By: Chey Danforth
a poem for those who hide themselves in bodies that are already dead
if silence is blood/ desecrate me/ drink the crimson/ away/ my mother will pray/ for nothing/ only to have my skin/ in a jar/ my mouth/ sew it shut/ read scripture/ to my blood/ she too is a man/ in the way i am not/ a woman/ in the way doctors prescribe/ drugs/ but will not save/ addicts/ in the way/ i still have blood/ named for/ the only sound/ i could make/ gurgle, spurt/ but she is a mother/ like the first he/ was a son/ taught by the white/ house/ roofies are medicine/ to get what you want/to use a towel/ after/ just for yourself/ as he gave/ the towel/ to the second he/ who sat in my vagina/ unannounced/ thrusted his own/ blood/ thrice/ for good measure/ a gentleman/ who washed/ the towel/ before giving/ it to the third he/ wiping the blood/ on his shirt/ disgusted/ how dare i bleed/ be found/ after jugular/ severed/ i stood/ he ran/ me over/ lights are even brighter/ under the car/ brighter than the paramedic/ who said i looked/ like her daughter/ who cried to me/ how hard it was for her/ to have seen/ my desecration.
my roommate said/ wasn’t he such/ a good fuck/ the first he.
my girlfriend/ says i take big/ sips of/ water/ asks what i remember from greece/ i say his name/ the second he.
a month with tubes/ according to my mother/ three days with/ god/ my dad/ who buried/ himself in/ me/ technically the first he/ who wants to murder/ the third he/ for that/ me, i/ was his/ reclamation through/ weekly phone calls.
in a dream i slept through death
i killed myself, one bullet through the skull.
relief spread like spiders etching their nest.
it was for love, i think.
a woman was with me, my mother, maybe.
her winter apple scent filled my nostrils,
reminding me to breathe.
she died with me, as a mother would.
when i woke up we were in separate rooms.
hers in color, mine in black and white.
i laid ravenous,
pleading to go back to the place
where my mother would die for me,
the place where i died for me.
i want the vinyl to crackle/it’s bad for the record
who feeds the fountains/ should i tell them/ they need more water/ or blood/ i’m not sure how this city works/ this city that has tea/ no home for the veteran/ fancy beer shops/ no public restrooms/ maybe he’ll feed the fountains with urine/ this poem isn’t about me/ if it were/ i’d be on stage/ pirouettes for days/ begging for love not money/ i’d tell you about my childhood/ begging for food/ reaching for razor/ blades/ enough crimson to feed the fountains/ for a city i do not love/ slicing a body/ i also don’t love/ searching for a reason/ to stay on stage/ longer i stay on stage/ deeper the cuts/ drive me to the hospital/ leave me there/ pirouettes / dizzy for heart/ i find the veteran/ bless him/ with no god in me.
Chey is a poet who is currently entering their thesis year of graduate school at Butler University. They use gender neutral pronouns and are in the beginning of their submission process, but are constantly writing and growing. They are a Chicago based poet and write mainly raw and unconventional narratives.