PATRICIA KUSUMANINGTYAS

6 pm booty call

noah winces watching a cornea cut open on
how it’s made. he’s always been a tough guy,

telling me things like how you can get you
eyes fixed up without an appointment, nonchalantly,

but now his hands are covering his eyes and he’s
shrinking into the couch, watching me shrink too,

thanking ourselves for having twenty-twenty vision.
i pass by a church on the ride home. one, two, and

another. then a bar i know is going to close by the end of
the month. it was supposed to turn twenty-seven this year,

just like me. i go to record stores and flip through
the crates, always saying “that’s a good record,”

without buying anything. i go to bookstores and read a
paragraph off each book, always returning them after.

is this what it’s like, waiting around to die?
a woman walks by, stevie wonder through her speakers.

noah said portable speakers are the worst speakers
out there, right after he finished. don’t you wanna,

don’t you wanna, don’t you wanna fall in love with me.
before i let out a tear, she skips out to another song.

Patricia Kusumaningtyas is an Indonesian poet, tech worker, and film/music critic based in Brooklyn. Their poetry and prose have been published in Roi Fainéant Press, Major 7th Magazine, Dead End Zine, Poetry is a Team Sport, HaluHalo Journal, and Culinary Origami Journal. Her music, film, and art criticism have been featured in Our Home in the Dark, ACV CineVue, and Speed of Sound Magazine, and she organizes events with the Indonesian Film Forum New York.