Nathan Rivera

"Writing is a very joyous process for me, and even though i want you to kick my fucking teeth in is clearly dark, clearing the space to make it allowed me to move through my life in a way that I couldn't before writing it. Satsuma peel is deeply personal as love poems tend to be, but the love here, I hope, is towards the future as my partner and I continue our transitions."

gaping maw

dark, silent

what i mean is i wanna get some work done. 

it doesn’t didn’t doesn’t hurt in the way you imagined

the way i imagined it might

the girl-thing died

and if i was a woman, i’d ask for teeth

in her grace

she’s so much 

like me,

she asks for it to stop,

politely,

fading to black, as it were, against the third rail, 

i’m in love with boy blood

running down my legs 

pulsing

hot

what i mean is i had eyes once

glass ones, 

under the old piano. 

do i have to ask again?

i want you to kick my fucking teeth in.

★

satsuma peel

my love i have a confession— just between 

us and the car roof— us and each morning, 

the needle doesn’t hurt so bad—

see new changes, softness, the face shifting under skin, 

one of these days she’ll return to herself: sluggish fear 

crushed under so many pillars of salt, asphalt-kissed 

and cherry,

there’s this pink haze settling above the trees, 

just above them, in their woodchipped tree pits—

in the clouds sitting like lumpy blankets— on the 

projector; we take off our masks and kiss for a second, 

your appetite might change— mine did, 

though i’ve always loved a good bite of dark chocolate. 

pardon the romance: there is a spot on my neck 

we have discovered, that she touched for 

a second and made real. 

we split an orange after: it tasted big, sour, unveined—