Artwork by Ali Whitlock
just for a night, i traded the sycamores
for the lightshows
i went in alone and hungry, with that
terrible ringing in both of my ears –
that terrible ringing that comes with
constant silence –
and i let the warbling of the choir and their chords
fill every little wound pockmarking
my bog body with bugs, bugs, bugs
i came home to a dark apartment,
my dog asleep in his kennel,
and i thought a lot about virginia woolf,
about modernism and why they
call them skyscrapers
i thought about how, pressed against
the velvet, i bled and bled and bled
the music back out of me
i’m not good at holding things, i’m not
a good container
you’ve heard that before but i mean it
someone asked me if i missed my russian olive,
if i missed marbled shade, providing
half-relief from inexorable heat
yes, i miss my cold body flaying my hot body
and a sputtering god’s mouthpiece
yes, i miss green spades constricting my throat,
pressing into my adam’s apple like a kiss from
a cracked pair of lips
yes, i miss my invader and how her leaves looked
like clouds
but i have a question, a pressing question,
a pulsating and spreading question
as we make kindling out of my olive’s
branches –
what is missing but the gape left in the wake
of the thorn in the side? what is missing if not
the admission that you have allowed love’s axe
to use you as its grindstone?
there is a reason the poets take rocks to
the black water, a reason why they drink
themselves swollen and festering
we’re waiting for the bugs to swarm us
we do a lot of missing – we’ve got plenty of chasms to fill
i put a mirror across from my bed and it functions
as narcissus’ rippling pond
when i put this bruised body to work,
and god looms in the corner,
i think of the skyscrapers and the poison hemlock,
i think about how writing is plexiglass voyeurism
my hands and lips are mindless
and it is as if there is something
alive in my blood –
like a flag at half-mast or a lawn sign
being taken by rough winds
i don’t really know anybody and i say
i don’t really want to
they say he gets touchy when he’s drunk
only when he’s drunk is he sweet
and i’m meant to hear that and think nothing of it
i put a mirror across from my bed
and i watch a version of me industrialize
the most natural thing in the world
and i think a lot about a lot
i think a lot about how i think
serial rape is less moral than serial murder
but only one is so psychologically revealing –
to conquer is to be human
(do not mistake to be human with
to be humane)
whereas to kill is to be beyond – and i think a lot about
eating grass and swallowing thick
gulps of hose water and when i choose to
and to not wear my glasses
i don’t really know anybody and i
really want to
Riley James Russo is a teenaged author split between Ohio and Pennsylvania who endeavors to explore the human experience through various written forms, including novel, script, and poem. More information on their work is available on their Instagram, @rileyjamesrusso.