Dodo Eraser

I’M CUTE! I’M NORMAL! I’M GRAZING A JUMPER CABLE AGAINST MY LEFT VENTRICLE

LIKE AN ASYMPTOTE OR MY LAST SHRED OF PRESERVATION
A CATEGORY 4 CURVING AGAINST MY COAST BUT YOU MAKE ME WANT

TO BE EASY TO FIND, TO BE EASY ON THE EYES AND WHO THE HELL
ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY COCK

-SUREDNESS, AND WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME HARD
STOP MY AROMANTICS? SINCE WHEN DID I KICKSTART THAT CAR

-E I HAD, FOR MEN? SINCE WHEN DID BEING TOUCH STARVED
MEAN THAT I WAS SO HUNGRY FOR YOUR COME

-LINESS, YOUR QUIET PURR, YOUR COME ON
OVER AND SHOW ME WHAT I’M WORTH I AM

TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS OLD AND TWENTY-SOMETHING
TEXTS INTO OVERTHOUGHT AND I SWEAR TO GOD

THE ONLY THING I’M HORNY FOR IS FOR MY LIFE

TO START, THE ONLY ENGINE REVVING IS MY USELESS!,
PISS-SOAKED!, CAR BOOT!, TIRE-SLASHED! HEART BUT I THINK

OF YOU WHEN YOU DON’T MAKE YOURSELF AROUND AND I THINK
OF YOU WHEN I THINK OF GOING DOWN ON

THE SHORELINE FOR THE CYCLONE TO CUT ME STRAIGHT
DOWN THE MIDDLE SO THAT I CAN SAY I’M MISSING

MY OTHER HALF, MY LIMBS, MY GUT,
MY WORN OUT SHOES, MY DIC

-K AND BALLS, MY LADY LUCK, MY LOVED,
MY LOST, MY SENSE OF WORTH, MY TRACK OF TIME,

my caps lock, my full stop,
my toes crossed, my end rh-

Minigolfing, or poem while mom lays in a hospital bed

500 miles away in the building grandma died in and
I’m checking my phone between every hole
for a call, a text, an answer, an absolution
from the unrelenting evil I feel, from the golf balls in my stomach I feel
like this is what she wants for me, to enjoy the cool weather
while she suffers and I told her “don’t you haunt me
if you ever become a ghost,” lest she watch me rake my
-self over the coals, lest she become a mournful voyeur
to my every questionable decision, to my every pitiful cry for my
mother to watch me lose my mother in real time and I’m losing
after hole 9, I’m too busy doing everything I can
to keep everyone inside my head, to keep everyone from losing
their minds

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Steven C. Wright is a queer poet and prose author from Edison, New Jersey. His work has appeared in Frontier Poetry, Serotonin Press, Full House Literary, Burial Magazine, and elsewhere.