2 poems by jackie mlotek

SICKLY SWEET

head bobbing on the subway in the golden hour and i'm almost asleep, going to my parents house

and suddenly i smell a sugary sweet vanilla body spray and my eyes spring open

i'm in a dank unfinished basement, wearing an old bra with underwire poking my chest, in jeans too tight it hurts, sitting and leaning on a pillar with three of my old friends surrounding me

i drenched myself in this racist harijuku girl gwen stefani vanilla perfume throughout high school

watching boys play call of duty literally wanting to do anything else but not having anything else to do

drinking a 4 pack of cold shots to myself in 20 minutes and wandering around my friends house parties, bursting at the seams, the walls, my head, my stomach, my throat

I need to come to terms with ghosts

painfully and affectionately thinking about the horribly problematic person i was who thought i was straight and happy and still thought it was okay to call other girls sluts

i'm trying to be gentle with this version of myself as i am fond of her energy (if not only alcohol and guilt induced) and her spirit and her precociousness and earnest and open approach to the world

nostalgia is a liar and it’s toxic but i still love her

passing yorkdale station with cotton candy clouds and the 401 looking disgusting and angel olsen sweetly crooning in my ears, it feels bitter but also sickeningly

sugar

vanilla
​
sweet

BASKETBALL

​cw: trauma, indirect sexual violence mention

my nose crunches on impact and breaks

the smell of rubber, wood, floor, and that coloured tape on gym floors overwhelms me

and then rust

7 years old, bloody nose, in my school gym after gracefully catching a basketball with my face

my heart drops into my stomach and stops

the smell of sweat, blood, stale vodka breath

stubble, lapels, hard under my fingertips, and then rust

17 years old, bloody lips, in an all ages club

pain has a way of manifesting inside you, until a smell, touch, image appears to you and you’re there all over again when you’d give anything not to be

I don’t want to be told I’m resilient I don’t want to be told I have strong character

I don’t want to be told I’m better, a more mature person because of it because I’m not
​
I want to be soft without the tactile knowledge, soft without pains that stain everything

✱✱✱

jackie mlotek has been published in metatron, shameless magazine, and spy kids review. find her at @sweatyicedcoffee on instagram for dog and sunset pics. read more of her poems in her zine, "baby's breath": http://sweatyicedcoffee.bigcartel.com/ ​