Soft, yet not like silk — this is soft like a bison’s lips nibbling on prairie grass; like a prairie dog’s warm nose, nuzzling another in a snug burrow; like a burrowing rabbit’s legs kicking, flopping ears across eyes, tooth, and claw; like claws of a cat withholding force just so in play with almost-prey.…
TW: psychiatric ward settingLila Andromeda was born May 18, 1999 to migrant parents who trusted lucky numbers. The five points of a pyramid: a solid foundation to finalize and begin. Hello and welcome, that’s right, breathe, you’re on Earth with us now were their first words to her, immortalized in Momma’s diary. Lila called her…
Ocher eyes glazed with flames gaze at outstretched wings and grow muddy lashes long, thick as tied twine rising into sky. She loops the strands ‘round Heron’s feet while blindly digging pale nails in her own flabby flesh, grasping at sick bones — like ballast, she throws them overboard her living blimp, praying with enough…
Pitter-patter of bottlebrush tailssnap fast in fallen leaves that clatter and clangwith dashed-hope brothers, thengrow silent a moment to brightendemon’s deepest dark spacesin places blocked from any sunlighttrickle, ripple, stream, and glow.See the cattails by the marsh clearingwave and bend, almost break yet hold,bold strength in stalk given by good roots. Relentless groaning, shaking,crawling and…
Hell’s fairies fly before my field of valley’s vision, with wasp wings like wisps of black smoke and flaking ash. Spindly legs convulse across cool glass as they search for an eave to place a hexagonal portal for demon drones to enter this dimension. Born in window periphery, minute evil larvae deftly dart in and…
I will fall to follow I will fall to ground dirt smearing my face to follow I will fall to follow your subterranean descent dirt smears my face to find your descent so I may follow your hellish stairs I climb climb, clamber the stairs your spirit tumbled down to hell I shall tumble to…
Granite walls without grout, one slab, no bricks, erected tall and long, concentric circles starting tight around my heart, the widest one right beneath soft skin the world sees my faux armor – I found this rock, mined it myself, alone, as I was trained to be for eternity. My makers were dedicated, but they…
I wander by the water's edge, waiting for you to splash haphazardly in with no inhibitions. Only then will I trust enough to let the shallows lap at the tip of my big toe. An inch of bare skin is skinny-dipping in my mind. I watch the ripples cascade down your bare back. I want…
I'll admit, the only poetic aspect here is the wordplay of the word well as an exclamation and as a synonym for satisfactorily. This is mainly an open letter to the boys I used to know as a teen who were too immature for a relationship that I felt ready for. Enjoy my diary poem.…
When I was a child, they never told me I had a uterus and my eggs were more valuable than I. They never told me my penis’d peers were the ones who could be whatever. I wanted to live /free/ my mind. They never told me the organ/ization I never asked for would follow me…
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Saralyn Caine Poetry 