By: Eros Livieratos
In a night-club
Philadelphia I, swallowed a silver-headed woman
where she cried for years.
I was dancing with the archbishop of Australia’s
primary
researcher when he
put his hand on my chest. Purple hues and rhythmic
violence spun in octagonal light.
Every Venus, every Adam, I take in
unravelling organs starting from the thighs. I’ll leave
loose flesh on red-stained marble; the imperfections a genealogy
of the world before-us.
Somewhere in a beat-up Sedan, a folk
singer writes of love. Their fingers pressed like
a capo, words in a notebook next to Narcan and
dirty syringes.
Neanderthals buried their dead with
seashells and pollen—I want to be loved with
the devotion of any primate.
Eros Livieratos is an undergraduate at William Paterson University studying philosophy and creative writing. Eros’ writing tackles topics of race, toxic masculinity, aesthetics, and technology. Eros plays in noise bands in New Jersey and can often be found yelling about aesthetics & automation in your local basement.
"While most of my writing is concerned with technology changing our modern landscape, I’m still very much haunted by the notion of human behavior. I’m haunted by the ideas of writing as production and sexuality as a part of the self. I’ve been using poetry to experience and understand my queerness, to unravel my sexual identity. This poem was the aftermath of a post-aesthetics conference in which I utilized some of the characters in the club that night as the driving force in this poem’s fantastical elements and its significance of rudimentary human behavior. There’s something that’s still primal—Neanderthal like about continued existence and so I hoped using the club scene in the beginning made a linear connection back to the extinction of the Neanderthal. Sex, art, and love all feel particularly primal and so, I wanted to shine a light on the beauty of our ancestor’s behaviors while dissecting my own. Thanks for reading."