Young Writers Society

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“You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.”
― Richard Siken

Interesting title choice! Good luck this NaPo ^^

april is taken with a grain of salt every year
to cure my tongue of the devil's work,
words slithering out & crawling out of their jar
like the sides of a bottle of jam.

off-yellow carpets are only second
to shared dumpsters & cigarette smoke
with a wheel of fortune spinning every sunday,
praying to the ceiling not to cave in.

i long for the comfort i felt hiding
in walmart coat racks,
sitting alone at lunch & recess.

our bodies were puppets for the sun;
waxy flesh scorched by parking lots,
hiding scraped knees to stay out of trouble,
walking a tight rope
between here & the sky.

swathed in moth-eaten sheets,
we live in grace.

absent prayer bloody palms
worn-through tee shirts
hanging from the door hook
face on the wall staring
biting nails chattering teeth
chafed thighs
covered eyebrows
head in hands
swivel chair tipped over
now a body laying nude
supine & half-dead
half-hearted repentance
verified by flagellation
& empty-waiting-patience
for a bruise
that won't go away

i lay on the couch,
humming a lullaby to myself & saying grace
as i pick at dead skin; the smell of peeling & rotting
flesh festers like a baked potato in the sun.

i pinch my nose & plunge into your notion
of me: pitiful & pathetic, bare on the floor.
i take turns attempting to make your waist fit mine,
or mine yours.

there is nothing more sacred than you.
all i want is to stay home & rebirth myself.

here i am, all freedom & misery;
the lowest hanging linguistic fruit on the tree,
squeezed until ecstasy, contracted,
pained echoes from a life of reliving.

you burn like a kitchen knife
scraping on hot asphalt, blistering sounds
in early mornings, four a.m.-type loathing.
each double-edged sword you know has two dull sides;
together & apart, right now & back then.

"you make your whole life a poem,
a notes app sob story,
make real human connections into another layer
to peel off. you know, the layers don't come back
once you peel them. they're just gone."

the end is built into the beginning;
i mistake the acoustics of your bedroom for hymns
& the scars on your skin as bible verses.

my mother used to pour water
on my head to wake me up for school;
baptism recurs as trauma & the angels
watch me seize.

reconciliation is a tale i tell
to the dust mites in my carpet.
maybe it is the dream i had where i have
a dream & not a nightmare.

my hands are too busy
clasped in prayer to claw my way out.
my spirit is unsure if this life is hell,
or a different kind of womb.

dead air, carbon emissions escape my mouth
into shared breathes with strangers.

the skyline approaches like a dog eating its tail,
running out of time & clinging to any surface it can --
rest stops, park benches, car garages,
a reservoir of spit spilling over.

thin ice forms on the ground.
a lonesome city & its spotlight shines through
tinted office buildings; box layout pattern,
a grid imposed onto living conditions.

landlords snarl & side-eye passers-by,
their chafed necks reddened by the cold.
stray cats gnaw on bones to pass the time,
fleas all over, withering away in the place
they call home.

tongues are meant for licking
& paws are meant for escape.
i play tug of war with a belt & my neck;
the city keeps the score.