lost pearls

i want to eat your ass he yells tug hard on torn leggings cover holes with hands bite lips pretend to readjust imaginary contact in left eye always left eye more than one person means rifle through bag on back searching for imaginary item lost keys lost pearls lost planning a wedding set somewhere between desire and inspired credit card limits want the fifteen-hundred-dollar dress but will settle for anything less than two hundred hard numbers the cake that costs a minimum of five hundred dollars please sir can i have some more buttercream frosting ann arbor never looked so good a year away before i do, nothing is ever ready but learning to be comfortable with never feeling comfortable while the children die in cages women demand to be seen for more than these holes and the man who paints for food sleeps beside my nightstand

Alexandria Liston received her MFA in creative nonfiction writing from California College of the Arts and her BA from the University of Michigan. Her work has appeared in Fiction International, A Velvet Giant, and Five:2:One Magazine among others. She currently resides in Pacifica, California with her fiancée Eric.