Published in Anti-Heroin Chic Literary Magazine Issue 36 (a publication in this magazine was a long goal of mine) https://heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/poetry-by-danielle-patino
Hands
On a cold night in September
We hold
The peaked weight
Of pretend. This large game
We’ve played
With years of bated breath;
Here we are at
Its culmination, and I think
You may lose.
Your eyes feign focus
On the TV
But you’re thinking
Of surrender--
It may be better
That way.
Your hands break
The silence;
You let your fingers rub
The knuckle of my thumb
Under this cave of linens
Where wilderness
Spews. This bed
Is the soil which birthed us,
Our primal return.
We know we’re sitting in dirt,
The skill is in pretending
We’re clean.
I don’t move a muscle;
I too stare at the screen--our
Safety; home-base--but I feel
Your caress, each tendril’s
Stroke, it grows
With intent. A warning,
You are giving up;
You’re losing,
You’re losing, you will
Take me soon. Me, a girl
In your hands.
If I Wasn’t So Boring
I Bet I’d Be Loved
I fantasize the blast
Of drugs and drink
I could be
At 3am in
Your spider infested
Glass room;
Its rainy and cold,
We swat our legs
Against mosquitos –
A pain to stop a pain –
And we moan in tandem
With rainfall barking
Against blurred windows
That keep us shut in;
The place wears
A golden dim
Like yellowed teeth;
The smoke from your cigarette
Catches in my hair and it
Cataracts your eyes
Though that isn’t why
You won’t look at me.
My panties hang
Off the edge of your father’s
Rusted barbecue,
My bare clit
Dripping phlegm
On your dirty plastic chair,
Your fingers,
Sticky from gas station 4-lokos,
Sliding in
And out of me--
It would take only one look
For you to know
Something’s missing, and
Quick, you’d fill yourself
Back into me,
The mess of two humans
We could be.
Danielle (she/her) is a graduate student in the Adolescent English Education program at Hunter College in NYC. She has an Undergraduate Degree in Creative Writing, with a minor in Religion, from Hunter College as well. You can access her full repertoire of published works, or read her book reviews at storybeforeslumber.com.
