IRIS NGUYỄN

@moon

is that u / because that is a very feminine body / @moon
is probably getting it / is too young to be getting it / 100 percent getting it /
what grade ru in? / confirm / fappable?? / figured shed be
like 16 / based on how hormonal she seems / how much she craves
attention / web cam toy / ultimate e-girl weapon /
im sorry that i called u japanese / ur face is so cute / ill detroit smash u
so hard / i cant / its too gay / idk / if @moon is a guy or a girl /
traps arent gay / traps are gay if u know they have pp / too bad
you’re a boy / why u look btr than the girls in my class / raises
more questions if anything / u have a pic of u in a dress????? /
did you save the image / i mean i would love to
cut off ur legs / wait no i wish my future gf has legs
like those / sexy 3rd genders / asia is turning me gay / i swear

self-portrait as whale-fall

mourn nothing my blunt grace is still
belly-up and listless my mouth’s thistle
cage that my bones will become
a shelter is no death at all
come know me in everything the sea is
lining my empty body is growing
a garden of limbs enough
weight for a thousand years
of motion will persist like song
in shallow waters your voice buzzing
in my sunken ribs proof I am here
so please mourn nothing that I want
to die at home in a body that is also

Tell me what you know about dismemberment
after Bhanu Kapil

is knifepointe / is synecdoche / is a period not
a question / is palliative for who / is elective surgery
an oxymoron / like castration anxiety haha / the vivisectionist
is a kinesthetic learner /  ask ebing / ask freud / i can do it too— /
(re) / member men— / x-act & call it augury / phallible / an aesthetic / look /
only one path in psychopathia / the surge on / & sometimes the antidote
is a sawblade / like how the dysphoria poem is a lizard tail /
how i’ll keep the rest to myself / how i’m already gone

This House
after Ryuchell

, there’s nothing. White space
& useless pen. I told myself
I could make this a poem
without the men but look—
I’ve already failed. I can’t mourn

anything the journalists didn’t tell me.
I need this legible, like the knife
I tuck into my bag when I walk past
nightfall, a coin-operated moon
& her attendant mournings—this life,

that now bookends yours. Instead,
we gather in our empty guest room, crumple
headlines into girl-print lilies,
sister after sister after sister.
Girls like wind chimes

in a windowless room, floating,
silent, limp. In the end what’s left
of us tending to this almost-full house,
these flowchart tears—
can you hear the youtube ghosts spill

from my window, wash out into July?
Here's where hopelessness bleeds
into grief. Here’s the drawer full of
names, the clipping-quilt, lengthening,
all brave or resilient or missing.

Iris Nguyễn is a lesbian poet based in New Jersey. She found a loose thread on her body and hasn't stopped pulling since. They and their work can be found at ih-cn.carrd.co and @acensusofstars on Twitter.