BUTCHERED PRAYERS AND GROWING PAINS

 

overgrown children

it feels the same as it always didwhen we come back to each other

like overgrown children visitinghome, you vacation inside meto remind yourself who you are

we touch by habit, moansechoing against my chestas desperate as we were at sixteen

you trace the edges of my newtattoo, wondering how many menhave seen it before you

jealousy leaves an aftertaste in your mouth,you kiss it into my neck

afterwards, we lay unravelledour clothes flirting in a pile by the doorwordless apologies spill out of our mouths

we tell ourselves this is the last timeonly to fall asleep in each other’s arms

seventeen

my seventeen year old self is cocoonedin a new body that neither of us recognizeher bruises stain my skin from the inside outlike parasitic lovebites

i see her as an afterimagea fever dream of half-ripe lustsculpted in survival, coaxed into back-seats

i’m made of doorways, can never tellif she’s coming or goingwe’re stuck mid-heartbreakover and over, almost, almost

love is poured down my throat twice a dayit smells like chanel but turns my tongue to ashi swallow like cough medicine,nauseous every night

i have what she always wantedi’ve eaten her alive in the process

mothering myself though the winteris an impossible taskand to say i’m homesick is ironic,splintered across cities

these days, i feel my parents dreamsdeep in my stomachi'd rather vanish than leave them unfulfilled

i worry all that i have to pass onare half-written poems and my phantom bodyi worry my parents see themselveswhen they look at me

and i’ve had the same nesting doll nightmarefour times this weekeach time i wake in fetal positionan echo of childhood clawsher way out of me

weight is as much power as it is fleshright now, i have neither

i’m made of butchered prayersand growing painsstrangled in remembrancetalking to ghosts

 

leo sun

drinking gives me a superiority complex,i blame it on my leo sun and aries moon

a boy with his beard half-connectedleans on our cracked coffee table,he licks his lips between sentencesand asks me if i actually believe in astrology

black crop tops and ripped jeans blur togetheri wonder how many of us will be mothers,how many of us will feel loved

i’ve had the same conversation withsix people tonighti’m everyone around mei’m worse

there’s too much human noise in this roomheartbeats crash into each other, i feelour collisions in the floorboardsliquor makes ghosts of us all

i realize i’m holding my own breathi realize i’m the only coloured person herei realize i’m wearing my own skinand want to change outfits

the work of a critic is easy, the work of a loveris impossible, i’m both all at once

HEADER IMAGE ILLUSTRATOR: Sadie Levine