[interview with the vampire]
by Heather Bowlan
Question: How do you walk in the sun?
I was hoping the stories would tell me:
I heard some things, little dramas
against the backdrop of manmade disaster,
making the rounds at the all-night wake.
It just takes a tiny
nip of the teeth, a slippery
kiss to tip into the velvet
burgundy of yes.
But I’m not just a hungry mouth—not by design. Although
I’ve been starving, if I’m honest, from the first night.
I walk in the sun with my tights trashed, manicure
ruined. The rumors never named me. Still
buried me. It happens.
Question: What do you see in the mirror?
I’m too busy miraging in my two-hearted
thirst, my conscience torn open by my own mouth.
I’m too pleased with my TikTok charm necklace
and its jagged pieces of wood. (It’s exhausting
being so clever.) Blood just under
the skin. Spill it. I’m your supplier. Or
you’re mine, your blood pounding out a pulse,
pooling at our feet—it’s not a wound, and it is.
In a few hours you’ll forget how the headrush
gets you talking directly to my body. I haven’t
even undressed and I miss it already.
Sometimes we don’t know our nature, sated,
then disgusted, walking around filled with
someone else’s blood. You tell me, Relax. It’s liberating
not having a master plan. And it’s true,
there’s no dissonance better than that first drink
of myself. I’ve never tasted so good as in your mouth. So
bleed me of what’s wet—have at it. Who we are in the world
still seeps in.
Question: Whose blood signals danger?
Whose blood signals dust?
Whose blood signals enter?
Who is safe—who is hungry—what turned our veins
into a blazing map of thirst?
Whose blood is precious, whose spoils before it breaks the surface?
Veins: maps/blueprints/schematics/equations/crossroads.
Tributaries for fast currents over tongues, down throats.
Lower me slowly and let’s see if you drown.
And that’s what I almost want—or do—to best
your hunger, to beat it, to leave you flooded
and gasping, trying to keep your head when
you’re surrounded, when you open your mouth until
you choke—then keep it open, listen to
the drum of your blood in the absence of breath
as you become fluent in opening and closing.
(The wounds ache more when they close.)
Who should fill—who is always full? Who
is bloodshot, oxidized?
Depends on the day.
Heather Bowlan is a writer, artist, and community organizer. Most recently you may have encountered her as co-director of Philadelphia Small Works Gallery, a space for people who build community through work that reveals our obsessions, resists oppression, and celebrates our complex connections. Her poetry and criticism have been published in the Anarchist Review of Books, the anthology Feminisms in Motion, New Ohio Review, Interim, and elsewhere. Heather's collection of self-erasures and collaborative poems, Highlights & Blackouts, was published by _mixlit press in 2023. "[interview with the vampire]" is from a new collection in progress.