Charlie D’Eve

Water’s warm until you jump

This is where the hair comes out and
swings its hips down into

Don’t tell me how to do

I’ve grabbed all the pens I’ve owned and
lost them            Each and every one
down with the
tiny
canoe

It’s all political all
if you lose a thing you don’t have to take it back

Someone points a finger a few degrees away from you
& your mouth
mouthing nonono
fingers pick picking at your lower lip

Oh,

I was outside of 7/11 the other day
A man was shouting at me            “Get the fuck out of here!”
on his bike          doing little wheelies            A girl followed
me to my class and asked            if I was afraid
said                      she was afraid

& then the hollow thing came back and made itself
bigger than me

not bigger than my skin         Not so my skin couldn’t

Just to see how far a thing can stretch

It goes on for hours

Me, pulling and you, pulling
at one end of the
Bubble tape until

Someone wins the race

This is a promise

people won’t believe you when you pull your pants down. People

won’t believe you when you say my stomach hurts. I am on the bus
with a small hand in my lap. I am at the co op staring at egg prices

A lady tells me my skin                           asks me my skin
so        cool        in this icky grocery lighting? Embarrassed
and pocket some

It’s a flaw in
our chemistry to
Rely     on.     it’s     obvious

it’s obvious when you’re hooked to an IV                      obvious     when
you
look at your Own asshole

There are things you don’t forgive and                       let’s be honest
here
let’s be Frank
it is usually the things you are most often doing.

Blob me blob
nobody
Mirrors are sweet cos We forget ! and then there we are
there we are

Leave it to me

They told me if you        don’t        show
Listen: someone              else              will
& then my body wakes on top of itself squirmy &
pretends it just loves a good party

here are the times when one part
Wants                thing

And the other part
Wants                Thing

Guy at the bar says
not to be offensive but
you look like
mouse in kitty’s mouth — tail wriggling itself out.

In short you can join the threat when it’s big enough

It’s the small ones you gotta
watch out for

When the man enter my house

I say I got no problem with that

With
what outta the hand         if I drop’t it

I am so shellfish. So full of meats
Cook the chick too soft n got down on my feets

This is the part where the important thing starts

Look:

There is a type
of

Person that
walks right in

There is a type
of

Person that
hugs anyone

I put my self in the box and I shut it

& then he’s there too

pretty dark but I can still see you
pretty in that
dark

When asked about the        Experience        afterward
I say

It was cool but

perhaps

meant

for someone else

Charlie D’Eve is a current MFA student in Poetry at the University of Arizona. She is an Assistant Editor at Poor Claudia, and the founder of Gap Tooth Literary Magazine. She received the Academy of American Poets Award in 2011, as well as the Margaret Sterling Award in 2015. She has been published in publications such as The Finger, Pathos, and From Bellingham, With Love.
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About Posit Editor

Susan Lewis (susanlewis.net) is the Editor-in-chief and founder of Posit (positjournal.com) and the author of ten books and chapbooks, including Zoom (winner of the Washington Prize), Heisenberg's Salon, This Visit, and State of the Union. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies such as Walkers in the City (Rain Taxi), They Said (Black Lawrence Press), and Resist Much, Obey Little (Dispatches/Spuyten Duyvil), as well as in journals such as Agni, Boston Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Conjunctions online, Diode, Interim, New American Writing, and VOLT.