2 Poems by Lucia Gallipoli

1

It’s 10 pm—Do You Wanna, Uh?

It is so much easier to be turned on at night

when the restaurant lighting is ooo la la

and my brain is dim;

that time of dark

when looking under my bed as an adult

feels necessary until I realize

I couldn’t stop a killer anyway

so I fall asleep like, Fingers crossed!

which is, going back

to the beginning of this poem,

the opposite of what I’m doing

with my legs in the restaurant

or wherever the background

is increasingly soft focused while

he’s impressing me by saying

So... little using So... many words

and when he guides me across the street

with his hand grazing my back

I don’t even think about saying

Believe it or not, I navigate sidewalks

every day without your help just fine

and when we get to his apartment

I certainly don’t think,

I mean, what else would I be doing?

or, You gonna clean the table we just ruined

before eating off it tomorrow?

because I haven’t realized I’m bisexual yet

and this seems like it will be a funny story,

maybe, one day...

2

The Internet Is a Group Text With the World

Everything is funny at midnight.

Dumb tweets are dumber—

Every post im like … ugh … yes.

Furrowing my brow and frowning

until I’m scared of my own reflection.

EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL!

I look at my legs and feel like a mannequin

but not in the way I want to.

“Whose legs are those?” I think.

But is that crazy.

My BOYFRIEND in a HAZE OF LOVE

reassures me I have good legs

as I inspect myself in the mirror in his apartment

that came labeled for him—EL ESPEJO.

The mirror is comically unflattering

and makes me hyper-focused

on the collarbones that appear

on my Instagram feed.

I want to look like my Explore Page, so,

I [buy] cute things… temptation around every corner.

The Internet is dangerous

but not for the reasons they told me when I was a kid.

It’s mostly just typing Etsy into my search bar,

which is ultimately how the modern woman seeks out

financial mistakes.

I want to be authentically Cool,

like I didn’t spend five hours in a row trying to curate my Wishlist,

like this dumb little floral tissue paper 1950s rag just fell into my lap.

You seem like a person and not a robot (in a good way).

I make my hobbies into a chore (exhausting)

but when I take my meds and get in bed

I’ve never been more awake in my life.

I refresh the same three apps

expecting something to be different

for thirty minutes

What a riot!

I think.

In a good way.