pink(ing) (excerpt)

Caelan Ernest

We head back to his after it got too late to be drinking at the.

(Sorry, it’s a—) Mess. There’s a splash of water on the floor of his bedroom, maybe a rain spot or a spill. A pink dot pokes out from the middle, the size and shape of an egg yolk.

I glance at the ceiling, but no sign of leakage. He remains quiet as he takes me to the bed. As we walk past the strange water and the pink spot, the glitchy sound from the bar returns in my ear, like switching on the radio to a broken station. As a kid, I’d always let the static play to fill up the empty space.

But now. On the edge of his. I press my fingertips to my ears to try to stille the sound, but I know there’s no luck since the glitch seems to be coming from inside. Vibrating out.

As if to keep me present in this moment, he performs an action: the slippage of his body over mine. His hands to uncover, I undress. The song in my ear becomes an orchestra booming. A subsequent terraforming. I trace the salt particles on his skin like stars before sleep.

Inside, another kind of pink yolk is brewing.

Love is dew, you.

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April 1, 2023

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“pink(ing) (excerpt)” from NIGHT MODE: by Caelan Ernest.
Published by Everybody Press on March 7, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 by Caelan Ernest.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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Caelan Ernest is a nonbinary poet and performer living in Brooklyn. They are the author of two collections: night mode (2023) and ICONOCLAST (2024), both from Everybody Press. Most recently, their work has been published in Blush Literature, them., WUSSY, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere. They hold an MFA in Writing from Pratt Institute. They are Publicist at Graywolf Press.

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night mode

Everybody Press

New York, New York

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night mode is a book-length serial poem that oscillates between digital and IRL topias, blurring the line between the two. In five poetic sequences and a brief coda, this deeply visceral and darkly erotic book explores themes of abjection, violence, limerence, love, and desire. The speaker navigates shifts in their identity in response to the encounters and exchanges they make, allowing each poem to expand upon the last— rupturing into new formal landscapes that give way for a pastiche wasteland of internet speech and cybernetic bodies. Through music, lyric, fragmentation, and play, night mode is an artifact of exploration and identity.

"In a time defined by algorithms and public violence, Caelan gives fruity, punk, trans lyrics. night mode invites us to search for meaning after class, on hookup apps, in the club. These poems look at intimate exchanges, acute losses, mixed desires—wondering how so much can happen 'between one party/ & the next.' Written from the thaw of gender binaries, they form the shared location of queerness and pleasure, somewhere 'the glitch seems to be coming from the inside. Vibrating out'."
—Joshua Escobar, Bareback Nightfall

"To read Caelan Ernest’s iconic debut night mode, is to enter the pool at le bain’s ON TOP with Arca & Sophie playing b2b on the decks in shadows of the fog machine. On the screen, on the dancefloor, Ernest imagines the delightful consequences of a trans terror in public when 'all the forms our bodies might be capable of taking' manifest into all possible selves. Each line cuts through the perspective-pleasure axis between screen and horizon, gesture and code. Ernest ascribes body parts to phones and technology, transforms those parts—machine, flesh—entirely for queer pleasure. Against the weaponized surveillance state, against the hapless gig economy, night mode perverts visibility toward an excess of decadence & glamour, 'digital deviancy,' & the sexy congruence between machine & skin as simultaneous organs of perception and eros. The process of relation may be transformative, but the poetic relative with selves past, present, & future is utterly trans/formative. night mode is Ernest’s hyperpop, hyperpoetic, trans cyborg manifesto on love & of course–lust."
—Andrea Abi-Karam, Villiany

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