disco fever

Hanna Andrews

I felt you slip out from the bar stool, barely bitter, a new shade of
gangrene. a toss of the hair before assuming the floor, shoulders
glinting reptilian. a new shade of penance on the backs of my lids,
throbbing opulence gone dumb behind the heat of my sockets,
feet dragging across sticky epoxy at your whim. parading around
in my mini skirt with my gut bulged, softened by a moat of tonic, tepid
to the touch. adjacent to me you transpose, with your night-flesh on,
speaking easy, batting nictitating membranes like a crocodile,
sweat swelling with surface tension at the tips of your scales.

II.

I am no longer under the supervision of the disco ball, made my pilgrimage
and did my dance, hands strung up to the rafters, Southern gospel style,
armpits crosshatched, crop-top tugging belly-button ring, as you watch
on the floor, in the air, beads crumbling like raspberry carpels as you
linger like aftershave at the afterparty, witnessing my soggy march
with heels in hand, my sure dissolution from the soles up for a
sliver of sherbet spotlight, shoddy millionaire, I got money in the
bank, shawty, what you think ’bout that?

III.

in moments after, our bodies blunder towards weekdays. ankles heavier than
house arrest, humming loud enough now to loosen the grout between
the subway tiles. nights like these, I would like to retreat to the amniotic
atmosphere I came from, sipping a rum-and-coke from my infantile gills,
growing red and puckered ’round the rosy in my embryonic glory, my
empty innards sloshing with cold blood and spirits. when I empty myself, it
will not ruin the carpet or slither below the linoleum. I will twist cherry stems
with a forked tongue, growing septic in my sickness, my cytoplasm bobbing
with the heads of my victims. when I resurrect next, they will not know me
by my holiness and will neglect my sober sobriquet. Bloody Mary, full of grace,
gallivanting off into the night with Missy still stained on my lips,
and the bodies I led into the dawn swinging behind me.

Bio
Hanna Andrews is a student and writer based in Southern California. She is a staff editor for Inkblot Literary Magazine and enjoys cherry cough drops and long walks on the beach.