i ponder the brutality of hands. it winters me. i feel loss. loss that gets drunk on loss. in sadness, i **** on my fingers. cloven, my nails cut my tongue. wintered, my body snows blood, and ashamed, it hides blood beneath body. oh, hell. oh, garden. post rapture of the axe head. what am i going to do about the trees now

"I ever tell you about that fish? That big, ******* catfish with the human eyes. How it looked at us, so full of doom. And you can't miss doom, you know. When you see it in some eyes. But it wasn't just doom. There was something else. Something familiar- like... like disappointment. Like that ******* fish was watching us from the shallows, and it tagged that hook with purpose. But then it got up here, right. It got up here and saw us. Just some drunks. Just some idiots. Now, I don't know if fish think about God, but I think about God. I think about God a lot. About the day I'll meet the man. And I'm afraid most of those days. Afraid I'll wake up naked on a river bank, doom in my eyes, and not much liking what I see."

"Everyone's afraid of dying, dad."

"Not the dying, boy. Do you listen when I talk? What do you think we did with that catfish, huh? We didn't take it to heaven: we ******* ate it."

o rabbit
of death
where is
your paw

i tell god if this doesn’t **** me i’ll do something with my life and god is understandably skeptical i’ve made bad deals before but i mean it this time i tell god i’m thirty one years old i’m handshy i’m pretty enough for two and i know i haven’t done anything about any of that and i know i don’t always act like it but right now i’m scared and i have nobody to tell i’m scared and i wonder what i’ve been doing for all this time i mean what have i been doing for all this time was i waiting for the poverty to let up like summer rain was i waiting for the city man to enter frame and smile at the camera no i wasn’t i was writing poems and i was drinking and i was smoking but mostly i was writing poems i was writing poems i gave away like kittens like kittens with miserable bones and a language that can only speak to language and god i guess i’m not that scared but i am sad and i’m sad for being sad and i feel so dumb i feel such a sense of loss i feel it in my mouth like an omen like my little life given body and when it dies i am reminded things can be wasted

(****** syrup in a glass bottle
dead flies)

i was always the brave sister.
this is fear. watch me drink it

the summoning

dream, not dream. does it matter. light a match. should your match fail, don’t light another. just leave. otherwise, approach the window silently. you will see your reflection. your reflection will see you. you are allowed one word. your reflection is allowed two. use this time wisely. if, when your match dies, you see a beast beyond the glass? know. know it’s yours; know you did this. prepare the blood and go outside

(s.o.b- nathaniel rateliff & the night sweats)

god says, you were born a poet,
so i gave you a gun.
where is your gun?
kelsie, where is your gun