain my days a baby blue: the tint of
his veins shielding mine.
something of mine trails off into the horizon
i.
the afternoon i whiled away watching sunlight
stream through the hair on your legs, i ached
to feel fine strands downing my calves again. i
would come full circle, only to find exhilaration
lodged firmly beneath smooth limbs peppered
with nicks. joy, i would learn, meant running a
hand down a thigh left coarse. still, that
afternoon, i saw you pay heed to my legs,
shaved shamed smooth and folded beneath
me, and i taught myself to look away.
ii.
you loved me the way grape-y children’s
benadryl once did, weaving through snatches
of discomfort and through to relief. you carved
me a blue-walled exit from keen self
perception, a way up and over my long-dug
tearwell of hips and shadows curved on
kitchen walls. you posed before my
outstretched camera, silent. left of my
aversion, you grinned, gums winking with
abandon. and now the only photos i keep in
my bedroom closet are of you.
iii.
after everything, i no longer
swirl with a swan’s neck wrist the dregs of my
tea like you did, standing
barefoot, legs apart, in purple
jorts and a netted
shirt, strawberry smoke drifting like wisps
of hair into the morning.
A. Deshmane (they/them) is a queer poet from scorching Arizona. In their spare time, they can be found wandering the desert on local hikes or wishing they owned a cat. Their other work has been featured by Stone of Madness Press and en*gendered lit. Find them @aar.deshm on Instagram.