There’s a poem written in lipstick
on the mirror of the women’s restroom,
which goes something like this:

Golden cascades flow over smooth
glistening shoulders, sunlight filters
through the torrent to create something
no person can make on their own.
We can’t make it on our own.
Chest hair, bloodied lips, the stubble
where I forgot to shave last night.
It all creates a flood of desire, rhythmic
sea-swells under my swollen chest.
Mascara, uneven from trembling fingertips,
nails painted an ocean blue like that girl
who killed herself on TV back in 2017.
By now, we’ve lost the plot.
A woman with a phone for a face
records my downpour with nothing
but a taste for obloquy.

The men’s public bathroom smells
like spit and piss. I draw my own poem
in the grime, with unrecognizable fingers.

A river floods the pores of my face
to create a bog, hot and reeking
of a shame I dare not name. I look
it in the eyes; this creature I find
in my reflection, the one they swore I was
all along: small and meek, a mouthless beggar.
I leave feeling like a millionaire, that is: corrupted,
bitter, spineless. They can’t make us live like this.