Ｓａｌｔ

I want to leave the shore and keep licking that salt on my lips as the day wanders off.

I’m cradling your scales, always your tears

Here in my birdcage. Chest. Serpent stays singing watching

Would you just come to me quiet?

And eat me?

I want to run my fingers through your scalp and then claw at your skull to find that I love your hair.

Just hold my hand til sweaty would you? And then just one finger.

The sidewalk isn’t burning.

Summer stays fading— Dare I?

I want to lick my lips and let the salt of the sea cradle my eyes stinging—

I love your hair.

Study me with eyes quiet.

Entangle me with melting tongue turn soft and apologize.

Lie to me the sweetest and tell me about it

Scrub my chest clean.

In the yellow glow of your kitchen I study freckles on your waist.

We eat fried fish. Then taste pickled onions cut too slow and laugh.

And fuck each other. While staring at each other do it.

I cut the onions slow and pretty to make them real. I tell you it’s slow because everything I do is pretty even if eyes must sting.

You grow tired

While I just want you inside me more.

I love your hair.

Skin still too soft for someone as such.

Your skin lies.

Skin soft because I am here holding the scales you’re saving for dessert.

Your skin lies and I love it.

You suck my tits so hard maybe hoping ghost milk could feed you.

But I won’t bare you a child.

I won’t bare you a child.

And we are nothing to each other.

We are nothing to each other.

Yet here you scavenge for milk and I watch over kindly.

I lick my lips and love the salt.

I swallow everything but the pavement.

I stay.

We make sounds that merely glance at each other recognizable through the shower’s head sobbing or the heavy air above your couch

Your kitchen smells of cat piss. The stove covered in hairs.

We sneeze. And our feet are dirty.

You cover it all in incense and excuses.

I wake coughing in the night and you fix it.

You never come down from the high.

Call me angel

Kiss me all over

Hold my waist

Trap me and I’ll cradle you.

Do you remember the birthmark on my hand like I remember freckles on you.

I love licking the salt after I’ve left the waves silent still swallowing me.

I love his hair.

I love the deep register of his voice.

We used to be honey sweet and talk about God and Mexico

He thinks he must know me but I’ve grown so quiet.

Come home to me quiet. I’ll gaze upon marks on your skin and lick salt off my lips now quite far from the sea.

The sidewalk isn’t burning

There goes the moon.

I swallow my spit for myself this time.

Gabrielle [Narcisse] is a producer, interdisciplinary artist, and writer living in NYC. She loves, fairies, playlist-making, the smell of jasmine, and dessert. Substack / Instagram