Toilet Story | by Natasha Lumba

Every morning, I brush my teeth
to prepare for the onset
of gaseous dirt, one tally
removed from my total
or so they say
in faded PSAs.


Every morning, I take two pills
one blue, one white,
or two blue, one white
or two blue, one white & one apricot.
I wait
for them to grout my insides
with effects both intended
& tertiary. Then I lay
my ashtray out & fill it.


The pink & orange blossoms
have recently returned,
and I see them best
with my ass to the porcelain. So,

every morning, when I sit down
to take my waking piss,
I stare out into the floral foreground,
past into the lone telephone pole,
the cypress trees,
and crane my neck
in search of those hummingbirds—
the signal of a
good day.


But the hummingbirds,
they’ve stopped coming by.
The other fowl tortures me
with their contrarian movement,
their wings that flap,
their hearts that don’t beat fast enough,
their cacophonous words.


My eyes, I keep the corners
wide open for the stagnant movement
of the unkosher, hovering bird—
an old, abandoned lover
who no longer stops by for my nectar.

I remember, just before the blossoms
fainted, the hummingbirds came back
for one last fill of their flutes.
Then winter sketched them sparse.

They say Spring begins on March 21^st
but I’ve been waiting like a
virgin for my reawakening,
for the smoke to calm my lungs
like it once did, for the pills
to make me talk like they once did,
for the hummingbirds to migrate
back to my bathroom sill.

But as I trace my toes
from tile to hardwood
my cat greets me with a meow
and sleepy, green, half-moon eyes.
As she sits like a sphinx
atop a bed of dead
feathers, I think
“waking up every morning
next to a cat, now that
is the sign of a
good day.”


___
Natasha Lumba studied Creative Writing at University of Southern California until she dropped out to go into a career in fashion design. Nonetheless, she always has a journal with her or is scribbling on cocktail napkins in the corners of bars. Currently, she works in Manhattan, lives in Brooklyn, and tries to create something every single day, be it poetry, music, art, food or money. She stands behind her diction, her juxtaposition of grit & femininity, and the vulnerability of her poetry. She writes the way she lives-- unedited and unapologetically. At her last poetry reading she was standing on a chair in front of her neighborhood bar then fell backwards two stanzas into her second poem straight onto her back and head. She was bleeding profusely. On her walk home, she gave every passerby a bloody high five.

Take This Off | by Natasha Lumba

We sipped our way into my bed,
the gem-cut light bulbs diffusing away
an obtrusive nose bridge, thin lips,
melting his facial hair into his skin.

He hovered over me—a self-proclaimed
launch pad—inaudible motors going,
and his breath on my cheek.

With our necks hooked into each other,
I latched onto his scent of burning
hair spliced with Tide t-shirts,
now catalogued into my duvet.

An empty wrapper standing scalene
on my nightstand, he said,
“take this off,” and I obeyed.

The less clothing I’m donned in,
the thicker my walls grow.
Hiding behind my breasts,
my vulnerability, the entrance
to my body, I become an entity,

an urn filled with nights gone up in flames.
They fester there, my laundry list
becoming incestuous remains.

And this carousel of envelopes I seal with my spit
leaves the next morning when the shudders split
while my hosiery, stagnant where they blindly tossed it.

Once they’ve gone, I take my time
relocking the front door
because a few nights give, it will just be
re-unlocked once more.

___
___
Natasha Lumba studied Creative Writing at University of Southern California until she dropped out to go into a career in fashion design. Nonetheless, she always has a journal with her or is scribbling on cocktail napkins in the corners of bars. Currently, she works in Manhattan, lives in Brooklyn, and tries to create something every single day, be it poetry, music, art, food or money.

HEY (FOR DYLAN) | by Natasha Lumba

You were right.
One day I was just
gone, crossing
the desert with my
wheels burdened
by the objects
which carpeted
my life--

our life. And now
you sit alone,
old waves calling
back to you like
a childhood neighbor.

I am in the desert.
I am a desert,
filled and flocked by vices,
comprised of infinite
granules yet empty.
I've made friends

with the chlorine,
the freeway lanes,
the buzz of a vacuum,
the men at the gates.

Little baby teeth
plucked and hidden,
your sunburst eyes
and hyperbolic lashes
still saddled behind
my visions. It's hard

then it thaws like
packaged meat

and I can almost,
just almost, smell
what you ordered
from the other end
of the table but

I don't deserve a plate.
I abandoned you.
I left you to rattle around--

dried beans in a
hollow gourd,
buoyant yet dead.

So, no, we won't
be seeing each other
anytime soon.
And I'll only grow
farther and more
selfish--
a handy oasis
for when you forget
how it felt.

The end is not the worst part;
Our marble parcels inevitably
knocked away and replaced
is.



___
Natasha Lumba studied Creative Writing at University of Southern California until she dropped out to go into a career in fashion design. Nonetheless, she always has a journal with her or is scribbling on cocktail napkins in the corners of bars. Currently, she works in Manhattan, lives in Brooklyn, and tries to create something every single day, be it poetry, music, art, food or money.