Reportback
&
Keep this between us
NM Esc
Reportback
something from two thousand & fifteen is still on fire. when we get back at dawn,
only one demon recognizes me.
overnight stubble—now i can’t pull off this dress. we look like giants:
flirt for ice cream, cred, and victory
i’m trying to get to lit lounge, stepping on the gas. i’m never like this
(seedy, gentrifying)
all of the flights have gone to hell knows where. plz take these yeezy’s--
u look like a peasant.
the cops come in at dawn when i move home. dj set in the cab
bc the venue kicked us out
why are the new york nights always so long? she throws up in the limo--
anthony hopkins with a knife
all these americans riding their skinny horses in & out
the passport park one-girlfriend conversation
are you a murderer? i’m with the real
we need 5 tents. but i only have 2.
Reportback
something from two thousand & fifteen is still on fire. when we get back at dawn,
only one demon recognizes me.
overnight stubble—now i can’t pull off this dress. we look like giants:
flirt for ice cream, cred, and victory
i’m trying to get to lit lounge, stepping on the gas. i’m never like this
(seedy, gentrifying)
all of the flights have gone to hell knows where. plz take these yeezy’s--
u look like a peasant.
the cops come in at dawn when i move home. dj set in the cab
bc the venue kicked us out
why are the new york nights always so long? she throws up in the limo--
anthony hopkins with a knife
all these americans riding their skinny horses in & out
the passport park one-girlfriend conversation
are you a murderer? i’m with the real
we need 5 tents. but i only have 2.
Keep this between us
Kayla said what?
arlene & okra hiked up to the waterfall
& got all the way stuck. she’s been plotting
the breakup, coup, the overthrow,
she only stayed til breakfast, until the paperwork
came through. then she dissolved it all.
The paper work?
U better hope it do!
arlene got stuck in the dissolving, mulch
in plot, ran laps around the tenure track.
U mean u didn’t hear?
emailed signature watermarks to everyone
@ magazine. that’s why it’s always
on the recommended shelf.
so it is written
& so it is born.
until the breakup is acquired by miramax
we have to check-in @ the gate. say you’re
with me. say we’re both with the baron.
say brian snuck out west where sugar clots
in time bags. unknown quantities.
i just wanted to hear it from the source.
the bubblegum perimeter will snap,
but they get latex from the bezos store.
in other words, they can’t say shit to me.
I always knew they had a trust fund!
across from us, the barkeep eats
the envelope. he’s hiding from
the wife & kids, just not sure whose.
Honey, well ain’t that just the cost of doing business.
he’ll claim we’re not connected, but you’ve felt
the tendrils reaching under soil, & that’s exactitude,
that’s hearsay; here, say here,
say that stays here :
the way the dog barks right @ 2am, & no one at the door
the way the stars whisper their secrets into idiot ears.
the kernel is exchange. confirmed
by cackling on the stoop, by side eye & a tidal shift
at weekly karaoke. i know what i saw.
so it is written.
& so it is born.
Kayla said what?
arlene & okra hiked up to the waterfall
& got all the way stuck. she’s been plotting
the breakup, coup, the overthrow,
she only stayed til breakfast, until the paperwork
came through. then she dissolved it all.
The paper work?
U better hope it do!
arlene got stuck in the dissolving, mulch
in plot, ran laps around the tenure track.
U mean u didn’t hear?
emailed signature watermarks to everyone
@ magazine. that’s why it’s always
on the recommended shelf.
so it is written
& so it is born.
until the breakup is acquired by miramax
we have to check-in @ the gate. say you’re
with me. say we’re both with the baron.
say brian snuck out west where sugar clots
in time bags. unknown quantities.
i just wanted to hear it from the source.
the bubblegum perimeter will snap,
but they get latex from the bezos store.
in other words, they can’t say shit to me.
I always knew they had a trust fund!
across from us, the barkeep eats
the envelope. he’s hiding from
the wife & kids, just not sure whose.
Honey, well ain’t that just the cost of doing business.
he’ll claim we’re not connected, but you’ve felt
the tendrils reaching under soil, & that’s exactitude,
that’s hearsay; here, say here,
say that stays here :
the way the dog barks right @ 2am, & no one at the door
the way the stars whisper their secrets into idiot ears.
the kernel is exchange. confirmed
by cackling on the stoop, by side eye & a tidal shift
at weekly karaoke. i know what i saw.
so it is written.
& so it is born.
|
NEON MASHUROV (NM Esc) is a writer from Brooklyn and the post-Soviet diaspora, currently working towards their MFA at UCSD. They are the author of chapbooks SERVICE (Bottlecap Press, 2022) & Last Week’s Weather Forecast Made Me Nervous (Ghost City Press / Secret Riso Club). Their poetry appears in publications such as We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics, Black Warrior Review, Bombay Gin, Hobart Pulp, The Recluse, The Felt, Peach Magazine, & more.
/// Kaleidoscoped: fragmented, shiny, shifting, glittering /// "Reportback" is composed of fragments from an ongoing dream journal, while "Keep it between us" is made of the language of gossip, as well as fragments of gossip accumulated from over time. Both are interested in how gossip circulates through communities and how, over the years, gossip separates from its source and subject, collects and reassembles (& refracts!) in our subconscious, & comes back to us as a ghost of itself: haunting our dreams, spaces, friendships, and encounters. The circulation of "hot goss" magnifies + mythologizes the real. What, if any of it, is true? |