How to Survive a Pandemic

the plague comes, the plague grows
we stop going outside
and call it social responsibility
as if we need a reason not to see each other

as if we’re not already only seeing each other
through the pixels of a screen

glued to it like babes on a tit
or drunks at the bottle
is that drunk me?
maybe that drunk

is me
self-isolation, self-medication
same thing, really
lots to escape from in quarantine
lots to escape to

before puberty twisted my body
warped my skin
I was everything they wanted
I looked like a doll
the kind that closes and opens its eyes
my skin a perfect translucent honey
now, I slather on creams, dab serums, pat acids
sleep in sheet masks
trying to crawl back into my doll skin
when they told me
I was perfect

as a child I cut all the hair off my donated Barbies
the free ones I found at the laundromat
or bought for two dollars at yard sales
three-for-five deals
discarded Barbies
grimy skin and decades-out-of-fashion clothing
I snipped their shining blonde hair with safety scissors
combed Elmer’s glue through the strands
styling each one into a permanent
dyke
pompadour

every time we fled the house
we left my toys behind
we moved, and moved
and moved again

as an adult, letting go is my superpower
to trash my most prized things
even as my parents hoard my old toys in their basement
this one doll gathers dust on top of the armoire:

Christmas Barbie, 1997
there’s one going on Ebay for six hundred dollars

when I was seventeen at the mall
a middle-aged man told me I was perfect like a doll
and had I ever posed for photographs before
and he just happened to be a photographer looking for models

his skin was inflamed from the dry Nebraska winter
little red patches peeling off his cheeks
his hands jittery in his pockets

he had me cornered in a Yankee Candle
my back against the shelves
the smell of cinnamon pine all around us

Canada and California are on lockdown
and somehow spring breakers are partying all over Florida
here, we feel full of purpose, self-righteous
yes, we’re the saviors here
we’re stopping a plague just by lying back

an older lesbian on YouTube
calls us pillow queens
the girls who like to lie back
and just get done
I often disclose this tendency to potential partners
before we get into it, a warning
and to avoid embarrassment
the other word is power bottom
we’re all power bottoms now

plastic cocks in a drawer
are so much better than a real one
how awful when it’s attached
and I just think masculinity is so much better
served removable
when you can boil it clean

in Sri Lanka during the days of the war
there were no dolls in our house

an uncle of mine brought back
a doll from the capital
smuggled it wrapped in his lunch of rice and pickle
my grandmother washed the smell out of her hair
she was perfect and blonde
though her plastic yogurt-colored legs were hollow
not filled through like a real Barbie

I squished her legs and watched them fill back up
the plastic returning to the shape it knew
how to be

this makes me very good at quarantine
I’m good at being poor and bored

isolation was not something we got to choose

I used to love movies about dolls coming to life
and having to reckon with this world
they’re the perfect outsiders
to show us our absurdity in a comforting package
made in our own image
though I never had a doll that looked like me
and I can’t help but wonder if I did
whether as a teenager I would’ve slathered Nair all over my arms
until the lotion burned off not only my hair
but also five layers of skin
third degree chemical burns
just to look plastic and new

remember
when we left our skins
for the tingle of electric being

floating

ad infinitum in the cloud
finally reduced to our likes and timelines
finally immortal electrons?

these were the happy days
before the plague
and then after

it was out of necessity
is what we tell ourselves
giving up our skin
was the only way we knew
how to stay inside
and still be human