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fall '24

poem #1 — carapace

After Dear Birmingham by Gabrielle Bates

she’s just outside, pleading with

the moon.

tonight she pleads to the

on the brink

bottle of her throat — slender,

fragile, capped — holds

a torrent of unspokens.

she turned to the moon,

his face lobed by shadows of cumulous clouds,

the little light that shone through

dappling her disposition.

over the brink, her husked emotion

spills, palpating her very being

with colossal, dreadful guilt;

A famished bird carps

over every last seed of thought

‘til the feeder empties

her bottle shatters

in outburst — an eruption

brought on by no one but herself;

blame spews everywhere

& sharded remains line her insides.

poem #3 — we are young

In thinning fall, we noodled across lawns browned

(by dying weeds) and under sky grayed (with uncertain

sunlight), humid wind periwinkled against our cherub

smiles, brassed its way through my missing two front

teeth. We didn’t mean to run so far that all we recognized

was the long red brick wall that hugged the sagging hill. Our

laughter patinated as we took turns balancing the tightrope

of berry bricks until I noticed faint neon red and blue mingling

with deadened lawn. A fallen leaf slinking its way to your hair

stole my attention so I brushed the crinkled tear of hackberry

tree from your lovely thick brown curls. (I wondered, then, if you knew you were my first

crush.) You threw me down the hill and cackled with the crack

of thunder while I met the ground with a determined momentum

and bruises and the wind knocked out of me. I met you back

on top of our fortress. I let you do it again and again and again

even when the sirens got louder and tires screeched down the

street and I’d have let you do it again and again and again

if only it’d make me the leaf of a hackberry tree.

poem #4 — text to ana on Hug a Bear Day

when will i ever

be thin enough for you? like,

you wanted me to

lose ten pounds so i did, and

ten more after that, and now

i am eighty nine

pounds of ache and you with your

persistent yapping

of ‘you could always

do better, be lighter, take

up less space’ like there’s

any of me left to lose

isn’t helping. but don’t leave

me. you are all i

have always there always right

so eat me whole chew

me up spit me out

into moon’s mouth full of stars

so i can be one

myself and burn bright and go

out with a bang. fucked around

n found out. absolutely mogged me

still seduce me into losing just one more pound because really and truly it wont kill you it cant but cant you see im already dead? how much more of me is there left to lose?

over and over

you pumped me full of

delicious lies but

actually as it turns out

noboy

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