The Fire You Fed
You, with your violent inclination,
shattered my stove.
Now my oven of love is broken,
my cranberry juice blooms across the kitchen tiles,
staining the grout like evidence.
You called it passion.
I call it wreckage.
You stuffed rice pudding into the wound,
as if its sweetness could cover your crimes.
Instead of making love, you used me—
your hands, all verdict and sentence.
But what comes around
will come for you.
Your tyranny has an expiration date.
The fire you fed with my body
will turn on you,
devour your name,
and leave you cold in the ruins
of your own appetite.
No more cooking my heart on your terms,
no more salty tears in your soup of control.
I’ll sweep the shards of the stove,
pour what’s left of my cranberry juice
into a glass, and drink to the silence
that follows your rage.
Tongue House
My mouth is a curious organ.
It takes in sound and gives out taste,
thanks to the big tongue it houses,
which pays rent with all kinds of services
the mouth requires.
But now, under night’s breath,
your lips ignite my flesh,
and your thick, magic stick stirs my universe—
makes my jaw drop, my teeth retreat.
My mouth is a curious organ—
it has its own name,
one only you can say
when it powers out,
too much, too generous.
It opens not for words but for weather—
for the storm you bring,
for the rain that begins where breath ends.
Inside, a language grows
that grammar cannot tame,
and words cannot incarcerate.
The Body’s Darkest Star
It is both exit and entrance,
necessity and pleasure,
a place of love and grotesque hate,
of shame and pride,
admiration and contempt.
The most philosophical organ of the body:
with wisdom and lightness,
with cleanliness and filth,
a double nature—
driven by lust or puritan restraint.
It contradicts itself,
yet unites the body for survival.
It can be slow or quick.
It takes, it gives,
it discards, it endures,
it punishes and rewards.
It is a center of hidden control,
the chamber where intuition lives,
where our most important decisions are made.
Not heart, but ass.
Not chest, but butt.
Not soul, but anus.
Love your anus—
perhaps salvation waits here,
in the body’s darkest star.
After Genital War
To creep into my creepy thoughts is dangerous—
that jar of Vaseline in your muscular hands.
Come sit on the edge of my hospital bed.
Tell me about last night—everything.
How hard were your organs working?
Did you make noise?
Did your bed withstand the force of the young?
Were they any good—big enough for your hungry pipes?
Don’t be shy with me.
Look at me.
The last genital war put me here.
You must be better—I see happiness in your purple eyes.
Your Adam’s apple juts higher. Sliding, was it?
My nose can still read the scent of every body that touched you.
A symphony of odors clings. Do you still enjoy the marks?
Come closer. Lay your palm flat.
Let me map the heat of your wrist,
count the fires trembling beneath your skin.
Tell me the names you gave them,
the nicknames of hands and mouths.
Was there a boy who tasted like bubble gum?
Or the one who tasted like vanilla?
Did anyone hum the hymn you hum when alone?
The Vaseline is an altar between us.
I worship the slick shine of your knuckles,
the bruise on your collarbone,
the story it tells of where you were held,
where you let go.
Do you keep their teeth like trophies?
Do you fold their names into your shirts?
When you sleep, do their shadows unlace like shoes at your feet?
I am jealous as a fever: irrational, bright, burning.
Hold my hand.
Feel the thinness of my ribs,
the small aquarium of my lungs.
Name the colors—blue hands, orange nights,
the metallic scent of regret.
Say the verbs—took, bled, swallowed, laughed.
Stay a little, even if only to hand me back my shirt.
Tell me the algebra of how you loved them.
I will not count—I will only listen,
a patient with a new pulse.
The jar of Vaseline sits between us,
a lighthouse for the obscene.
We are both afraid of being clean,
afraid of being healed.
So speak.
Tell me where the music stopped,
what was left on the floor.
I will write it on my wrist until it fades.
If you must go, go with all the light you stole.
If you stay, let us learn the language of our wounds—
one tender syllable at a time,
under the flicker of this hospital light.
Oleg Olizev is a Manhattan-based writer, poet, and artist whose work explores the intersections of body, memory, and philosophy. His writing has appeared in Panorama, BULL, Beyond Queer Words, Cathexis Northwest Press, OFIC Magazine, Stone of Madness Press, Night Picnic, Audience Askew, The Argyle Literary Magazine, Untenured, Neon Origami, and Half and One, with forthcoming work in Fjords Review and Thirteen Bridges Review.
Image: jeltovski, morguefile.com
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Heavy Feather Review 