 Hi y'all, how we doing? All right, so I have this wonderful chat book where my boo, Jess Avigal, she screen printed it. So beautiful, I'm gonna be reading out of it and it's really just like a little glimpse of what you should expect out of my collection coming in the fall, which is such a fucking big deal, y'all, who has a first book out there? No, just me. Yes, it's exciting, right? Celeste, is that you back there? Stop it, all the homies showed up today, y'all. All right, well, thank you so much for having me radar once again. Virgy, thank you, thank you, holding space for us. I'm gonna go ahead and get started. Trigger warnings, shit, do you have mommy issues? This is not for you, nope, it's okay, all right. Lolita, stop picking apart the small woman inside you, toss her a hook, line in a poem, name her a good name. Lolita, the name of the little woman that mocks and writhes inside you. Mommy's little flowers, just a child, just a church hymn, you keep under your grandmother's tongue as she fingers the rosary stuck inside you. You're always just stuck inside you. She tells you you are nothing more than a consequence of bait, your mother a fire, your father a never stand still soil. This is the blood that built you, little girl. Do not forget the blood that built you, little girl. I am a humble but persistent terrorist of this body, always in search of, when I feel it close, I slant harder, tell her they make women different these days, no back pocket to keep my mother in, no back pocket to keep my father in. I tell her I'm okay being the one that stays up at night. I'm okay being the one that births her back at night, back into each one of her poems. My poems are poems. I'm okay being the one that births her back at night. I'm okay being the one that births her back at night. I tell her that in the morning I will love her like sugarcane, and in the evening I will kill her like sugarcane. I admit, I'm still learning to love her. Lolita dead, me, born again. Thank you. This is a pretty decently new one. Like the violent do. Love me like the violent do. I wanna feel it in your tongue thrash, the way you carry it in your rasp. I wanna hear it in your father's belt, the way it buckled and unbuckled. I want it, like all the lonely boys have gone home, like each one learning to love me like the violent do. I'm gonna keep you guys guessing on what else is in here. So some really, really, really new shit. And I've gone from like longing and needing my mommy's love too. I'm just fucking mad. So, here's the first one for ya. I want something sweet like fruit or I'm just here to fetishize over your brown, brown skin, baby. Baby, didn't you know when I leave the bed, I bought my wife, I crave a mango or a tart raspberry, something dark like plum or cherry, warm in my mouth, wearing something indecent, something that will wear my jaw out. And I think I wanna wear his jaw out. I wanna wear his jaw out like a crest in public, like a horror movie, like poor little white boy with a mother that hugged him too much. I wanna pull on his neck bone and cut vertically at the jaw till it pops. Tell him that when he compares me, I want something sweet like fruit, like blood, like pop. I'm coming for them. Feral as in savage as in wolf. As in, I turned bad bitch in the night. As in, a pure hungry child. As in, I've become an environmental issue. As in, grin savage, show them the front row of your teeth. As in, unpalatable. As in, my mother is here on this page. As in, she's scared for you. As in, turned domestic and didn't fucking like it. As in, existing with a tendency to disrupt. As in, bull before horse before stray. As in, revert to wild. As in, always on an intended existence. As in, can't colonize me. As in, can't colonize me. Did you hear me? You can't fucking colonize me. As in, mustang with a foul mouth. As in, variables of twos and threes. As in, eight, the number of bullets it will take. Equal parts contempt. By now you've forgiven him, but you'll still eat from the source. Teeth blaring, a massacating sound. You'll still eat meat from the source. Like no one denies a good meal in the presence of a god. You start hind, then tailbone. Rip rib, one by one from back. Push a heel through the spine. You tie woman up like a hog. Nothing more satisfying than a simple bridge to man. I've got daddy issues too, y'all. Daughter named no father here. The corner woman's child is a bastard. The whole block knows it. She likes walking past her house, past the jasmine tree, the one that smells nice in the spring. She likes to remind herself that she is nothing more than a dirty man's ego. She likes to remind herself that she is more than a dirty man's ego. She likes to remind herself that she is more than a dirty man's ego. She likes to remind herself that she is more than a dirty man's ego. She likes to remind herself that she's more than a dirty man's ego. She likes to remind herself that she is more than a barren flood, more than an open gate into a missing city. So today's Mother's Day. For all you Latinas out there. I didn't call my mom, so this one's for her. Garne enferma. My mother tells me to slow down. I tell her, you should have swallowed me. My mother tells me to slow down. I tell her, do you know how long I've waited? My mother tells me to slow down. I tell her, don't follow me. My mother tells me to slow down. I tell her, I'm a full bitch tongue, bullets bent up inside me. My mother tells me to slow down. I tell her, this metal mouth is no accident. And even if I told you this wasn't true, you wouldn't believe me. My mother birthed me scared. All right, last one. This poem is for someone that took this little defensive as fuck creature and showed it some real love. So this is where my partner, Jessica, who's in the audience, will make a real, real awkward for all of y'all so I'm just gonna stare at her and profess my undying love. So y'all can watch. This is how you show your love. It's still morbid as fuck, but you know. I'm trying y'all, I'm trying. I'm not a love poet. This is how you show your love. Fuck, she's so hot. God. Ugh. All right, all right, all right. They're filming, they're filming. I'd eat her left rib first if she let me. I'd spread the meat of her thigh bone teeth to muscle every night if she let me. I'd reach through her clavicle down to her heart and feel it struggle if she let me. I'd rip the skin between index finger and numb if she let me. Pop a vein, sip wine from her blood every night if she let me. I swear I would suck her rose cheeks pale like addiction if she let me. I'd crave the sound of her bone crack under my tongue and I'd promise to love and love and love the savor in her marrow most if she let me. Thanks y'all.