I can be your angle...😇 or yuor devil 👹

Content warning: drugs/alcohol and implied sexual assault.

I.

you suggested an ironic matching couples’ outfit         
maybe faerie queen & donkey-headed prole       
the front & rump halves of a dairy cow         
or        for eerie pinstripe twin-suit equality           
sexy bananas-in-pajamas      patrolling goldenrod down the stairs          
the party was your idea           as all ideas are yours                
& acquiescence is entirely mine

II.

I have collected hair clumps    from your brush      
to rebuild you if you ever go       but in the stained
bed-linen toga              you are already half-angelic            
which is to say     you have already holstered your torso 
with the bleached feather wings I wanted to wear                  
& relegated me to the red foil bodysuit    
it is very sweaty in here    I broil like a cocktail sausage 
ready to split from this strained crimson skin   
but you are sponging my face with scarlet paint      
thumb on my lower lip to steady my jaw
as you call me your very goodest evil         
& you pass me the duct tape          to strap on my horns

III.

ideally I would go as a gargoyle     nothing bright     
but camouflaged & crouched all night on the sagging eaves 
making impeccable hentai face            mouth gaped to spill gutter water             
a fountain of pure crystal puke        which you could sip from 
if you wished     to hydrate        cos at the last party you got so thirsty
your pupils were huge with me in them       I wanted to stay 
that way engraved            convex in your corneas         
lying on some random’s bed     peeling rhinestones from your cheeks          
your fingers tracing the red inside out of my ears       
swirling fingerprints like record grooves        
a whisper                     louder than music                              
so when you left I just lay there listening         
a soft shell echoing your sounds      

IV.

unable to plead you to stay in the crumpled coverlet   
or to let me leave with you       unsure even what it was you had         
needed that evening        a touch of poppy or psilocybin
probable acid for the base brain meat      
or syruped cactus hewn from a neighbor’s plot
not that I was sober by any means      the room scintillating            
purple and gold like an ametrine druzy        
but I was already braced for the descending tonnage of dawn                    
while you partied for no tomorrow        life & soul etcetera   
always telling me ugh dude             your reality is stifling     

V.

you are so very Titania    
you could elevate any tacky sequined taffeta gown     
while I pose in the background    
you may even plant a kiss on my equine novelty mask     
but I listened in class      reading the rohypnol empress   
when the husband-potion pins back her lashes to wow        
at any passing ass                          listen I’m not bitter 
to not be chosen         listen         it’s worse than that  

VI.

cos it was me that found you later    
strewn in someone’s lap       
room cloyed with cold vomit & molten 
bodies          I carried you through            
the terrible fairy lights     flashing in the hallway     
where you mumbled no cops no cops no  

VII.

gathered you home     showered you                 
without looking      & tucked you in      
jettisoned a drink bottle squeeze through clenched teeth      
hand-fed you what I could find     white toast & margarine      
salty petals of shaved ham       a generous spoon 
of whole-egg mayonnaise      & I lay awake            
on a mound of damp towels                        in the blankness               between your shallow inhalations

VIII.

I still believe      if I’d had to      
I could have breathed life into you        
despite this craven mouth
too shy to say    
why do you still hang out with those people         
or     dude u know I l*ve you     
but I don’t know how to help you     
probably I should have started by simply saying      nah     not this time babe    

IX.

& yet today     I seriously contemplated the cow costume        
with no question that you would lead      our doubled bulk    
as I bent over      holding your hips       to follow blindly 
the cowbell at your collar        ringing in the beautiful boys again       
to name them more wistful things than me    
peaseblossom        cobweb      moth & mustardseed       
because you are the sugar eater          
& the night              the night is full of nectars

Rebecca Hawkes (she/her) is a poet and painter from a sheep and beef farm in Canterbury, now living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Her first book Meat Lovers, a gory, gravy-drenched new collection of poems, is due soon from Auckland University Press. You can find more of her work in places like Stasis, Starling, Landfall, and her chapbook Softcore coldsores in AUP New Poets 5. Rebecca co-edits local literary journal Sweet Mammalian and is a founding member of the Show Ponies popstar-poets' posse. She is also a co-editor for No Other Place To Stand, a forthcoming anthology of climate change poetry from Aotearoa.

Poem note: This poem was first published in Rebecca’s debut poetry collection, Meat Lovers.

You can follow Rebecca here on Twitter @gorsebloom and on Instagram @gorse_bloom.