vagabond city

Strap on the seatbeatas you leap off the cliff. Rinse the recyclables so they siton a landfill. Never raise your middle fingerbecause you can’t take it back. Be careful.Did you bring an extra pack of tissues. You quitsmoking ten years ago and you hate vegetables secretly.You want to walk with Marco, who lived acrossNorth Boulevard on the […]

We will learn the namesof the land, of the plantsthat were & the plants that remain Hand-counting bladesof grass until our tonguesgo numb chanting the sequence Music will be conducted by birdsong;extra credit if you can identifytheir new migratory patterns Our Art teacher is the still-lifeof a prairie dawn across the fields,a fresh chiaroscuro each […]

when I die bury meat the root of othergreen minded individuals. ones who know that evenmost things in technologymimic the best parts of nature. bury me withgrass that welcomes dandelionsand some weeds with petals whom move like solar panelsneeding to prove the sun exists.bury me with proof of life. don’t talk about the maggots.let the […]

Like the time we snuck into the open houseoff Park Avenue, relishing in what we had never known:open doors and floor to ceiling windows.And when the blonde realtor questioned your accent,humming a prayer against the backs of her teeth,we smiled and scurried away,our laughter drowning out the slap of our sneakers against the sidewalk.High off […]

over early coffee, a friend reminds you how young you truly are, howyour head & heart are developing with a rapidness too invisible to praise. it feels so obvious, yet you forget all the time.look, every day you unveil a new shadeof yourself, strange unseen tones bleedingtogether on your palette. lookhow your face has shifted its shape over […]

is the worst possible method of acquiring information.i never like what i learn & i refuse to listen to reporters who dress in colors you won’t find in thewoods: horrible dark greys, blacks, & maroons.            seeking answers, i take matters           into my own hands: i walk around & ask           every animal i see on a scale of 1 […]

Stand in the morgue and listento the hush between last breaths and statistics,where silence weighs heavier than data points,certainty is measured in empty homes and call medicine poison.Let mistrust metastasize like mold in flood-ravaged cities,watch fever slip through cracks in your rhetoric whileruin joins it in drought-cracked soil because disease is the freest thing of […]

everything was fireproof and temperateand the sky was whole and holding waterspace was clean and time was sloweveryone loved and believed in love orbelieved love would come they wonderedthey cried but their tears were waterfor uncooked seedseveryone was truthful and their names werefamiliar and their faces were familiar andtheir bodies were familiar and beautiful andeverything […]

wading in a lake of swing dance music, jeans rolled up to the knee-you were there with a sweat-soaked bandana on your head-this was a dance under twinkling electric lights in your backyard.the Moon was out, the stars were out, your smile was out, it was all gleaminglike a streetlight shining down on a graveyard […]

Zigzag across the road only whenYou’re sure you’re safe, when the headlights aren’t burningXrays of your bones onto the concrete. Dark enoughWhere all i can see are the whites of your eyes. your Voice carries over distant traffic, jubilant and trembling.Unbelievable, how you carry onTough as teeth through the winter when the airScrapes at the insides […]

she lies in her bed and tries to dream tries to make this world fade away because dreams are like bubbles of unreality popping and pearling iridescent shine addictive like the stuff in her father’s pipe smoke like haze like mist like dreams her dreams are safe her dreams are prophecies and she dreams of […]

I keep picturing bugs when I think of my body:maggots crawling across white fleshsteaming in the heatrib cage open to the elements. I wish my brain would stop going there,acknowledge the breath in my lungsand claim that as good enough,but my body feels alien. I picture brambles growing through it,vines tangled in the holes of […]

HoodwinkedVantablackWarm food with hot drinksIce cream sells more in colder climatesDuolingo for body languageand facial expressionsPeople saying ‘awkward’ only making it soAn abundance of usernames already takenSame page, different booksAndele andeleBurnt brown sugar, failed caramelRust growing between our toes while illnesses try to gain popularitySludge mind—brain rotRealistic fantasies of traffic and waiting roomsLofty adjectives for […]

Forget about biology and focus on minutiae.Break the smallest parts of body and mindinto opportunities for decay. Seed it well. Deny points of view until teeth crumble,vision blurs with tears. When battered,even the strongest soul softens. Once fatigue roots itself against actionanyone can be collapsed.With patience eventually any body learnshow to die—a little at a […]

after Sharon Olds’ Never Saw my mattress-on-the-floor first apartmentmy met-at-the-student-union first boyfriendthe year they said the world would endI had to do it before the world would endroommates shouting through the wall in mockerydroplets of breath collecting on cold winter glasssummoning mold and other irritants thrift store couches and drives in Greta,my Honda with a failing […]

Cody Stetzel is a Seattle resident working within communications and ethical technologies. They are a contributing writer for Tupelo Quarterly and the Colorado Review, where they offer reviews and criticism of contemporary poetry, poetry in translation, and more. They are a volunteer organizer and event staff for Seattle’s poetry bookstore Open Books: A Poem Emporium. […]

The cliffside acts as morsel to the seawater feasting on rockCollapsible chairs sit unevenly along the cliff’s edge This is a weddingMy wedding dayA marriage of body and bodyBut for meit is a reckoningThis dormant queerness in me erupts And somewheremy father sitsmy mother and sister toowaiting for the ceremony to beginBut offstageI am threading […]

The first high school reunion is a funeral.Afterwards, we chainsmoke in the backyard because language isn’t always enoughto get us through. There are people still alive in this world who need me (you) &feeling fluctuates though freeways refuse.I know the route & want it over withsince no one teaches in a ghost-cluttered classroom, except for […]

i was once mistaken for sunlight – soon i will be nothing again – i now dream only – of green compost bins – & the first law of thermodynamics – when he first picked me – the plantation was still green – chloroplast woven ionic sets – he called me yellow – & my […]

This morning was one of those mornings when I felt   distance, between my daughters and me. Now an ocean away, now living lives I follow on Instagram. With people I don’t know. How strange to hold a being inside, to feel that first kick to the ribs (a sign that life is becoming) and then,  […]

He never really liked her, his Marytoo pure, too fuckin’ piousnot interested in frolicking in bedkamasutra-ing new positionstangling like Twisteractually a bit of a borehours spent on calloused kneesmurmuring strings of nonsenseinstead of fixing him steak and fries Glad she said god was the fatherglad she said she was a virginno #metoo gonna happen herehe […]

You can build it [1] You can build a math equation you can build a rocket you can build the brass-bright saxophone you can build the artery as it greasily explodes you can build the lightning strike you can build the star dense but fuzzy from light years away you can build the walls of […]

All this beauty around us. Whatare we to do with friendship? So easy-bodied, piled together on floor or couch, webend, bind, brace. Herbitten lip in mid thought. Theirbaggy legged short shorts,corduroy shirt stroke. Hiscollar bone become sweat slidedew skinned in low light. Kitchen-doorwaydialogue at the party. Goddamn.Elastic imprint on the wrist.Fold of skin, secret space.Guttural […]

but i wish myself intothe titanic’s turkish baths,2 – 6 p.m.: men only hours,not despite its sinking butto de-baptize our longing;give me that high-conceptlow-effort kind of fatality:two queer bodies buriedinto drowning loungers& let’s fallinto each other’s skinbecause i can no longer standthat every love song turnsinto a confession of hunger,at least a ship wrecks its […]