Skip to main content

i think i think in shadow shifts until they see something through which they can blurt. ekphrasis as thoughts thudding through solid like steady beads of tapioca. Eye Candy is for suck, clack against teeth, maybe melt in the middle. periscope tongue looking always to rest. settling in at the movies.

Eye Candy:
on Parasite and

by EJ Kneifel

Movie still from Parasite. An outdoor birthday party in a backyard, a woman holds a birthday cake as everyone looks on and claps.

i clicked. i clicked. he walked for me. he walked he walked. the light. the stairs— the years— knife shushes me. the food drips red, like a party. i click the floor, feet shushing me. the light, so wide — like a movie. the grass we danced, the grass. a neck, perfume. charred meat. bodies aslant like the candles, the years, i click, i click, i,

first there was parasite. i was just entering (i hadn’t met people in so long, sick— nadia the first, on the stairs). it was february 2020 and nadia and i had just finished the pink. the air was humid late winter steam. i went, knowing nothing. until i saw Geun-sae emerge from the years. head shaved wrong, face atrocious. 

before the bright open killing, there is this. he shuffles into their kitchen, clean expanse. the quiet of natural light. then he enters the party, body wrong behind guests; and after the years, the years, nobody notices. 

his eyes quick step back/ flash of a hesitate/ unsure for a fraction-second about his own solidity. wanting the entrance from years, the years, to be some kind of occasion, already felt. (there was one time, just before nadia, outside the venue. they dropped me by turning their necks).

this fall there was hiroshima mon amour. i watched in my bed, knowing nothing. he held her face upside down, palm the same size as her head. somehow knowing that she needed to bring him there. so she brought him down. it opened out. grotto she tasted her fingernails on. (head shaved long, face atrocious.) the horror of interiority, gag into cave.

this week there was a third movie. the thunder came for the first time. the tilia honey, clouds thick sediment. first time at the movies since parasite, knowing nothing but for overhearing. world having closed, pulled open again, jaw inflamed, clicked wide. i wasn’t ready. or i wasn’t the right one. the floor was so empty, the brights. her smoothie boots stuck on the bus. 

mouth cauliflower-carnation-mish, needing my already-sleeping roommate and brother, i opened the apartment to him, my roommate and brother, strumming justly in yellow. he sang the title when i told it to him, everything, everywhere, pulled it back down to language all at once. the opener world closing in, underpart of a tongue, lid in the sun, in just the way that i needed it.

i clicked. i clicked. he walked for me. he walked he walked. the light. the stairs— the years— knife shushes me. the food drips red, like a party. i click the floor, feet shushing me. the light, so wide — like a movie. the grass we danced, the grass. a neck, perfume. charred meat. bodies aslant like the candles, the years, i click, i click, i,

first there was parasite. i was just entering (i hadn’t met people in so long, sick— nadia the first, on the stairs). it was february 2020 and nadia and i had just finished the pink. the air was humid late winter steam. i went, knowing nothing. until i saw Geun-sae emerge from the years. head shaved wrong, face atrocious. 

before the bright open killing, there is this. he shuffles into their kitchen, clean expanse. the quiet of natural light. then he enters the party, body wrong behind guests; and after the years, the years, nobody notices. 

his eyes quick step back/ flash of a hesitate/ unsure for a fraction-second about his own solidity. wanting the entrance from years, the years, to be some kind of occasion, already felt. (there was one time, just before nadia, outside the venue. they dropped me by turning their necks).

this fall there was hiroshima mon amour. i watched in my bed, knowing nothing. he held her face upside down, palm the same size as her head. somehow knowing that she needed to bring him there. so she brought him down. it opened out. grotto she tasted her fingernails on. (head shaved long, face atrocious.) the horror of interiority, gag into cave.

this week there was a third movie. the thunder came for the first time. the tilia honey, clouds thick sediment. first time at the movies since parasite, knowing nothing but for overhearing. world having closed, pulled open again, jaw inflamed, clicked wide. i wasn’t ready. or i wasn’t the right one. the floor was so empty, the brights. her smoothie boots stuck on the bus. 

mouth cauliflower-carnation-mish, needing my already-sleeping roommate and brother, i opened the apartment to him, my roommate and brother, strumming justly in yellow. he sang the title when i told it to him, everything, everywhere, pulled it back down to language all at once. the opener world closing in, underpart of a tongue, lid in the sun, in just the way that i needed it.