Orlando-ay-oh-oh
Long bacon strips where I
Ride
Flat down the highway
Stout and sitting, flat
This fat that embraces me
I wish you would love me the same
Leaky roof. The new Urticaria. The same Uti.
I’m a woman with a woman’s problems
I like to be held in the night
and I like to feel the deep feeling.
Sweet sweat — Thighs
Breasts Eyelids
Flat on the road.
In the thick, fat with sex, air
I misplaced my belonging.
Wrapped in a towel dress
Naked walk home, you and
Me, the bugs feast.
Fettered to puberty
This growing hairy girl inside.
My Womanly ache. Upwards stab. Downwards fight.
It’s Yours alone, or
It’s Me for everyone.
J.M. Chadwick is an artist and poet who loves bottlecaps and homefries. They have been published in heartbroken zine and Unspoken, a poetry anthology. At Smith College, where they study English Literature and Art History, they were the 2023 recipient of the Ruth Forbes Eliot Poetry Prize. You can usually find them reading on the Q, heading to Coney Island.