you tell me about your childhood memories of death cab for cutie, and i imagine every future and past we will ever get to live through
god bless the daylight
& every open window i’ve ever sat by
every april where the cold breaks
out of my bones again & i am shed
clean out into a warm sunrise
& god bless your golden hair
a shine of its own right / i mean
we looked like giants
trapezing across our three blocks
of sugary springtime / fingertips
arching out electric / towering over
every past version of ourselves
the summer basement bedroom
we sweated out ourselves
& we’d learn how our bodies worked
i mean / yours was the first touch
that didn’t scorch out of me
there was no grey subcompact / but
there was pink light & more heat
than either of us knew to take
every sigh a coronation,
every floorboard a new kingdom
i can’t stop spitting up scarves to bind myself down with
i stopped holding secrets
like pennies between my teeth
the first time i stuffed myself into a hat
called it magic trick
& i think my body is whispering
incantations to me at night
saying something about the ache of it all
the way it bends & cracks & pops
along fault lines, spine a wand
of frail balsa, hips tinder wood
for some future house fire
a pain stays palmed away
right up until the big reveal
there is something called the prestige
the magician shows you something entirely ordinary
look here is my chest look there is a knife
look where did they go
where did i go where is the girl now
place her dresses in a false bottom box
saw it in half & pretend
that anything has changed
that any of this feels lighter now
androgyny and i go dancing
watch me grin through my fishnet of a mouth
as me and androgyny curl up in club corner booth
my collarbone is salt lined
& the crook of their neck holds so much lime
androgyny slips on a velvet choker / i pull on the tights with runs
everything rubies for us
we own the club now androgyny keeps diamonds in their teeth
i have so much satin in my marrow
if you cut us
we’ll blood cherry preserves
androgyny lights a needle & pierces my ear (you know, the gay one)
& everything scents candy apple
androgyny brushes their fingertips along every wall
calls it theirs claims everything they can touch
androgyny is a greedy bitch like that
i play with matches & androgyny likes that
says: i would burn this whole building to the ground
before i’d give away my rings
& of course, androgyny owns the club,
lets me sleep on the couch sometimes
when the streets are too swallow
for me to walk-of-shame home
you don’t get to live like this
without the comedown afterwards,
androgyny is great for a night out
all glitzed pulse points and shining planes
but it won’t hold your hair back after it’s drank you
under the table for the fifth night running
androgyny knows just how to glitter me dry
& sin me wet again
we drink only cristal and tequila
we don’t care about the price as long as it feels good in our mouth
i keep striking flint against my wrist
& letting sparks fly into my martini glass
androgyny knows what happens to kids like these
but god, do they love to watch the show
androgyny Gatsbies my body i mean
the club still calls themself owner
but stumbles over all the jewels we left behind
in the open jawed streets to pay our daisy bloomed debts with
androgyny’s hands are bare all that’s left
is the moss green silver marks on their knuckled fingers
nothing androgyny builds ever lasts past the night
but at least for now,
watch me grin through all my teeth
Lip Manegio is a trans, queer nonbinary poet based in Boston where they are working towards a BFA in creative writing at Emerson College. Their work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Puerto del Sol, the minnesota review, Tin House, and elsewhere. They are the author of We’ve All Seen Helena (Game Over Books, 2019).