I have been obsessed with staring at people’s ring fingers. I have been obsessed with seeing if there are rings, and if there are, why? And if there isn’t, why? I have been obsessed with the concept of marriage. Of babies. Of living together forever and ever with just one person.

The thought tastes like milk washed down with soap. But I cannot stop staring at people’s hands. I want to ask how they knew. Was there a switch that was flipped? Was there music loud and thudding in their ears? How did they know that when they’re old with wrinkles under their eyes they’ll still want to kiss the other’s lips?

I check off my lovers with a sharpie on my wrists. I wonder if any of them thought I was the one. The sharpie bleeds and stains my shirt. A man told me once he loved me within a month of knowing me. Was that true, never ending love? He left cigarette ash in my car and didn’t know where to put his fingers. He had wanted a house, a kid, a dog.

In coffee shops, in grocery stores, in hallways, I am staring at people’s fingers. Some are smudged, some are dry with peeling skin, some are softly pink, and when I see the golden or silver bands milky soap sits underneath my throat.

I am checking my wrists.

i am aching and my tongue tastes like your
******* ignorance. like salt with *****,
i want to *****.
your fingers prodded me until i thought they reached my
spine.
take the pieces out, i have already lost the stability of my
own canvas.
you are a man with unshaken wrists,
who's legs known only how to walk away,
your speech like writing on pavements, never lasting for
too long.
once you had covered me head to toe with marks.
bruises. scratches. i had become the rag doll.
you threw while your lips shivered,
your hand on my throat no longer felt like
peace.
i cannot stop thinking of your fingers in me, searching for
a lie, or a truth, or a ******* resemblance.
nose breathing in the fumes of tears, sweat and mistakes.
for some seconds, i had believed your teeth wanted to chew out flowers,
not ******* thorns.
in the morning, your face, i no longer knew.

you had become the monster i had seen so many times before.
the monster who says i miss you yet can't
look at you in public spaces.
the monster who only calls you beautiful when your legs are wrapped
around him.

i have known this monster. time and time and time again.

A dew drenched wild flower
awaiting sun's warmth,
you are naked Venus;
        I clothe you with
transparent cumulus
spun by sparkling-
caresses with my eyes.

As we explore gently first
and then in urgent moves
the ****** alchemy of lips,
you transform in to a nimbus,
heavy with a yen to rain-
your sultry lust over mine.
Wet and swollen we stand
exhilarated to the inner core,
lit with sensual pleasure
on the threshold of losing control.

Then, like in a dream,
a nimbus sweetness envelops me,
lying supine, on a bed of goosebumps.
I receive you and the storm
that lasts till we fall asleep.

I saw you swimming
in my teacup
I sipped and tasted
so much bitterness
in this teabag,
Pieces of my heart
crushed and dehydrated
As I hear the raindrops
continue to dance
in the same puddles
they created
Promises that we have broken
I have to add sugar
and a little bit of tear
In my cup of tea,
I saw you floating
I took a teaspoon
and shove you deeper
into a whirlpool
that reminded me
how much
I was a fool
for you,
I have to finish it all
Lined my throat
in bittersweet guilt
Swallowed them all
and ah!
a sigh of relief
I must be dreaming



-Tea, Margaret Austin Go

the sky was looming with gunmetal wisps,
tickle me pinks squeezing among lavenders.
sunny blues and cotton clouds merged among the
charcoal prophecies. darkness kissing light.

i was soaked within seconds, screaming yet
laughing, feeling my bones shake and rattle along the
drips.

i ran through puddles, the sky nothing but sheets of
recollections. my skin limp and drenched, becoming part of
the soggy grass between my toes.

the rain stopped within minutes, the sky changing to
juicy orange.
as i attempted to dry myself with sopping towels, i stared at the sky,
and was reminded of us making love. beauty, beauty, beauty.

a little girl idolized me today,
"you are so fast!" her dress had pink
flamingos and her hair glistened underneath the shaky
sun. her brown eyes were orbs of hope.

"you know, anything boys can do, girls can do just as well"
her mother’s advice, i never heard from my own.

"well, she probably thought you were real pretty"
my shoulders slumped as i sipped cherry juice. sweat slipped
beneath my belly.

pretty? pretty? pretty?

what about my ability to run, how my muscles
expand, contract. how my brain is churning with explosives,
and my heart is able to let all these words and turn them into
daisies.

the little girl hugged me before she left,
"you are so good!"

i never heard pretty, or cute, or beautiful,


and i want this girl to grow up to know she is the veins
beneath the grounds, and she can grow up to be
whoever she
wants.

an athlete, a mathematician, a fashion designer,
as long as she’s not only
*pretty

yes, i know the way his mouth twitches when he smiles,
how his eyes will turn to different shades of green when the hours
change,
and how he lends his fingers when you need assistance,
and how his room was our paradise, and i know how we screamed
to those songs in his car late at night, the snow pressed against
the windows

but what i don’t know, dear friends,
is how my words are empty pill bottles,
"he forced me"
and your cheeks tighten, your eyelashes dry,
i don’t know how my bruises, the blood caked on my thighs
are not as important as his pride,
the way he speaks of money like his one true love,

but what i don’t know is how when you were passed out,
sleeping away through **** hazes and drunken episodes,
his fingers scraped the back of my neck, and pushed and pushed
and pushed until
my teeth were coated with fear,
my throat gurgling with guilt

to my friends, i do not understand,
and when you mention his name, i am back in that room,
fifteen and in love and afraid,
with you under blankets,
oblivious

he wants to taste me.
i wonder what i am on his tongue,
like candy floss, fluffy and dissolving, or
steak, rough yet succulent.
his tongue pin ******, the lips
like leaves, shifting through open
streets.
to be this alive and breathing,
with alcohol in my liver and his strands
of hair underneath my fingernails.

a secret.

i feel alive, though.
so alive.
the cigarettes and cologne are stuck
in my ribs, latching themselves between
bits of flesh.

i have been told my eyes are embers.

i wanna burn him to the ground.