Ballad of a Solitary Creature

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

About the Author

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.