2 Poems
Ivanna Baranova
lisbon imagined
during our sad little breakfast by the window
we discuss the patterns in population density
of the last cities on earth we’ve never been to
but know how to pronounce
the cities we know how to pronounce sparkle
and furthermore don’t enact any symptomatology
of dependency or interpersonally destructive behavior
this is why we like to imagine ourselves inside of them
but not inside the bodies of the people who inhabit them
i make eye contact with you
then suicide myself into the sour cream
as if to say “i have arrived”
again i am making it about me always about me
today everyone on earth eats dairy
no one gives a fuck about the film industry the heterosexuals or the alt right
because there are more pressing matters at hand like
the end of our dimming lives as we know them
when i think of june my body remembers all of its lifetimes
i think: if i was in love then i am not now
i think: if i was like a person in love then i am like a person on life support now
i decide that when we do fall back in love
i will invite you to go hopscotching across the viaduct with me
when we cross back into the city i promise to take you with me
where when whenever i go wherever i go
in this scenario
you don’t ask me what’s the prognosis
we fly to pronounceable cities on fresh passports
wash the salt stains from our shirts in hotel lobbies
opt out of infinite regress
opt out of pushing ourselves off every ledge for sport
water signs
i don’t want to mention death
any more than we do the weather
whatever daily obituaries
and fahrenheit levels
consume us both
our bras cupping
pools of sweat
no matter the weather
no matter the month
when the temperature drops we go
coffin shopping at the colour house
we cruise control the drive home
so to sidewalk stare at the faces
that house the eyes of the expressions
of the people who do not love us now
didn't love us then
and never will
because we don’t know any better
we chalk phenomenological consequence
up to the effects of obligation
conflate all intersectional theory
with lawlessness
proselytize lazy idioms
about astrology and the occult
when i joke about being garbage
it is because i am a joke about being garbage
and garbage is as garbage does as garbage does
isn’t it amazing
the pithy fuckery
of the one-two conflation
to which i subject you
to make you
to make you want me
to make you want to touch me
wanting is the melting of the ego
wanting is the witnessing of melting
melting can be spontaneous and a-romantic
can tend to occur during the onset of any cycle
menstrual
psychiatric
or otherwise
just so you know:
when i want something
i ask for it
i never ask for you
Ivanna Baranova is a poet based in Vancouver, Canada. Her work can be found in Pacific Dissent, Poetry is Dead Magazine, and elsewhere. She is a recent graduate of the University of British Columbia, having completed a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies of Philosophy, Gender, and Creative Writing.