are you the critic?
every morning, we do nothing
every morning, a page turns and i roll
down a hill into an open mouth and blank palm
every clink adds a tendon of insulation and lingering letters,
it means nothing to me
whether the world believes me dead.
from this, I grow something,
perhaps it is more fitted to the
syntax stretched across my face
and flapping on my chest.
better than bitterness that i leave with your body when the door closes and
i grow raw
you wonder what i mean. i mean nothing.
a closed door.
something sings about a boy and his loneliness. A snap and the sounds stop.
i quite like this song, or so I am told.
my heart wavers in your hand. stopping and starting and stopping
imagine it now, a mirror with faces, none of them pretty. a fixed collar.
music always sings to the artist, but i am not one. who then? the art, of course.
i take your hand and put it to my bones,
fructifying the infecund epilogue.
this is where I kiss another,
thus, kissing you and your reveries on the forehead.
and yes, my love, I bite the fire but there is time. That won’t come until later.
now's the bricks against backs and I think I’m the writer. confident and inspired by streaks of pink and veins of brown.
waiting
but i am here
running against the current of wind, braced for a reality.
that is how i’m the imitation of you, who gets to be the elocutionist.
can you live with that?
i led you down winding paths and over the sky. On our journey, I ask
you if you’re real
is this you?
the scene in the street that turns into an alley and grows into a fire escape -clanging metal and small kittens that we cannot pet
allow for the slow motion of this to overtake you. the sound of glass around your arm.
i apologize though i do not know the meaning of sorry in my mouth.
take the pants that are wet with drowl and stitch them clean with a mother’s touch. make it come alive in a bright forest invariably torn away by the hand that feeds me a bad dream against the backdrop of fame and sky touched by splatters of stars
lying here with you. then without.
in the airport, hands shaky and eyes to far away to feel the grease at my fingers clumsy and i come undone
a finger against my chest and i cannot breathe in corners of the room
forgiven,
and reconstrued
bit by bit
and you don’t hear me anymore
how can i sleep when the things i do not take
consume you?
in there, you are crying, hysterical with red over faces you have drawn of me
my mechinall winds takes ahold and a building rises in my place
this, and only this remains in a whorl of what i leave behind on rotten paper
you are frightened and the
water is painted blue and bruised by the hull of a ship, you never see passing
we have come from humans and lost
ourselves in the tuble of desire
now forget this, we have come to the capstone next to the backlit statue an ugly and visceral light shines this is the denouement
and i am just learning to say
i love you
in the wrong way
i have saved this part for you
take the silver, dip it into olive, and let blue follow
an ending in which i know how to say
hello
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Keira Armstrong is a young author and founder of Verum Literary Press from New Orleans, Louisiana. Their work has been published in 'Quillkeeper's Press' and 'Austin Poets International', along with local magazines.
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