Selected Poems by kiki nicole | kiki nicole
i start
with a whimper. Scream song I pretend
to forget. There is a thirst. Maybe I come from a mouth
I don’t belong to. Could be spit I sat
too long in, til I pruned. Muck bath I don’t want to know,
but drink of anyway.
My whole body : pelvis mouth,
I suck and rot
and keep.
where they do that at? who taught me
how to fester? bog
breath I don’t want to own.
who taught me how to hold?
Maybe I end
and that’s it.
vacuum I don’t want. pitfaced,
I clutch at drains,
looking for my own
throat.
BIRTH OF VENUS AS A boi1
Out of sea foam, they emerged
A coral reef of pronouns gasping
Their gut adorned
in precious shells, Honey
& turmeric dipped
Fingers, a fresh fade
Heart ricocheting
off a wine-stained mattress
Swear they be draped
in lustrous tapestry, auric,
Ruin Yourself weaved in
Bright kanekalon on the fleshy fabric,
Tarnished copper rings of snakes
& roses between gapped teeth,
Plum mouth Rising,
Nipples whetted on moonstone,
How charming it is to be a body,
Frail & frivolous in its frigid
A mooring riddled with gutter-rumble,
They out here in a thin skin,
Alive? a heavy mess,
Crown of acrylics,
Child of the Compost,
Them dragged down by constellations
The Huntress on their left ear,
Cassiopeia dangling on the right.
Dead hurts be heavy & they swollen
With a thousand million inhales.
Swear they emerged on all fours,
Back already aching,
Unbuttoned their tits & wounded the moon,
Got the whole ground shook.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE boi VENUS IN WHICH THEY MISGENDER THEMSELF
take, for instance, this wide open
beast. wrap sheself in stale silk.
a laying on of skin & breath full
of ashes. take the moon & drag it
thru the biggest cavity you can
find; its craters drenched in her’m
moufmatter: honeyed
brandy, chasm
of loose baby teeth.
you can take the girl
out of the body but first,
you must take the body.
WORMTONGUE2
somewhere between an unbalanced pH level
& a constant curve
i bleach the crotch of my briefs & slither into
my winter-skin
sometimes i be talking to someone & then i just
stop but i still get the
vibrations coursing through i think i am the guy
TLC warned you about otherwise
known as a busta
or i don’t truly know what i am
just a long plump tongue of a body now
plaque pale i suppose no one sees me
anymore until it rains & then too much of
me i split into millions damp little
ghosts squeezing our breathing caskets long
& over one another’s sticky trails straining for
breath or whatever comes after being alone
i, Echo again, gnawing at
muggy walls for a voice other than my own
i taste the scent of Messy Bitch
through my skin muscles i am slick
with it…how fertile my ugly.
INTERLUDE IN WHICH SOME SAY
Some say That Bitch ascended, unguided, into a Nothinghood. Some say they unnamed their [redacted] until only a honey cavity remained. Some say they swam in the brown dark between memory & flesh. Some say they drowned & stayed a fertile war. Some say they emerged without warning, strutting stardust, drenched in rosewater. Some say to look at their face is to choke on your own spit: bitter afterbirth.