SCRAMBLER presents
03 | 02.2017
Afterlife
by Franny Choi
To answer your question, yes,
I find myself wanting less and less
to fuck the dead boy who was mine
before he was nothing.
He is six years younger than me now – a boy
who still smokes blunts in his dorm room,
by which I mean he does none of that
because he is dead. Because his body
is no body now, but wet earth.
Meaning I should instead desire
the bellies of flies. Moth wings
unfolding wet from their shells.
Should hunger for the fish that ate
the fish that ate the plankton
that took his once-body dust
into its gullet. The boy whose body
was the first to enter mine is breathing
from too many mouths now.
He is gilled, wet leaves, coral,
all things that live but don’t know it,
don’t know they were once a boy
who peeled off my wet jeans,
kissed the insides of my knees
in his parents’ house, who came to me
love-addled one night, saying,
i need to tell you this please
please believe me
—