Self-Portrait as Love Island Closed Captions by Amanda Gaines
Poetry intern Kailey Buettner on today’s bonus poem: Equal parts bloodbath and baby-blue bedsheets, this poem holds its inner angel hostage and dares you to ask why. In “Self-Portrait as Love Island Closed Captions,” therapy’s on the to-do list, the moon might be flirting with you, and love only counts if you feel it in your elbows. The speaker is mid-invention—equal parts girl of snakes, comfort socks, tequila legs, and spite-sipped champagne. What begins as a kiss-me-on-the-tonsils, ask-me-21-questions flirtation spirals into something stranger, messier, holier: a glitter-drenched reckoning with the chaos of becoming.
Self-Portrait as Love Island Closed Captions
Can I pull you for a chat? I’m in the process
of holding my inner angel hostage & need
to confess. Given the option,
I prefer to climb on hands & knees.
Give me my comfort socks,
the orange flicker of morning sun through a just-kissed ear.
I’ve been plotting. Yammering on
& on. Sucking chapstick, taking it lying down–
really putting my back into it. I get in glam,
say good morning, fish. Pray
for connection & muscle. Think about how, once,
I got flipped around in a back seat by a boy scout
& realized I could invent myself
in the dark. After, I dreamed myself
girl of snakes & affection of the smothering kind.
I also got hurt. Split a pomegranate. Poured
honey in baby-blue bed sheets, locked legs with a bottle
of tequila. I wanted her to form
her own opinion. Instead, she became
golden webbing, a grain of salt. Nothing
is going to bring her back & that’s, like, totally fine. I grow
an anger ritual–spite-drink champagne–ping pong
between sweetheart & bloodbath. Proceed with caution
until doubt feeds me pizza. Get embarrassed
at the end of the day, always. I have to go home
& straight to therapy. Have to stop giving
cheese plants personalities & pretending
the moon has romantic feelings for me.
Show up red-handed & admit my kink
for milking it. Until then, I’ll keep wondering
where eels come from. Noticing beauty
& playing the fool. I can’t help myself falling
for cut hands, closed off. I don’t think
I’m a balanced individual. I don’t think
love unless I feel it in my elbows, which makes things hard.
So please, come over. Tongue the smooth
shell of my tonsils & ask me twenty-one questions
about all that gets me into trouble. Call me
capable of so much snow.
Amanda Gaines is an Appalachian writer with a Ph.D. in creative writing from Oklahoma State University. You can find her work at amandamariegaines.com. She's currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tennessee.
