new year poems

my resolutions are to write more and eat less carbs. the latter isn’t for weight loss reasons, i just feel like such a student council president when i order a blueberry muffin at 9 AM.

poem i wrote after a man helped me carry my new treadmill
up the stairs

i bought a pink walking pad
to make my legs look more like when you last touched them
smoother, softer, and far less traveled
new york made my calves rock hard
my desk job makes my inner thighs bumpy
at least my ass still matches my smile 
wide, dimpled, and something you liked to squeeze
in the hopes you could watch it burst.

poem i wrote after pretending not to know 
who the strokes are

i’m riding around in passenger seats again
rifling through men’s cd collections 
so when i go down on them later
i can pretend we’re not strangers
“tell me about the first time you heard Bruce Springsteen”
“is your dad dead or alive?”

there’s a quiet in my life now 
i keep trying to tune out
by recreating our loudest nights
tying to convince myself i’m as wild
as when we first met

remember the way i danced for you
in our porch light inferno
alive with the joy of not knowing
who either of us were
my skin looked so good
before i knew your middle name.

poem i wrote after ordering a vegan hoagie
and pissing everyone in the deli line off

i’m eating the sort of food my ex used to cook
in a last stitch effort to make me smaller 
or maybe just pure
i could never tell what he hated more
my cellulite or my wickedness
you loved both 
but only in a pink dress
sort of like how i won’t eat fiber 
unless it’s stuffed inside white bread
if we both did bad things 
why is it only winter where i am?
the deli oil on my lace gloves
makes me feel like we’re having sex again.

poem i wrote after wondering if my therapist had me 
on mute the whole time

i miss the kind of sex
that makes my shrink furrow her brow
and say a bunch of stuff about boundaries 
that i already know 
therapy is about company 
not revelations

in our small room you grabbed me 
like a peach with no bruises
press your thumb against my inner thigh 
you’ll see that now 
i’m soft with rot.

thanks for reading, happy new year everyone :)

-Rachel Elizzzzz