mud howard: HEAT WAVE • Cleaver Magazine

mud howard
heat wave

the future is not Las Vegas, but here we are
dying and newly alive
glittering thunder dome of sweat

i can’t wake up from
this ugly ass place
out on the strip i mount my grief

the breeze crashes against my cheek
you pace and text and mouth-breathe beside me
the brassy comb of your anger is 106 degrees

my sadness is a planet
my sadness is a heat wave
we call it Vegas

your trigger shows up on a billboard
I don’t know how to communicate without popping off
without a thousand fizzy stars spilling out my mouth

can you imagine standing in line
until you’re old and hate the smell of cigarette smoke
the soles of your feet coated in agave

wearing pink floral dresses and not being afraid of money
the socket wrench of your arm loosened with time
the creamy lights of a slot machine washing over your face

I don’t know how to rub my wounds against the dried-up sky,
how to wake up early after a night of good dick
and lift my body into this city

you are a warehouse party
I never knew the address of
where they play music made of crushed metal

the future is a place where nothing is broken
everyone has a flashy jacket
no one gets cold

mud howard is a non-binary trans poet from the states. they write about queer intimacy, interior worlds and the cosmic joke of the gender binary. they hold an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Westminster London and are currently working on their first full-length novel: a queer and trans memoir structured like a tarot deck and full of lies. they have been published in journals such as THEM, Foglifter, and The Lifted Brow. you can find more of their work at www.mudhoward.com.