boundless by Maryann Aita

I order chicken wings

for two

and eat them

alone.

twice the slippery sauce

dripping

from my lips and fingertips,

twice the chicken nestled

in my gut, my human

need met. I am gratified,

exhausted, like the feeling

I get walking

thirty city blocks

alone

in the summer

with my sweat sheath

and in the winter, with

my chicken wing

belly—like the feeling

I get wrapping myself

in my own warmth.

I inhabit twice my space

in half a bed. half a bed

empty—

my knees

draw triangles

and I watch endless

netflix, repeating seasons—

streaming, streaming I am

leaking my human

---

Maryann Aita (rhymes with beta) is a writer and performer in Brooklyn, New York. Her debut essay collection, Little Astronaut, is forthcoming from ELJ Editions in spring 2022. Maryann's writing appears in PANK, The Porter House Review, perhappened, and other journals. She is the nonfiction editor at Press Pause Press. Follow her on twitter/instagram @maryann_aita