S/he Genie, S/he Beast, S/he Paralyzes Sleep

I am a ghost
approaching

your bedroom
bad
luck
status
in your genome

generous burden
on your chest
oxygenless

loose tooth
of trauma
wriggling in your gum

I’m fed
on a diet of somnolence
and submission

let fly my genius ability
your eyes
the only thing on you
moving

I dance a thick-dicked
gemini
hag-breasted
succubus

froth of nightmare
and supine spine

I unblank the page of legends
engender panic and lip spit

hot spot
in the corner coming
closer

my body
agendaless
in your periphery

it is worthless
to gentrify
your bed

I am unseen
on ring devices
generic deadbolts
don’t hold

I will trudgen
my arms
along your floor

crabcrawl
my shadow form

until your head
becomes a hissing
snake
of
panic

sex-craved sorcerer/ess
pinning
your limbs

grinding
on your
rib cage
I have no
antigen

I am buzzsaws
of alarm
in your ears

I vow genuine fluid
confusion

unrequested
arousal

the hunger
of your chest
for breath

fidgety desire
for gentle
finger movements

to awaken
one’s sleep-logged
limbs

it excites me
every genre
of my body
Engorged

I am
the dead spectre
in your genes

rolicking pirate
capsizing
your dreams

first witness
to your awakening

go on
shake off
my threat
in your
doorway as a

hallucinations
not desire
not real
not an exigent

need to define
some ungendered

genie

beneath your sheets

---

Quinn Rennerfeldt is a queer poet earning her MFA at San Francisco State University, where she lives with her family and animal menagerie. Her work can be found in Slipstream, Bird’s Thumb, SAND, mutiny!, elsewhere, and her chapbook Sea Glass Catastrophe was released in 2020 by Francis House Press.