cooing breaths into me tight and stretching, wider, still by Nicole Oquendo
cooing breaths into me tight and stretching, wider, still
your lungs could be a boon to us if only you cooed this:
i am worth the risk. the wide lips, the red damp, and lungs
fill the balloon, hew what’s left, and collapse limp. look:
hot air between your grinding teeth and probing tongue
—warm and flexed and spreading flavor thin. me, worth
wide pop tense and loving you is what i live to burst; red
—havoc on your mouth the sticky proof that i was there.
your lungs could be a boon to us if only you cooed this:
i am worth the risk. the wide lips, the red damp, and lungs
fill the balloon, hew what’s left, and collapse limp. look:
hot air between your grinding teeth and probing tongue
—warm and flexed and spreading flavor thin. me, worth
wide pop tense and loving you is what i live to burst; red
—havoc on your mouth the sticky proof that i was there.
Nicole Oquendo is a nonbinary, latinx writer from Orlando. She is currently serving as an Assistant Editor for Sundress Publications, and as the Nonfiction Editor of The Florida Review and the Best of the Net anthology.
