Miss Lonelyhearts

Marcelo Hernandez Castillo

From the selection of poetry curated by Eduardo C. Corral

         We knew it would come to this—
         your swinging, your breasts and belt on my back,
         my teeth biting the carpet,
and the TV ranting on the same goddamn channel for three days.

         But we like it.
It’s easy to imagine ourselves
         as loneliness tethered on a stick.
         It’s easy to imagine getting used to this.

I keep pulling my hair out and starving—
         a tongue at the end of my hunger.

                  I want to be turned inside out again—
a deep purple that bone and fire make.

There’s nothing more that can be done between us.



                  Tell me I’m pretty
         and paint your name on my legs
         with your lipstick so I can believe
         it is my name and we both answer.

          Tell me the last fiction,
          I will put it in my mouth and listen to its breathing.
                          I promise.



          I don’t know if we’re doing this right,
          as if right could exist between us.



         We can live out the rest of our lives like this.

                   I will play the man and you will play the woman.
          Then, I will be the woman and you will be a father.
          I will pull a child
                   from between my legs that will not cut you.

                   But it will die,
          as they all have,
          it will be still, forever
          only once in its life.