SANDALS OF DOLPHIN SKIN

An unfinished self-portrait
disgusting to think of a finished one, but also good

a big, soft fish
a whole world waiting to see what happens next

this soft soft heart of yours
finds peace in drowning

Walking around between cheese ads and cherry trees and pigeon shit
you say my foot looks like a 3D model of a foot
I look for compliments in your words without knowing if they are there

Ezekiel 16 is so fucking good:
Then I dressed you in colorful clothes and sandals of dolphin skin
out of your precious jewelry, the gold and silver I gave you, you made figures of men, and with them you whored

My date
who I matched with on Tinder two years ago
thrusts his cock hard into my abdomen fully clothed
fun!

When you whored, you did the opposite of what other women do
You paid them
You did the opposite of what other women do

I think about your body
I often think about your body elevated above mine
many times I am terribly terribly close to telling you

I know this might be a weird message to receive
I tried telling you irl but

the strangest thing was:
I was soaking wet just from talking to you






FROM TEN YEARS AGO

Who would you bring with you to a desert island?

I made a promise to myself: don’t do anything drastic before August
I made another promise: don’t give up on art before you’re thirty-four

Boredom has been eradicated from the face of the earth
Good!

You are exactly the kind of man I would have loved ten years ago and for that I have dedicated a masturbation to you: I carry it out in my hotel room with the money you gave me yesterday for visiting your poetry class in a white envelope lying next to me on the bedside table

I would bring myself
from ten years ago
just for the record
or the pretty boy from the park bench

I eat all the things I already know what tastes like and I do all the things I already know what feels like
I felt it when I stepped off the plane
the humidity

small drops right beneath your hairline
on my thighs

I saw you looking at me from the stage and I just saw myself
from ten years ago
it felt lovely
better somehow






THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PERSON I’VE EVER SEEN

I asked him if I could photograph him

he didn’t speak my language

any language

really

when I got the pictures back

they were all so bad

I said to a friend: don’t you think this person is the most beautiful person you've ever seen and she said not really

and I tried to convince her

but it’s hard to convince someone about someone else’s beauty

what do you say

try harder 






NEW YORK STATE OF MIND

In New York I feel like I could be raped next to an ambulance or a police car






AGE POEM

At age 12 I tell my mom I hate museums

At age 21 I become very interested in photography

At age 22 I become very interested in cooking and cocaine

At age 27 I become very interested in sex

At age 28 I suddenly develop an interest in poetry

Follow your heart






A LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS TO TAKE:

  1. A completely green banana
  2. SOMEONE SERIOUSLY NEEDS TO PERFORM IN FRONT OF MY CAMERA! SOMEONE IN PARIS?????? A PHOTOGRAPHER WHO HAS PHOTOGRAPHED ME BEFORE???????????????
  3. Ford store window (Lindenau Hafen), large format, late, around 6-8pm
  4. The two crazy buildings
  5. Water tower with windows that look like eyes (when you take the bus from the beach)
  6. The two “nuclear reactors”
  7. Wires tangled above the train tracks. Preferably in the morning at 9-10am with blue sky and white clouds in the background
  8. I wanna be in the background!!!!! I want to photograph others, I want to write. Behind a wall (what’s the point of anything really, if no one is looking at you while you are doing it?)
  9. KYLIE MINOGUE
  10. Soap foam
  11. Gasoline spill in the sunshine
  12. If I can’t make it happen just print this list






THE OIL OF SWEET ALMONDS

I grease my nipples with the oil of sweet almonds
as pink silicone nipples stickers have turned them into dry little blackberry buds

I hide my tampon string between my butt cheeks
because I wear a thong when I’m menstruating

I dream of warm nights with money and Riesling on top of Chinese hotels
and I dream of being choked by large biceps on soft sheets






SUCKERSSS

I remember once

super clearly

I was lying on my bed in what Google had told me was Tokyo’s most haunted hotel

on the last evening

I had been away for three months and I had finally received my salary in cash

cuz that’s how we roll

and I laid it all out on my bed

and I laid down on top of it all and sobbed unhappily

then I took my camera and shot some self-portraits

and I thought: this is going to change my career

I’m so fucking REAL

money doesn’t make you happy suckersss

and later when I got the film back I laughed so hard that I peed my pants a little

there I lay looking like Gollum on top of a large pile of damp banknotes






ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

That day, when rice with chicken, celery and cashew nuts became my favorite dish, we had sex on the twenty-seventh floor of a high-rise in Hong Kong, with your family’s maid in the room next door. She was also the one who cooked for us. I was ashamed, praying she couldn’t hear you fingering me in your room. Above the headboard hung a quote by Arnold Schwarzenegger. I no longer remember the words, but I do remember being ashamed of cheating on my boyfriend with someone who had a quote by Arnold Schwarzenegger hanging over his bed.

You thought the sex we had was the best you’d ever had. I thought it was bad but I enjoyed the attention and your company. On the balcony we smoked cigarettes because your parents were not home and we looked down upon the empty pool, which you had promised me I could swim in, and which was also the reason I had come to visit in the first place.

When I arrive in a new city I like to see it from above: to figure something out, or maybe just to be overwhelmed.

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© Matilde Søes Rasmussen 2026