Mine is a reference to the E.E. Cummings poem, “I like my body when it is with your” I picked it like ten years ago now, but it stuck, and I use it for my photography and art as well. Here’s the piece -

i like my body when it is with your

body. It is so quite new a thing.

Muscles better and nerves more.

i like your body.  i like what it does,

i like its hows.  i like to feel the spine

of your body and its bones,and the trembling

-firm-smooth ness and which i will

again and again and again

kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,

i like, slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz

of your electric furr,and what-is-it comes

over parting flesh….And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

I owe a couple of you Querencia contracts, and I have some new posts to read.

I got really exciting news today and decided to take some me time to celebrate in light of that.

I received a scholarship for a Sundress writing fellowship this summer for only 14 authors with only 3 scholarships being awarded!

I should be catching up on all press stuff tomorrow. Thank you to everyone here for being my community for a long time now.

I am incredibly saddened and disappointed at the responses to this challenge. I don’t think calling someone cisgender is a way to “hate on them” unless you believe the opposite—that calling someone transgender is a way to hate on them.

It is very straightforward term with no opinion and only fact behind it only meant to distinguish someone who was assigned male or female at birth and relates to that gender as they have grown into the person they have become. There is also Intersex or Eunuch, etc.

I am cisgender because I was assigned female at birth and it is the correct gender for me. But there are people born with both sexual organs whose parents arbitrarily pick a gender for them who could say the same. But if they were assigned female and identified as male despite having the biological anatomy they would not be cisgender. Cisgender doesn’t mean “biologically” male or female and I think that’s a really important distinction that it seems most of these challenge responses are leaving out.

What connotation someone places on the word matters (as any word), but the word itself does not mean anything offensive and only helps affirm people who are living a very difficult lifestyle.

It is so easy for someone not affected by a problem to say something like “we don’t need more labels”. No one is upset when someone calls them able-bodied. Cisgender is a similar distinction to wrap your head around. Adding your pronouns after your name might not be important to you, but creating the ubiquity of it it can be the difference between someone spiraling into a suicidal depression from being misgendered and made to feel like their own self and self opinion is unimportant and disrespected.

be better to eachother

i.

Heat, press against you. Exit body, exit body. Emergency-exit fucking room. Steamed-breath, press sticky against windows. Swallow his request. Swallow his pushing. Exit body. Ignore his pushing. Ignore your softness. Ignore your heat. Ignore his softness. Remember the ache. Remember the matched heartbeats. Remember the hands pressed to hands. Remember when you wanted this. Remember when he wanted you. Remember it as wanting. Imagine it as wanting.

ii.

He took too much. But once he smelled like summer. Once he was the beach. Once he was warm breath colliding against warm breath. And he took too much. But once he was soft eyes. Once he was whispered secrets against neck. And I’m sorry that I always let him take too much. And I’m sorry I make him take too much. But imagine it as wanting.

iii.

And I’m never enough. He’s holding me-transparent, and looking right through. But remember it as wanting. Remember it as wanting. Imagine it as wanting.

on the counter is the mug with the chipped handle and a ring from the cup of ice water that I poured in the orchids, there is really only one orchid, but it felt better than saying that I split it with the monstera, that night I will not sleep, the bedroom door is painted in three parts Bit O Sugar and one part Lamb’s Skin with two packets of glitter to remind myself that I love the sunlight, the idea will clog up behind my eyelids, twinkle against the worry that I might forget these thoughts by morning, and both will coalesce with the sound of the fan and the sound of the wind, and I will bolt up from almost sleep and remember that there is a light I forgot in the violet room, it will be bouncing off the mirror, I will pretend to sleep, and the black sheets will pretend to be satin, there is still packing to do for the weekend, the floors are not swept, this is most likely not a poem, but you’re reading it, and I wait for my coffee with a headache

He licks his berry-stained fingers, sucking sticky sugar and who knows what else from beneath the nails.

“You know that’s filthy?” Clara’s eyes search his face. He’s all angles. With how easily he devours food you’d expect curves and rolling skin.

Heath leans back in his chair. Appraising. Giving her a once over. “Perhaps,” he pauses, slipping his finger back into the sweet filling pouring out from the crumb in front of him. He leans into her and feels her breath catch as he wipes the sticky mess across her mouth. Their faces almost touch, and she’s still not breathing. “Tastes good though,” he exhales as his tongue pushes its way into her mouth.

And he’s right.

It’s like eating light. It’s like drowning in oxygen. And she cannot stop. It is a hunger she could never describe. And she cannot stop. Her insides are bursting, but she cannot stop. The process of eating this cake has become her one and only need. And it never ends. And Clara must eat it all before he gets the chance to take anymore from her. She feels sick. She wants to stop. She needs to stop. She is suffocating. Food filling her so fast that her stomach cannot contain it. Red dripping from her mouth.

Heath holds her face down in the viscid expanse of sweet debris. “It’s alright, love. Keep going until you can’t. Keep going until your heart stops…”

And Clara weeps as the syrup fills her up. The sugar rushing through her veins, crashing into her heart. And her body cannot keep up. But still she wants more. And just when she thinks she will not fill until it is too late, he pulls her neck back. Her throat is exposed and her mouth is begging her to dig back in. “My turn,” he whispers and sucks every last bit of her out. And he keeps going until she can’t. He keeps going until her heart stops. Sticky morsels clinging to his throat. He keeps going because he can’t stop.

I found her in the garden, surrounded by my skeleton. My ribs, a clamped-shut jaw. Her fingers white-knuckling my moon-bleached bones. She doesn’t raise her head, until I am close enough to touch her. I want to touch her. She’s not wearing anything, and her skin is an eruption of nerve-endings. Her eyes are frantic. Fluttering, pacing, glimmering-ghosts. She is unfocused. Kneeling in fresh soil. The earth pooling around her. I’m caging her in. I’m holding her hostage. She’s still. She’s pacing. She’s looking at me, but not. Eyes glassy. Spectral stare. Staring, but not. I want to touch her. She presses her face between my last two, true ribs – T6, T7. She opens her mouth. Staring, but not. Her tongue is shining, too red for this world. Her tongue is made of rose petals. Her tongue is licking my bones. Not moon-bleached. Sucked dry. Expertly cleaned. Her red roses are tumbling around my sternum. She is my sternum. She’s eating me from the inside. She’s stealing the meat of me. She is licking her lips. Salivating. Staring, not-staring. She’s pouring out ghosts. I am losing time.

“I haven’t been able to sleep.”

The tonguing ceases. There is wet glittering at the corners of her mouth. She nods.

“crows?”

It echoes across my bones. Rattles my innards. Feathers kiss the inside of my mouth. Wings beat and float around inside my windpipe. They’re trying to escape. Her voice clangs against my internal organs. Resounding cacophony, clashing through costal cartilage. Roses bloom from the spots she touched. Thorns caressing my veins. Symphony of growing sounds. Growing blossoms. Growing birds. She’s flourishing. She wants out. I break the floating ribs – T11, T12. They splinter away in shards. They’re rushing through me. Targeting my heart. And I am the sternum. And she is the cage. I found her in the garden. Surrounded by my skeleton. I’m peering between bars of thoracic cage. I’m surrounded by my skeleton. Or is this hers? She’s licking the bones. She’s planting seeds. Is this mine or is this hers?

My tongue pushes between my lips, involuntary. I’m salivating. I’m resisting. I’m losing. I’m tasting her ribs. I’m lapping up marrow. Is this mine or is this hers? I am insatiable. Ravenous hunger overpowering insomnia. We are eating to burst. Resistant-tongue grazing petal-tongue. Tastebuds brushing velvet. I am the sternum. I am the hunger. I am the starving. I’m filling with perennial, rebirth. There are vines bursting through me. Climbing my walls. Rebuilding my structure. My bones are wasting away. Saliva eating at the surface. Whittling me down. I’m eating myself out of house and home. I am built of glass. Botanic conservatory. I am transparent. I am spectral. I am verdant. Our eyes meet. She is my resurrection. We are becoming one. We are many. We are one. She is we. I am we. We are we. We are swallowing light. There is no light. What is light? Floral nectar rushes through our veins. We suck out life. We are filling. We are flourishing. We are one.

We eat ourselves, raw.

(this excerpt is from my novella Swallow - available in print here https://www.amazon.com/Swallow-Emily-Perkovich/dp/180016291X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3P8FEJBR0B4Z2&keywords=swallow+emily+perkovich&qid=1680132930&sprefix=swallow+emily+perkovich%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-1 - or lmk if you'd like a complimentary digital copy in exchnage for a review)

The covers wear into their inevitable softness

Let the sheers shudder over a crying morning

Fall into a blushing night

There is someone always reaching into the center of the knot

There is a crooked finger

A scratching nail

A freckled chest takes the bullet

How could I do anything but,

O,

And o,

I’m learning swan dives in the key of delusions on high

But there is someone many-limbed, hands outstretched

There is a net of appendages

I watch the sprouting of arms on the heart of patience

Watch the cradle of my body against concrete

Feel the statues buckle

I miss the sound of echoes

See here, how we build a tolerance

And o,

I walk, not run, from the wreckage

But,

How could I do anything without

Staying

I drag knees to sleep inside you

You won’t have to ask

I scrape my way to roll against you

And o,

How could I do anything but,

Lace my bones into your frame

And o,

How I learn to stay

I feel like I have a lot of announcements, recently :????

My 4th book is out now! You can buy the print version here - https://a.co/d/7imyFLL

the ebook will be available January 15th.

If you feel like you can commit to leaving me a review on Goodreads or Amazon then let me know, and I will send you a free PDF :)

Much love all! <3

Your hands are often too rough. The skin at the edges of your nail beds is peeled back and hardened and has, on occasion, been known to bleed without warning. If I run my thumb along the inside of your palm, I know exactly where it will catch on raised callouses. And even when I’m alone, I can feel the spot where your fingers would rest in the webbing of my own. My skin is electric shocks at the thought of the places where your fingertips most often linger. Nerve endings, attention-wrought. Breath, hitched in tightrope suspension. And I can count your freckles without you in the room. I could draw a map of your skeleton from memory. Place each rib in its exact location. Carve the precise depth of your clavicle. I know the pattern your teeth leave on each of my hips and how your tongue feels restless against my own. My neck can recall each spot where your lips chap and how often your front teeth push past them. I am violently aware of the spots where your hair refuses to lie against your scalp and instead reaches skyward. The sighs and stutters that litter your speech patterns. I can feel the sharp intake of your breath when my teeth close just a bit too hard on your frame. And that slight leak of CO2 in nighttime stillness. I sleep, dizzy in your exhales as they fill up my inhales. I would swear I have been constructed from the realization of the space that you fill in relation to all of the emptiness I leave behind. And you forgot the color of my eyes.

*this piece is from my newest collection baby, sweetheart, honey coming in January and available wherever books are sold.