until sun glints the dark water of my eyes / you crave the touch of hair growing softly between
who are these normal people who live inside love songs / red hair white girls in blue dresses sharing park benches with tall boys whose long limbs graze through the air like wings / that’s nice
today I will manifest your fingers around my throat / & remind you of a woman who once loved
there are things you should know about my capacity for life-ruining / watch me / I’ll finger my own flesh-center / my cunt-heart ravenous / sprouts violets / & blooms the scent of your hometown burning / its never easy building fire from bone-kindling / I’m not ashamed / today I manifest your hands belong to me / collapsed play things / I tell them stories like I want them to believe
it is American to dream / for some it comes easy / blue hair girls with red-eyed boys / everybody has a story that’ll stop your tongue from beating / everybody wants to be seen trying / but today I remind you of the only woman who ever loved you / & manifest that every passing storm is a hurricane / & bury the bodies of earthlings too joyful to run from all the screaming
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.