Tiff Tran

cleaning as work, in life

my tits aren't usually this big, i am in a fluffier season

right now,

astroglide down the hallway my freshly clean apartment

quick before the guilt of how easy it was sets in,

let's sneak into my bedroom

the bed frame is four inches above ground,

like i'm 19 again, on walnut street

hanging crooked floating shelves

each side of the bed. my bedroom window open,

the ohio spring emerging

air fresh so that if i squeezed my eyes

the city could sound like the beach

and don't judge the drawings

while they are being made,

cleanliness is a muscle

that will atrophy unless trained daily

that is why propaganda about cleaning as meditation exists, historically cleaning was an

offering,

a promise, an apology

blocking blockages and

keepers of time like passing and clogging,

like fatbergs, a sterilized fatberg

produces a pine-like smell while burning

the high profit margin for

conversion of single-soil items into commercially viable material is a modern retelling of

Rumplestiltskin

yeah, well who knows what the universe could throw at our path? sometimes the path is icy and

things but slip

the gravital boomerang often returns things too late, though i say, with a dramatic sigh my

head rests in my hands, i gaze to the right and diagonally out of an open window

i open my eyes a dark room its night,

i was downloading another sequence,

i was reintegrating

my mouth feels diuretic eyelashes like glue on an old envelope crumbling,

yellowing

i scan the room like poetry

read left to right,

i listen for what isn't being said

in the tool store i am becoming a four level shelf unit, open concept made from pine

i taste the screws, the extra screws in my mouth taste like pennies and coat my lips in

astringent metal scent

i was beautiful when i was on drugs,

i think i'll give myself a blowout tonight

in the bathroom warming up my embouchure because the mouth will atrophy

and if i don't have to, i won’t say anything out loud, sometimes for up to five business days

how to stand up again, how to wake up and stand up how to get started, how to not just stand

up when somebody is looking,

how to dig and how to stand up over the sink and throw up in the sink, but there are no dishes,

so it rinses out nicely

how to tell a long story without apologizing,

my sleeping medicine locked in a cage at the store,

seven stars around the moon

we only take cash,

so cross the street

and get cash,

II

i was dancing at the strip club with an atm that allowed the guests to get cash for a $10

surcharge,

we took everything off and they served alcohol

and none of the songs ever had swear words

eight inches off of the ground, i put my heel on his forehead, he looked at me naked and i

shoved him by the forehead, sometimes they wanted to talk

wads of cash folded over, bound by rubber bands sprout their wings and fly over to my itchy

palms

so i hop in the car and drive away from home,

i brought him home to give him a better life,

she wants to know if i am scared

she wants to know if we are okay,

she leaves a voicemail that my phone has low confidence in transcribing,

irritation strikes inside of me because i dislike concern, i dislike quelling other people's worries,

i am quiet/ diligent about eradicating things that frighten me, like spiders and credit card debt

and i will make us something for dinner,

in Vietnam, a groom can hire two people to be his fake parents for an overseas wedding where

the bride is being tricked,

blankie

there I was,

drunk off of everybody’s fantasies

and with tongue, open mouth kissing every person in the room

a sinister plot to extract their words from my mouth, I was

eager/I was desperate, and so willing

to do any of the work that they didn’t want to

there I was, a figment of our imagination

permissible and porous and malleable and new

my hands curled into a rightful position

dressed in a tuxedo that allover was slightly too tight

forgetting how to play the song

the difference between an army man and I

is that he had to complete basic training to learn

how to comply and I was born to grovel

I came from the womb

a spade in hand ready to dig around

I was crucified by my father from an early age,

who was crucified by his father

who was crucified by his,

spit-catcher , tear-catcher

my first and lifelong friend

I breathe you in deep and then I am home

[I was warned to outgrow you/I tend to you,

and with me/you stay]

I once ate an entire can of split pea soup with ham

while my mother watched and waited for me to offer her some,

I am the entire house and also between the walls

covered with sediment, filled to the brim

I take the long way home because I am

scared to smell all of the rotting food

you tuck those hands into your armpits

deeply sniff their onion smell

wake up in the morning, stomach full of fruit flies

the kind small enough to shimmy between the squares of the window screen,

glass so clean that you could walk right through it

the wheels eat the pavement, that’s why there are so many holes in the road

the cookies and cream pavement,

and after spring, the wheels go on some type of retelling of the Atkins Diet,

which is why there aren’t many asphalt holes when

it is warm out.

The wheels get their beach body fitness on

in the summer, when the road is

covered in tan cigarette butts

so many that the air smells like musky

raisins, and the clouds a malaised pale yellow

fog thick and low as if it were coming from a machine.

I sleep until i am syrupy and left out at room temperature, for a couple more days,

something experimental lurches from deep inside of me,

not too far -

a desire to be swallowed whole

tiff tran is a poet / sculptor / creative jack of all trades based in minneapolis, minnesota. their art practice informs & infiltrates a writing practice that pursues human forms of honesty. in their free time, they enjoy reading aloud to their cats and drinking ice cold glasses of water.