Poetry: “Symptoms of Happiness” by Jordan Stanley
Symptoms of Happiness
My teetotaling ass is drunk again. Five dates in
I’m director’s-cutting conversations, masturbating
at mealtimes—fantasies snake through my kitchen
like a ticker. In one, we cowrite at Mercury Cafe,
break lines like bread in silent public sex.
I’m marathoning andro-for-andro porn. Her
signature? Perfect for signing tits. She paints
my breastbone with a horsehair brush, smears
an afternoon cherry on my neck.
Arm’s length as in shook my hand after dinner.
She couldn’t call today, she was writing about
me. Muse thinks he’s a real boy, bad puppet. I am;
told her mullet curls make me want babies.
I’ve been better fed. Winning fewer bathtub jousts.
Fantasies shift: desperate consummation. Indulge
for hours, stoned pink. Moments loop like records
and I interpret B-side scratching: baby slipped
in my drink, the rotten dangling carrot of soon.
Her lip twitched with regret or relief or itch
when I said LA, maybe moving. Brain distorts
memory each revisit, punishes me for dwelling.
The eye is the fastest-healing body part, sees things
as they are before ravaged by wishful thinking.
I open mine. We’re on her fiance’s front stoop
confessing daydreams—weekend trips, children’s
names—warmed by the empty promises safe to purge
when a crush is over. A body defecating once dead.
About Jordan Stanley
Jordan Stanley (they/them) is a queer and nonbinary poet in LA. You can read their work in Cobra Milk and Hooligan Magazine. Connect with them on Instagram @jaystanz.
