thanks for the gum
women's restroom at the airport
WOMEN in huge silver capital letters fixed to the marbled wall
like a monument to women
think about WOMEN
Forgetting / Remembering
cold gym scent as I pull the plastic cartoon door handle
I already feel it as an ill-fitting memory
past tense, that winter spent with purple and yellow machinery
in a strip mall
it bothers me for the length of the staircase
that scent being etched forever in place of something more romantic
up the three rises hugging a corner of floor to ceiling windows
black reflective winter darkness
Then I acclimate, I forget to be so careful
I like the gym
trying to feel like the most beautiful ant
I get scared in the winter
I want to be intentional about what I etch
what I chisel out
There is a consignment store and a beer depot in the same strip mall as the gym
a store selling exclusively swimwear year-round
a massage chain, a nail salon
Playboi Carti on the car radio
in New York I milly rock what hide it in my sock oo
why do I love CVS?
It has become my crystalline fixation
in this nebulous whirl of a year, nebulous whirl of issues
that capitalism and "masculinity" are scourges on this earth
I want so badly to chisel out something better
Raymundo
mom called us into her bedroom
I was 6 or 7 or 8
she was laying up in bed on fluffy pillows
is she sick? is this good or bad I thought
why does she sound so strange
she said she was pregnant, they wanted to name him Ray
we were to celebrate but it felt wrong
the 1950s bed frame painted with powdery roses
her short dyed burgundy hair, sterling Mexican skull earrings, the pillows
she soon after either had a miscarriage or the whole thing was imagined
