NOTATION

“there’s a lot of intimacy in never speaking again” - sol cabrini

all these men around me are sober

and i miss modern love

the men want to know: are breasts genitals?

they are nevertheless beloved

are you happier? do you like it better?

beers or something

a bowl of christ-like sadness

ever since i was a little kid i knew i wanted to stay up late

everything feels horrible alone late at night

late at night i am my own field of vision

late at night i want the men to fuck me with praise

grow the fuck up

happen again

i accept emails into my heart

i have lived everywhere and i have worked every job

i invented a new way to suffer

i miss screamers

i really miss champs

i used to be nice

i used to have an it and i don’t anymore

if you’re in your 30s and your parents are still married it’s like

it was a mean time

it’s called horrible shitting

i’m ready to be 27 again

potential!

who wants to fund the james schuyler trust for depressed little gay bitches whose language shifts

lifelike

i suddenly remembered

most people eat anything

night reading fanfiction emotionally

seeing a post about joan of arc

she died at 19? she should have been at the club

that’s not my ministry that’s not my bus schedule

tabbing over to see what’s new with shoes

the shoes are bad but that’s where i’m at with shoes

things to buy evilly

this is a list on my phone

i do feel superior and i like the chance to

today was the first day that i could see that fall was going to happen

suddenly unavailable men

when things are too close to me i can’t touch them

ONCE UPON A TIME I WAS SORRY

touch me everywhere it hurts on your body

that’s what god said and so i did

i smoothed my hands over their flank

i cupped god’s face and kissed it

god and i got into bed and i held them from behind

turning each of us into a comma as if to say

and and and that’s where it hurts

it hurts everywhere

where it feels good to touch you

BREATHING SO TRANSGRESSIVE

guilty grace pent up in me

like a petulant child i refused

to put an end to nakedness

in bed oiled meat

and i loom at the frayed cotton edge

or you loomer

we got rid of the membrane

and once we were one person

love came knocking at the kitchen door

meat again

and you asked if i wanted the

chicken’s eggs but i don’t know this chicken

breathing so transgressive

now you’re for sure loomer

and me loomee

easy easy

daylight dappled

no will to live

i’m meat on earth

i’m spitting meat sharing one mouth

and the sounds we make

wake the lesbians upstairs

a cake is coming your way

a kitchen door is the real door

spit into my open mouth coward

lick like you like licking

rocket rocking in a cloud of ash

breathing is so wow

slow ow wow

awake and fragrant

fragrant and alive

alive and wholesome

a whole fist wow

a fistful of flowers wow

Biographical Statement

Emily Bark Brown is a poet from Mobile, Alabama and Brooklyn, New York. Their debut chapbook, Welcome to August, is out now from The Year.