parts.

These are all just lines. Some of which can be traced to other parts and some are perforated, like dotted lines allowing space for pause or beats of question. What is the story behind each of your limbs and how many revisions have they gone through. Is your belly an ocean or reservoir. Let’s talk about preservation and visiting hours. I’ve given away my genitals to the highest bidder. Now, I rename them as prose poems. How separate are we from another.

There is not enough emphasis on brains these days. We swipe each other off the map due to improperly placed teeth or skin damage or haircuts or faces lacking symmetry.

We never holler out to the human crossing the street: I dig the curvature of your brain. Let’s do shots of Proust and get drunk off the table of contents in your auto-ethnography. 

I find myself attracted to cerebral cortexes. My skin is moved by those who use semi-colons in their sentences and end thoughts with questions I can compete with. I am wooed by the list of books you’ve read, not the designer label of your button-down, dry-cleaned shirt.

On a recent outing, I exchange books with another. I hand them a copy of poems by a New York writer/bohemian. I am given a book of prose that digs into gender and love from a country that forbids it. We drink winter and wander into the dark to reenact Marquez’s magical realism.

We wear so many question marks; I wonder if the ones we are most attracted to are the ones who stretch them out into statements. Or the ones who stick around long enough to gather up your answers.