In the merge of human|nature guts slosh & splatter
(Tell me again about the time you cut yourself by accident)
In the evening there is a crisp of yellow sunset we armed wild with roses & husbands sleep curled part-fetal
(Tell me again about the time you felt safe resting weightless inside of someone else)
This is what I have learned from searching:
there is no amount of fill that cannot be drained
On a Monday night I’ll meet a human and he will gnaw at me I will imagine him inside
teeth bared blood dripping and stringy
But I don’t want to talk about that|I’m trying to live a life
For you I modeled wings and strong-smiled
I said I’m trying to live a life but in a stranger’s face I saw the sparkled giggle of my future children and hated myself for not looking away
This is foolish but
I want your long fingers to bone-spur inside of me sprouting nodules of futures
(Tell me again how you spread yourself open & licked your wounds as if seductive)
(Tell me again about the sun custard mornings when everything was)
& you couldn’t know that
as you spoke I was imagining the skin inside of your face so close to your brain
On Tuesday I will rub myself raw but there will be no feeling
See, I’m trying to live a life but
you don’t know the history of what’s inside when you stretch me open
(Tell me again how safe it is to hunger)
Marry me in the house we thumbed through together in your kitchen apartment
I’ve only known one galaxy with you and it rings herring-scarlet
Thursday & gnawing I resent everyone who’s ever touched me & everyone
who has dared not to
But there is no longer blood|I am no longer familiar
(Tell me please this is the part where forever comes)
Far be it from anyone to tell the truth about loss but here it is:
If you think too long about anything it becomes a ghost
Lena Ziegler is the author of MASH (The A3 Press) and editor and co-founder of The Hunger. She was a finalist in the Autumn House Press 2018 Fiction contest and the 2017 Goldline Press Non-fiction contest. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Indiana Review, Split Lip Magazine, Dream Pop Press, Yes, Poetry, The Seventh Wave, Gambling the Aisle, Literary Orphans, The Flexible Persona, Anti-Heroin Chic, and others. She holds an MFA from Western Kentucky University and is pursuing her PhD at Bowling Green State University.