Three poems by contributor Elisabeth Horan
We who are lost
Find each other in warehouses
Too late sometimes, it’s in graveyards.
Always emaciated,
dumpster diving for attention
Overweight on alcohol
anorexic acceptance rates
like High school anxiety
shave the head
try on personalities
We who find each other
and save some last hope
from each self we carry
give momentus hope for
self care, for having less
Night terrors,
the bruises calming
from catalyst snarls
aubergine pockets to mottled
Eye sockets
Mottled to moss
moss blankets earth.
bury the hatchet,
you’ll
bury the hurt
We who are lost.
We who are found.
Hold fast my hand
My dirt. My coffin,
You’ re under ground now
to find me; you’re
diving in
head first.
Mmm, Nope
If all is human nature
and I am part of that
You say it all just comes from it
the good the sick the bad.
Then what of the abhorrent?
The tired two-timing tricks I invent
To make things into feelings
which they are not. And how/what
The fuck are feelings, anyway?
If all is natural behavior, then do
Not mark me as present, for I’ve pushed the
virtuous to drown, the heroe to bite
Off his own hand. For lack of better synonym,
I demanded him to eat a bone;
I once told a child I’d adopt him –
then promptly left town… see?
Collapse improvise TNT concrete
swinging ball chain mimic war cry.
If I am human – let the
dogs be gods, if I am natural –
Shall water be the poison grog.
If I am something you can swallow,
Whole, not choke upon – even
actions of desertion, MIA if me=treason
(which you readily accept),
no questions, asked, not even a
Background check, then I caution, rather-
strongly advise the baby steps
Toward my person, toward my slick
granite gargoyle creepy crawlies tone deaf
Cackling cheeked broom rider
co-dependent needy; a drinking fish.
I wish for any awesome kind of cigarette –
quell my lack of self-care messiness.
Neurotic Lullaby
I’m lost in smoke
Bombastic
snake gardens
Bats come, I am one
Snake sickness,
Shodokon shadow:
haunts. Hunts. Bats are
my friends I belong
with them
Lost in caves
deep in your mouth
a cave, your heart, a cave
your throat, and art
My heart, concaving
bleeding out
lowest white count
little lamb
this is the year of the snake
I deny swallowing shadows
I deny I am too good
all I did is so sickness
Knows to grow inside the coils;
heating mold up to base temp;
kill temp
Rocking rocking
bye bye
Frightening the babies
bats in closets
me in your throat
swashbuckling snakes
This is sickness.
Bat shadows envelop
and hide fangs
which eat things in caves
I am one I am one
rock knee rock knee
grab on to me –
I grab you, hungry.
Follow Elisabeth Horan on Twitter @ehoranpoet