Cole Gallagher

Cole Gallagher Dec 10

Mango blood- memories of stealing sticky kisses
as the sun cracked heaven on its side,
leaking light like it owed us something holy.
You, terminally ill with desire,
and me, trying to siphon enough
to keep us alive-

to make us thrive

Don’t bite off more than you can chew,
but hunger is a kind of aching prayer
swallowing dreams whole,
even when they splinter the throat.

Got a year to fill you there,
maybe you’ll bloom in time.
But blooming is just dying in slow motion-
petals falling like forgotten names,
each syllable dragging its shadow.

At least you’re not alone,
even the moon needs the night to shine.
Please slow down.

I tried to tell you once:
pretty privilege never looked so good
when it wasn’t yours to own.

And killing you is the same
as killing me. We are bound,
a tangle of roots unable to let go.
If love is a garden,
this is the dirt we die in.

Cole Gallagher Dec 8

Paper Mate Vampires

You fool, that’s my wooden leg!
Homeschooler thrown
into public graveyards
without training wheels,
getting lost in the burrows of daggers
and edges that exist beneath sharp smiles
of baby dakrats trying to fit in.
Let him scramble for humor,
in the moment,
while a mirado black warrior
drinks blood from his thigh.

Cole Gallagher Dec 8

Rainbow Road

Life’s just Mario Kart with extra sass,
a ****** control of speed and spin,
bananas flying, blue shells smack,
Sharp turns whipping you right off track.
There’s always a choice at the start;
Players, choose your racer:
He picks her every time,
a pink dress fluttering
like a newly freed flag
he’s not ready to wave.
They laugh at first,
sticking names on him
hotter than oil slicks on the track,
controller gripped tighter,
fingers flexing around the proof.
Peach with her crown, all poise and might,
pinks popping in a world of black and white,
she’s everything he wants to be
but can’t yet say.
It’s more than a game, full gas,
she’s mother, gliding across the grass,
So, he keeps picking peaches,
promising that someday,
he’ll wear his own crown,
and it won’t matter what they say
because he’ll be too busy
winning his own **** race.

Cole Gallagher Dec 2

The last witch on earth

She finds him,
where the ground bleeds fire,
heat spilling like blood,
echoes of a swan song fading,
the last man, ash in hand, fear in throat.
She laughs, in cackles like breaking glass,
like glaciers snapping in the dark-
come closer, closer, closer still-

She shows him the spells,
the ones burning holes in the sky,
how to boil oceans to bone,
choke forests on last breaths-
power was never magic, but choices cast,
and they learned to seize
smoke from oil, plastic from sea, life to ash

She trembles, teeth clattering like ice
under the breaking of spells past rot, polar molars
guiding his fingers
to the ****-
feel that? it’s the heartbeat slowing
feel that? the last spell I have cast
feel that? but you, you can still do something

One last spell to learn-
It won’t come easy,
it won’t cast quick.

She teaches him to pull fire from air,
how to breathe it to life
in the ruins of cracks,
planting seeds of hope-
this was their doing, their undoing
but you, you can choose to be different,
to be the spark that doesn’t catch,
or- you can watch
like they did,
as the world burns
without you

He closes his eyes,
the last man on earth-
& casts.

Cole Gallagher Dec 2

Faded wet fireballs

I saw your tattoo spread its wings
in your shiver,
cranes in flight,
a delicate friend unraveling to reveal
plain old chemistry in a weary drizzle,
a quiet fall on yesterdays swept away.
a poured-out balm on every-other-day blues
soft as the lily's purple embrace,
forget-me-knotted attraction caught in place.
a spilling over & again across the pages,
buried paper stains pressed down
with wine & power, a sarcophagus song.
a crashing in that space between tongue and mouth
in oh no’s- tricking peace for trepidation intoxication,
top me off with *** & coke- thanks, bud.
lightning sparks behind flooded eyes.
a castaway in the silent storm
that every day,
bleeds a little more away.

Cole Gallagher Nov 27

Corona Extras

My friends wonder:
why water down the milk?
make it last longer & longer until it’s just
white ghosts, stretched thin.
why not just buy more? they ask,
bright as pennies in a jar-
as if my bones aren’t tired from scraping
double-bagged escapes on half a paycheck,
saving up for something that doesn’t have a name,
but a kiss full of teeth.
Once- a fairy, lost, coughing stardust-
whispered in my mask, hey
if you make a ring of Tito’s and step through,
quick, before the dawn catches on your breath
I could save you,
save us both.
take us back to somewhere
& nowhere at all
where, I asked, the wish burning
through my pockets, through my mind
which home? for there were many.
No, baby, she gasped, wings crumbling to ash
not that home-
all the way back.
to the first day,
where mornings were built
from stardust & glories,
where endings begin again,
where nothing
becomes everything
you ever wanted
alright, I whispered,
maybe this time I’ll go home.
Maybe this time I’ll let go of
the milk, the money, the ring of flesh
just step through,
the circle closing tight,
nothing but mouthwash & air,
nothing but nothing
& there,
finally,
maybe I’ll be whole,
or nothing at all
which is the same thing, really.
Another star-dusted fairy
caught in the flame.

Cole Gallagher Nov 22

barren karen vapors

Have you ever heard a hot spring cry,
steam rising like morphine, heavy with forgetting?
It ***** your energy,
like hot tea searing the palms
of someone desperate to hold you back.

In its release, there’s a static hum,
not the gentle kind-
more give than an electric seam,
sinking you toward the ocean floor,
where even stars grow cold,
and the night, once dripping with warmth,
fractures into distant, silent homes.

The greatest lie I’ve ever told:
I’ve turned a corner.

But I’ve learned corners don’t turn-
they fold, swallowing you whole,
like steam curling into the sky,
like the moment just before touch slips away.

Even light, you see, is a myth-
it fades, it cools.
And we, in this endless descent,
are left holding the warmth
of something that was never really ours.

Have you ever heard a hot spring cry?