it doesn’t have a name
or it does but
i don’t know it.
i could be like “your name
is shawna now” and it’d be
like “bitch, it’s courtney.
tomorrow it’s tom. last tuesday
it was the shadow
by your window at night, i live in
the corner of your eye
the second the lights go out. back
the fuck up.”
though
i don’t think my pussy’s name
would ever be courtney.
i don’t think my pussy
likes to be called
a pussy.
or maybe i just hate
calling it that. i really
hate it. i call it
my third fist.
a hand full
of nails. i call it my down
there. fuck the monologues
but it’s like that one monologue
with the old lady.
i think i’m an old lady
but instead of cats i just have
hella plants blocking
all my windows
i think not-courtney is
one of my plants
and full of something
like aloe but made
of bones
and doesn’t need sun,
lives below the crust
of my earth
i bleed millennia
of hellfire and plastic
bottles
all teeth around
the casing of something
soft
a bullet full of blood,
a glass of water
in the night.
Jess Rizkallah is a Lebanese-American writer / illustrator living between Boston & New York. Alumna of Lesley University, MFA candidate at NYU & founding editor at Maps For Teeth magazine / pizza pi press. Her work has appeared in Word Riot, Nailed Magazine, Button Poetry, Rattle, & on her mother’s fridge. Her collection THE MAGIC MY BODY BECOMES won the 2016 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize & is forthcoming on University of Arkansas Press, 2017. Find her at jessrizkallah.com.