symptoms of self-pride

permit our early
trespass—we’ve
become prophets
to our ending—
the fruit riddled
with holes—your
wings escaping—

Two Poems

Elijah Wood, who played Frodo in Lord of the Rings, 
also voiced Wirt in Over the Garden Wall because 
agents like to typecast him as nervous & weirdly charming 
brunette boys. Juno, played by Elliot Page, is my favorite
weirdly charming brunette boy

Two Truths, One Lie

That night in the empty lot across the all-boys school! The weeds are so tall they leave shallow cuts all over your legs! Something about being marked like this excites you!

Let's Try Not to Avoid It

Peril in cavernous love. A girl squeezing
her knuckles around the battery clips. Too afraid
to cry, part of the attraction is to let tourists think
they’re in control.

Puerto Princesa Subterranean River

Late at night, I hear the TV in the living room switch on. It does this every night at exactly the same time past 11 PM. The screen flickers for as long as nobody is watching, nobody but me anyway, then switches off without anyone’s help.

We convene in dimly lit rooms

Shirt loose in men’s bathrooms, I fake hand-washing when
I hear the door open. Your entry is my alarm but I want more

than anything for it to be distant thunder—a Brian Eno album
—September noons that curb the sticky, unbearable air I can’t

  A long time not never. Healing
              is
                precarious. Place the wound
on a lower shelf. Along the far wall.
        Anywhere is good as long as
    it can breathe.

Aylli Cortez

Selected work