Alisha Escobedo

BIO

Alisha Escobedo (she/her/hers) received her MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles and her BA from Columbia College. Her work explores themes of queer womanhood, addiction, and more. She is Proof Edit Manager of Lunch Ticket and a freelance marketing coordinator. Her work can be found in The Los Angeles PressDesolate Country: We the Poets, United, Against Trump, and Prompts!: A Spontaneous Anthology. She currently lives in San Antonio, TX, where she sporadically posts (and deletes) photos to her IG story @ayescobe.

Instagram:  @ayescobe on Instagram
Website is www.alishawrites.com

disclaimer to marie in the britney spears t-shirt

     she asked for water
   
                         i gave her my mouth
 
                                           then turned
her
                            body
        around
 
i left bruises like painted crumbs:
         the path taken
                  to break vessels
         on the side
of her neck
 
i
      listened
          to the building
                tremble
                  as she got louder
         and came
 
 
            closer

 
she asked me to be
                          the big spoon
                then told me she’d never felt
           a heartbeat
       as strong
                 and fast
         as mine
                   beating against her back
 
do i make you nervous? she asked
                yes
         
but why?
 
                my tongue traced laps around hers
                             sacrificing syllables to saliva
          to keep from saying:
               
because you’re human
 
she said we could tell each other
                 anything
                      because we’re strangers
 
         she said we wouldn’t
                         see each other
                      again
 
         so i told her
              i’m a felon
                     i’m a cheat
                          i broke up with my last ex via text
                          
                                      but i left out the part
                                               about still being in love
                                with                                                the sea
 
later that night
       she texted me:
                                                                        
hit me up if you’re ever in l.a.
 
                                                          i replied:
                           but
                don’t you know
                                  that i’m
                                              toxic?

 

 

After Demi Lovato’s 2020 GRAMMY’s Performance
after Demi Lovato’s “Anyone”


A hundred million stories and a hundred million [poems];
I feel stupid when I [write];
Nobody’s listening.
 

The type of women I am drawn to, I find them drowning
on kitchen, bathroom, bedroom floors.
 
We drown together sometimes, and sometimes we swim.
Sometimes we feel our feet on the ground below or above,
 
small increments in between.
 
The type of women I am drawn to, they hate it when I get clean.
They bring dirt to my doorstep, beg me to take more.
 
They muddy their soles with their spit and leave
a path that leads back to them.

© The Acentos Review 2020