jj peña
flamingos on my neck
i once dated three sunburnt military men back to back. diego was the first. a serious man who called me dangerous art, left flamingos on my neck, & interrupted me mid-sentences for kisses. on our fourth date, he asked if i’d move away with him after his service ended in six months, & when i couldn’t answer him, he dipped. thomas was the second. a clinically diagnosed sociopath with an l-shaped scar on his forehead from when he fell asleep at the wheel & crashed on the highway. usually he didn’t like hairy little lion men like me, but i was an exception. i had a bubblegum butt that made him go whoa. we ended when he cried about never being able to fall in love, that everyone felt like oatmeal. then came white, a queso-crema boy who shopped only at whole foods, sneered at meat eaters, & dressed in 50 shades of beige. he said he was going to marry me after three dates & i ran away from him later that same night, after going back to his place, where he started licking my face, doggish & wild, his tongue slobbering around my cheeks, my mouth, my nose, causing me to bleed into his mouth, which only made him smack his lips & say, you taste good. so i know why you don’t want to approach the girl winking at you at the club. you don’t think being single means your future’s full of possibilities like me. you view singleness as a time where all your possibilities have left, taken away the moment your ex left you.
jellyfish
my grandpa had a butterfly-shaped mustache. it would flutter when he’d hum at work, when he’d cradle a grandbaby in his arms, or when he’d beat my grandma, peel her like an orange after drinking ten too many drinks. he became a jellyfish after he went into a coma, after his heart gave out—arteries bulging with black moss. when my dad was called, he, like all his siblings, hoped faith was like silk, that it could drape around his father & save him. but grandpa never woke up & my tíos and tías cried the hospital room into a thick fog when he was taken off life support. my dad says that’s one of the only days god has fallen asleep on him, so i’m hoping god’s awake today & you’re not dead in your apartment, like you promised. you facetimed my sister twenty minutes ago, put a bag over your head, & cried, you’re with this new girl. you’re fucked up! fucking her while i’m devastated without you. if god’s asleep today, i know what’s gonna happen when we show up to your apartment, i know what finding a dead lover by suicide looks like. i saw that last winter while sitting next to you & my sister, watching the movie cloud atlas: how the main character sixsmith finds his lover in a clawfoot tub, dead—brains blown to slushie—how sixsmith’s mouth slowly opens into a deep dark cave, how he gasps & grovels while cradling his dead lover’s head to his chest, how he turns into a thing that can only grasp, a thing that can only want.