cristiana baik

"You wait for me where I do not want to go:

Say st
un, a part and spar
k, thin. Slow
back - sly, wet sk
in-ny like mauby bar
k. This start, wille
d concoction. Embrace
sm
all
slays - knuckles, na
s(c)ense. Embrace, surround us-
sea moss, o sweet milk.

*

"You love me where I do not exist.

Our fights in each shadow -
your electrified hair. Instances

of yours, you all-purpose feuder, happily
engaged in wrangle, you
                      Forever shouting.
So tell me, toss -
me in someone - we must
know revelatory in a failed
'n body, just one more
get through - to
me, he must -
more boldly, yes
more motley.

*

"Originally the action of running here and there, comings and goings

Barer today, a futz
apparel. Worlds
up to
the dark-faced whirl-cloud that I am.
Starting as I am, I am a new resident
recent from a sleep of habitat, in a deadline
life of a territory that is encroached upon us, to up
root now where there is
all new, all center. It
seems impossible to be mine.

*

"I want to represent my delirium to myself

Can a voice spread
in ends -

hits my cartilage, in ends

full of distance
without ever, whom

ever to be
not

known
my otherwise.

*

Amok his arms, at ease
replicating distance - an
intervention of his hands, in
replication, of vertebrae pointillism    criss-cross
as cont(r)acts, hands - you
can be used so many
first times.

Yet still my lung sprung,
my mellifluous.

*

then it is little enough to say..."

Arrival into a receding
exit of an exiled warmth.

We are negated.



Cristiana Baik is currently finishing her MFA
in Tuscaloosa. Her work has been published by RealPoetik, Spinning Jenny, Word for Word (upcoming), Little Red Leaves (upcoming), and Jacket Magazine. She hopes to make her way back to the East Coast soon.