A fingernail stuck inside
each dumpling is a sign
of betrayal.

So betray me
in all the ways you fantasize.
I am a woman in a city.
I’ve come to expect
nobody understands my language
in any restaurant in town
and the best I can do
is try to analyze the nail
sizes, shapes and colors in each bite.

This offering is covered
in black hairs.
This one includes an aquamarine tooth
attempting to shatter my own tooth
because all stained glass
femmes
end up getting
what’s coming to them.

This drink list is covered
in blood
laced with tiny entrails.
I pretend I'm a vampire
fetishist but I’m really a woman
with red lipstick and a high
waisted skirt.

The choice to wear a boot
into the booth
with tiny fish swimming inside
getting wasted
on the absence of light
until the roe grow into demons.



I tend to be drawn
towards the disturbing.
The redder the better.
Ink, paint, blood.

Sometimes sardine cans
are loaded
with leeches,
dripping.

I will slowly be sucked dry
until all I really am
is a repetitive art installation
inside a tiny constellation
of dead glitter.


*

Of dead glitter
attempting to affix itself
to everything around me.
Trying to stick to your legs,

your face, invade your brain.
But nothing can stick to me,
at least not from the outside.
It won't be long before I don't exist.

I am increasingly disconnected
from my own body.
Another background sensation
fast approaching capitulation.
A leech drowned inside a child's swimming pool.


j/j hastain is a collaborator, writer and maker of things. j/j performs ceremonial gore. Chasing and courting the animate and potentially enlivening decay that exists between seer and singer, j/j hopes to make the god/dess of stone moan and nod deeply through the waxing and waning seasons of the moon.

Juliet Cook is brimming with black, grey, silver, purple, and dark red explosions. She is drawn to poetry, abstract visual art, and other forms of expression. Her poetry has appeared in a peculiar multitude of literary publications. You can find out more at JulietCook.weebly.com.