Circling Back
by Domenica Martinello
I lock fingers with myself, preteen. I offer up the underwire. I bounce and supple, drag and drop the pretense, steal. My fanny pack is plum, I smell all pungent and powdery. I return to puppy shampoo, milk and strawberries. I roll in the knoll and sniff my grassy knees. I scorch and sample, run and snot, suck face at the bus stop with a Halls in my cheek. I bleed. I bray and heel, pee in strong spurts that never burn. I fur and yearn, I stretch and rip. All shirts are belly shirts. Punctured and pierced, I stud, shred, and patch. I serrate and wheedle, huff puny highs and experiment with cuts. I ache. I crawl home with hair under my tongue. Sip cough syrup in the quiet of a bush. I have a mission. I produce coins to procure fries. Get the shakes. Steam and flush and pillow fight. I sugar and grease with prurient delight, stink and cream, frolic all sticky in the feathers. I tip the nozzle to my mouth, swirl, spritz, gorge, spit. I poke holes. I punch. Thumb my thumbs through the sleeves I’ve wrecked. Stomp my eyes with the heels of my palms. I do uncouth things with hot glue. Murals left undone, recklessly staple-gunned, coffee souring under the bed. The uneaten lunch stuffed in the doorless closet, mossy with fluff. Years without the privilege of privacy, unhinged, opened, punished. We’re soft, we’re angry, we’re spoiled, we’ve written mean things in our diaries. I know it all and I know nothing. I reach through the beaded doorway. I tell myself a secret.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Domenica Martinello is a writer from Montreal and the author of All Day I Dream about Sirens (Coach House Books 2019). She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was the recipient of the Deena Davidson Friedman Prize for Poetry. New poems have appeared in The Commuter, Arc Poetry Magazine, The Malahat Review, The South Carolina Review, Salt Hill Journal, The Walrus, Maisonneuve, and elsewhere. @domenicahope on Twitter and Instagram. Website: domenicamartinello.com