Dark Room Striptease

‘Dark Room Striptease’ by Brody Rose (@grrrls.likeus)

I am inedible and unwilling and humming 

blood moving through the generator. 

wax maintains under neon light. 

I absorb. cadmium red exposure. 

the moon is blue and furious, 

there is no current in this place 

linoleum overgrows the tide, stucco doesn’t menstruate. 

I watch the fish eating each other from the edge  

and I collect the bones. 

all that exists here is intuition. 

I am phosphorescent and afraid of stagnation- 

move or die, move in a swarm of crackling static. 

creation myth: I erupted, molten bitch, from the laboring mouth. 

creation myth: I came curling, ribless from a viper’s pit.

the safelight strips a formless perversion- 

Circularity. 

The skin seeps phenidone, the skin 

burned up dodged smudged cremated resurrected 

exhumed. again. airtight. 

my negative, my she, doesn’t look so different under that mottled blue 

everything is derivative

but I am better at hiding than my replica. 

Brody is an aspiring poet & journalist from Scotland. Her work focuses on the unconscious, the surreal, and the female experience. You can read more of her work, and a collective of other artists, on Substack @grrrlslikeus.