Truls Ljungström’s Reviews > Please make me pretty, I don't want to die: Poems > Status Update

Walking across homelands after the longest time, those winters, this spring. The core of a star as kidney stone.

Step in and the showerhead forgets its place, decides where to make of your shadow, where to kill its flickers. Step out and a mouth belts out cries for other mouths having been there. Answer for this via what it wants to order in the restaurant. In the yellow fields outside, the crickets sound our irritations. Some sweaters age faster than skin, the itch a reminder of dry riverbeds.

afflicted with such lowness so often no longer sudden

just low

dark sunset small orange left

the sky’s a stupid canvas

it’s all formless good things have form

that’s what skeletons are for

not for cradling falls from towers

(friend, what’re you doing down there?)

(friend, when did you start croaking?)

(friend, how high can you jump?)

(jump … I could be your princess)

(I’m cute enough to stop you croaking)

(these nights, I also find myself croaking)

I can’t jump.

(but … I could kiss you?)

(but … then you’d kiss me back, green and sloppy)

Please—said to no one in particular—don’t kiss me.

The mirror’s crowfooted

not me. Afro’s gone Medusa again.

Every coil’s its own Hydra.

I’m adventuring with a comb.