A Poem By Krystal Languell

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Romeo + Juliet Poem

Let’s watch each other die. Repeat. Let’s watch each other die
and repeat it in a loop.
I am having what you might call a hard time
with what’s happened. The light turns
to bubbles turns to pool water turns to champagne and we are
in swimsuits drowning.

Let’s lose a lot of blood in the rain during
a misunderstanding. I am wearing a tasteful
glitter bra I made myself, and have to use both hands to pull
up the manual car window.
This is as soft core as it gets. So star-crossed I can’t take credit,
the same song over.

A cloud of silver confetti marks the night
as significant in case anyone missed the cues.
If my coping mechanism doesn’t work for you, shut up. You
do shots of bourbon, I’ll pretend I’m Nick Cave. Let’s shut up
and dance.
Let’s shut up and grind and get sore.

People will talk, but it’s not overwrought if
I actually melt. Because all the girls
in flipflops watch how you move, it was about you from the
start. Today is a lost one
and we will only catnap in adjacent rooms.
What happened was you knew you’d ask

what happened and that didn’t stop you.
Let’s touch despite the new rule you made up.
Let’s burp in each other’s faces since we had
the same thing for dinner. Instead of finding
words for it, we hardly. Don’t even. We pass out without
filling up the hot tub. Blue light.

I want to say you always look so cool but I keep my mouth
shut. My only love: whatever
is set before me. And everyone knows it. Dramatic irony remix
in which you don’t know I know you know — well, let’s turn
the subwoofer all the way up and sleep in bodysound.

Desire seeks an object and reason is not
a consideration. Come at me, sweet pea.
Come at me, sweat stain. The end is far off still, but I’m sure
you’re not the Christ figure.
I get the tab because I live in a city. A jar gets loosened,
tightened, loosened again.

Krystal Languell is on the board of directors of the Belladonna* Collective. Her first book is Call the Catastrophists (BlazeVOX, 2011).

Previously in The Poetry Section: other poems. You may contact the editor at [email protected].