Compartmentalization of Steam
A wealthy man pays my way enough for me to feel beholden
and now I’m in a swimsuit. We alternate between sauna and
steam room, Hell and Hotter Hell, and he finds the suffering
in each a luxury, his senses delightfully obscured.
Hearing assaulted with hiss; vision blinded by white
wisps of smoke. This is what it feels like
to turn into a ghost. I sit or think I’m sitting.
Condensation slips and sweats until everything
is wet and the same.
Skin never ends and surface
doesn’t know where to begin.
I no longer have a body. His hand
goes to my thigh, but I’ve already disappeared.
His voice, long since drowned, sounds like the drone of insects.
I grow desperate wings and brittle little limbs.
Poetry by Olivia Pierce Graham
Olivia Pierce Graham holds an MFA in Poetry from The New School. Her work has appeared in Botticelli Magazine, Button Eye Review, Ohm Journal, Sad Girls Club, and Silver Needle Press. Cherry Dress Chapbooks published her debut chapbook, Gloom of Excruciating Desires, in 2022.
