Matt Witt, Shells, Face to Face, 2019 (Artist Website)
Photograph
Mushrooms on the beach. The triangle of sand looks sexy. Waves lick the land with long, white tongues. The sun a warm vibration. Doesn’t matter what I wear, that I don’t bring a boyfriend—fuck it. My own skin is all I can save.
Black beauties, little pills the shape and thrust of Lilliputian condoms. Horses rear up inside me. Maybe now I’ll really feel that riding—bit, spur, pressure, mercy.
Valium, baby blue, and how can such a tiny thing bring peace? A matchhead in the body’s brine, warming where it sparks the chattering cells.
Some nights my cells pop like power lines in a small tornado, just a local outage. Some nights my head is a party, the boom-boom of the bass shaking the bookshelves, fires breaking out, the crowd trying to flee and piling against the door. I sit on the couch, my nails deep in the cushions, watching my sister and her boyfriend. They’re watching M*A*S*H.