Fuck Therapy

                                                                                   silky   white womanly   lilt

wake up      breakfast is ready                                   whose roses    on the coffee table

bobby pins in the frying pan                                      hair coiled around my teeth

cigarettes passed in bathtub bubbles                       never again without you under my nails

choking on us in our sleep                                         you sad who isnt sad were all sad

sitdownandeat

                                                                                   then the bottom first the top

watch my chest swell sink burst                                fingers kneading the scalp

heels like raindrops crush the rooftop                       whose blood yours    or mine

warm on the lips cheeks I wanna leave it                  first dark hands to hold all my lovers

footprints my chest the mirror

                                                                                    basement secrets summer morphine trips

my second Russian immigrant                                   degenerative at birth debilitating diseases

his daddy a doctor we gotta be discreet                    his abs recoil his drumstick penis dinner

bone torn muscles    loosely attuned

                                                                                    bus wheels peeling through slush at dawn

preachers wife bedside watching                               sky peeled lightning thunder on a pulpit

purpled back sex swing syndrome

                                                                                     inside you a gospel I cant get off

worshiping kneeled dog tongued                                I cant repent no more

think well ever try again                                                as long as youre you

How Long You Been Awake

I am                                                        lying                                                       in bed
holding a stranger                                  secretly

                                                               in a home                                               alone
with a body                                            whose rooms                                          collapsed

locked away                                           I cannot get in                                        by myself
I strain                                                    in need of you

                                                               my love                                                   ask me
where I went                                          where you been                                      come to bed

Nicholas Brown is a first-generation Mexican American. He was awarded the Agha Shahid Ali Scholarship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and is a finalist for the 2017 Tin House Summer Poetry Scholarship. His poetry appears, or is forthcoming, in 45th Parallel, After the Pause, and Third Point Press. He works as a technical writer.