Of Tendencies

by Jax NTP

Of Tendencies, the body’s relationship with language

collapse of the center — the heart — a feeble rat, lost in its own cage of ribs. the best
way to tie a bow: each knot of intestine more precise than the last. urgent nostalgia
for a district — jungfrau — a rawboned flicker, but curious to know if said place existed
at all. the intellectual denies the worth of patience the lessons of delayed satisfaction:
how easily it is to forget that good things come with banal ingredients. in that frame
of tongue, ‘i’ means ‘here,’ it shall never reference the self. the location where ‘i am’
is not an expression of love or fever or opulence, but words of presence — ‘here i am’ 
— a voiceless boundary. how do you know you’re not just a character in someone’s lie? 
where people step out of uteruses and step right into dreams — the synthesis of kelp
jungles and living fossils — when you cease to sleep, you become a plaything of other’s
memories. you breathe until — you don’t. the way buddha gains weight — waiting
for emptiness. the last person — standing — is the first one — alone

Of Tendencies: pin it

the dog barks outside our bathroom window — an endless oboe.
quotes for coda — code for panic easily. when loose strands
of receding hairline suffocate the carpet — water sprouts  

between my toes — there are no waves here to shift my weight.
study the steady row of ants — will i ever know how to love you
with that much devotion?  the way ants fumble around always  

returning for their dead — what is stronger than the premonition
of rain that deepest hue of pink water vapor water mass of blood
milk —- steady now — sometimes i want you to win because it lifts  

my burden of going first —- not nautical but nocturnal. kokomo
and queer birds — dearest midnight-solace, you are sassafras
inside chambered x-rays nautilus — even the cinnamon peeler’s  

wife, an ammonite of longing, waddles and wallows all evening.
do you eat the liver behind that fried chicken skin? we are one
pint of ginger beer away from threadbare moths bussing our

jugular notches — we are not whole together and we are not whole
alone — but i still prefer to wake up to you now, with post-wisdom
teeth-pulled blood breath undressing — undress: an origami undoing
itself

Ante Meridiem V: novellust, milkheavy

creative attraction, muscles pierced
words. you’re tufted in pivotal competition
with the woman in her past. classic. goosebumps
are tastebuds. said goodbumps are budteasers. magnolia
flutterwings, hummingbird jolts. jalebis crystallized as knotted
intestines. bird’s eye view. reverse migration is psychotic. the desire
to poke holes in your own umbrella — peristaltic reflexes — the balance
between danger & protection. thoughts destroy. is anything
i’m doing brand new. thoughts broaden. our bed is now
an operating table, your hips jut lies, lie bigger, just
let me. thoughts destroy because they broaden.
just let me grow into them before they grow
into me. is anything i’m doing brand
new. writing to you for myself, silo.
veracity. subtext. palpable.