human nature is cordial avoidance 

My world is one big coffee shop. 

I pet a neon pink skirt with a ruched ass, 

eating a fish sandwich. 

Two-tone bangs talks sublets and guy next to me says: 

Music sounds like Duran Duran at a bar mitzvah. 

I’m a big joke in the medical field, 

Paul Newman eyes and a nervous tic. 

The alumni email doesn’t call me baby. 

You want to do heroin in a snowglobe. 

We won’t be able to tell what killed us. 

Phone call: 

I saw a flower in the middle of the road and needed to hear your voice. 

I order more food so someone is contractually obliged to talk to me.

voicenote

Church parking lot, Madison, New Hampshire. 

Decaf coffee tickles my cavities. 

I am regretful as a poetry collection, 

a forgiving revolutionary, a monastery dog. 

When I was younger, I delighted in novelty. 

Casement windows, polyamory. 

Misplaced like a show horse on a papal journey, precariously dusty. 

Here in the mountains I live amidst alpine architecture, 

A-frame cabins with jacuzzis. Swiss revivalism. 

A wire railing makes me consider the mysterious deaths of my uncles-to-be.

I should be more respectful, but there are no shoulds in recovery. 

My companion lets out a low growl at the propped door. 

He covets my hazelnut pastry. I miss drinking. 

Hackles raised, he presides over a plywood staircase, 

verklempt with neighborhood barking. 

We conjure poor translations of Italian falsetto, a mental shift to live longer.

We are lucky. My sister is an oncology nurse and treats shackled patients.

Some things get better over time, like a neck hump with regular fascial massage.

Some things don’t, like grown women ordering the kiddie sized ice cream cone.

I think a lot. Chimpanzees ripping faces off, John Denver subtexts, double entendres.

A serrated chew toy lands at my feet. I should take vacation photos.

L Scully (they) is a living writer Their poetry collection, SELF-ROMANCING, comes out in September 2025 from DOPAMINE Books LA.