Serum

by Mateo Lara

---

After the artwork, ‘Precioso’ by Victor Gonzales

I say, “give me the real thing” I say, “make us last longer than closing your eyes.”

protect my body with your relic feed me light, feed me dust.

I say “hold me until I cave” right now, I am stunned.

silent, you hunger silent, I ravage.

precious you precious you.

if a body were communal hold down the prayer.
visit the chest - find the treasure locate the lonely ruin.
keep it in your mouth hold it there, hold me there.

keepsakes webbed through I am closing in, the space.

tell me, don’t go I won’t go.

if you hold your head up rest, rest.
find the pain, let it tremble your lips, shiver.
take it all in. hold it deep, hold it there.
precious you. precious you.

---

Mateo Perez Lara is a queer, non-binary, Latinx poet from California. They received their M.F.A. in Poetry as part of the first cohort to graduate from Randolph College’s Creative Writing Program. They are an editor for RabidOak Online Literary Journal. They have a chapbook, Glitter Gods, published with Thirty West Publishing House. Their poems have been published in EOAGH, The Maine Review, and elsewhere.