in the flickering starlight i know
after Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles

In my fuzzy flickers of gritting,
the earnest gets the girl,
painfully dripping in Hot like a tragedy.

I don’t get to be gotten; I am a getter—
squirming and writhing, the
senses in my body swelling like earth

quakes, until any cavemen name this
evolution Emotion. Me and my math
ematical label lead the way. I sing

too close to people’s faces, and no children
wonder how a star could hold my gaze. I
arch wherever gravity pulls me, and it’s

called Disco to dance amidst the
flame. My fall sends monsters extinct
but I don’t blame me. I blacken

the framing trees to skeletal crisps. We
swish dresses in the flickering starlight.
I know how people know my name.

first published in the engine(idling