Image: Ruth Asawa – Untitled, from ‘Flowers’ (1965)

Erin Taylor is an American poet whose work has been featured at LAMBDA Literary, Cosmonauts Avenue, Scum Mag, and more. More of her work can be found at erintaylor.tumblr.com and she tweets at @erinisaway.

Two of these poems were printed in Porridge’s first print issue available here.

a love poem to philadelphia

a city is a place constantly giving birth to itself.
………..baby pigeons are born above hot concrete
………..young children find their way to green spaces
………..in between concrete slabs.
………..there is hip-hop resounding from the bricked house
………..down the street
I can feel every part of my body in the thick summer air,

…………Philadelphia thrives in every corner of the city.

scouting you out on girard 

purpled lips in the coffeeshop or were they blue?
were your lips purpled or blued over, bruised?
I cannot recall anything other than your tight shirt
and your head at my shoulder
…………..fishtown is a place I avoid yet I walked to you
…………..through fishtown and kensington
…………..hoping to find a way to understand bodies better
…………..or myself maybe

I want to kiss your thighs in your air conditioned room again

even if it isn’t that room
even if it isn’t air conditioned

…………..I feel annoying texting you when you have plenty of beautiful
…………..women to entertain you
……………………………………………….but you message me at one a m
………………………………………………..an invisible hand in the dark,
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////…..I still recall what your body feels like.

I will for a long time.

redefining casual at el bar

dangerously close in the dark
you have an air conditioned bedroom,
……………………….if I lie to myself, I might believe
……………………….this is a fucking of cooled off convenience
………….yet I am still in your bedroom, naked at five pm

the next day……………….there is a walk of shame (triumph)
……………………………………through kensington at six in the evening,

everyone sees my yesterday’s clothes.

at the bar all of my friends sing songs that make me dance
and I dance next to someone I admire

your ex girlfriend refers to me as your “friend”

friendship is my favorite thing in the world

be careful what you invite inside your home

drag my entire body in your mouth
…………..there are earths that taste
…………..like the sweat between us

…………..a mop of yellow hair that is yelling at me
…………..through the kitchen,
…………..it finally becomes a home

………………………………….a fear.

the door was always slightly broken
the bricks falling off the mailbox
a bright masculine pink room
overloaded with nostalgia

………………………there was yelling there too
………………………but mostly silence
………………………usually silence
………………………covered by a fan blowing
………………………through a hall in the summer heat

I did not invite the yelling but it found me after all.

 

a quiet mumbling about other times

a hot chest overloaded heavy
a semi truck tumbling over on the highway
spinning and spinning and spinning
debris

oh god to feel alive in this day and age
hot concrete melting under shoeless feet
burning sticking to the skin
skipping over the hot

splitting legs on your bed a hot cock
in between my love for you
a home with central air, unfamiliar
cold july nights against you

sobbing on kitchen tiles
multiple states yet scenario unchanged
there are so many ways to silence
a voice