Gaby Benitez

cw: self harm

a birthing of roaches

my therapist tells me to touch myself with love
and I remember carving a heart on my hip
hours before a middle school trip to schlitterbahn
(bad timing, sure)

she tells me to massage hands - ankles - toes 
and I remember that I tattooed the tops of my feet
to avoid seeing them. I couldn’t stand to look.

she tells me to caress my forehead, temples, back of the neck
and I remember my hands’ usefulness
at covering my full bottom lip, crooked smile 
remember plucking a forest from my brow, the bare skin underneath

and my therapist asks me what i mean when i say i’m flatlining

i mean to say that
i am a person who kills things now
pinches the gnat between finger and thumb,
snatched out of flight
that’s how i know i’m not All Good
it’s not that i didn’t used to do this but

-- still --

a roach egg burst on the countertop yesterday morning
must’ve been 
one hundred of them six hundred legs three hundred body segments two hundred antenna
swept them up fast and put them outside faster but

-- still --

alive
that’s how i know i’m at least Okay
one of me four limbs head shoulders knees 
what more can you ask for in a confessional but 

-- still -- 

i mean to say that
i am a person who kills things now
and pays to have a conversation tomorrow

parasitoids have goals too


Thought about self harming while eating
my partner out, arepas at the club, 
a snack before bed, scrambled eggs
on toast on tostada on a layer of aguacate, 
tomatoes from the garden, cucumbers,
pan dulce, mango, cheerios with orange juice - 
Am I the only one who does that?
this is to say my bodymind is hungry
and itches for feeling, even amidst pleasure,
sensations electric, tangy, tongue tied on a hand full
of sweets. And every time I ask myself
about the blue flowers in the back of my 
mind, the curtains drawn up over memory,
how to compost the bouquet, the girl-self, 
snake adorned, the fungal mind leading
ants to the mother, on slaughter
lane, I take a turn - the brain fog like
cotton in the mouth. I take two sips 
of an inconsequential thing and feel my
body slip away just like that. 
Just like that my body inconsequential.
A thing. A snake. A bouquet. A bed.

I stop asking myself if I’m the only one.
Doesn’t matter either way. The river runs
In four directions: source, sea, sink, swim.

first published by Stone of Madness Press

two’s a crowd

some days I can’t think past the pulse in my head
needle scratching the record player of my right cornea
sunlight ringing in my ears
the skyline of jars, dicks, books, meds on the dresser
imprinted on the back of my eyelids, in memory.
these are the days where my tongue doesn’t move quite fast enough
and I'm glad I can eat you out with my eyes closed,
that you still love me in silence.
and some days I wish for that split tongue of the rattler,
the cottonmouth, the rainbow shimmer in the garden,
oil on grass, ripple in the water -
split tongue to taste and smell and tease in all directions all futures
instead I inherited the two-tongues of my family, gemini rising,
each language cloven in my own mouth, half and half, severed

exorcism

my words are always rush rush rush
caught on tongue
rushes upon rushes
marsh//cattails
before and after
gone to seed gone to wind
remnants of tufts on the stalk
floating in reflection
toes in silt and clay
can you tell I’m dreaming of
fresh
water
clean enough
to wash my hands clean
enough
to drink
clean
enough to baptize
the child inside
clean
enough
instead
wept
weep
salt
water
marsh//cattails
dreamt of glass in my mouth, crunching in teeth, an exodus of blood
lobsters run blue before they hit the surface
oxygen, unbound, loose
swap me gills for tits, find me eel-bound
ocean to upriver
undefined by osmosis
what is it we’re giving birth to these days?
how do we do it?

Gaby (she/her/ella), is a queer, Xicanx writer in her quarter-life-crisis living in her evergentrifying hometown of Austin, TX. She writes to make sense of her experience living in this tumultuous world, to make sense of the ways we relate to others, the earth, the cycles of life and death. Much of her writing is through the lens of the body as a borderlands, meeting place, and interdimensional highway for these pathways of connection. She is obsessed with watersheds, and water, and the flicker of sunlight on its surface, and with the way the elements tie us all together across space and time and universe. Would have coffee and sweet plantains for every meal if given the option. Can also be found on instagram @gabriellebenitez and on twitter @gaygardengoth