Featured Poet -  Kristen Reid

THREAD-BARE THEOLOGY 

I think I was born sad.

I’m googling if I’ll go to hell

according to the Bible. “Tell

me if I stockpile enough amitriptyline 

can it serve as my cutting seam —

a less painful way to go?

Will the Devil still get me?”

I’m too cowardly 

for a gun and knife. 

I’m a Christian, so I’m scared

that in hell 

I’ll die every day again if I die now, 

but I die every day now and then.

It’s too many reasons—

my final one in a bed—

a used up towel for someone

again again again…

“He’s the one, I’m 30, and it’s husband time.”

Tonight, after he touched me I cried.

I couldn’t say no. 

They always hate you for no.

I’m scared of the hate. 

I’m scared of the no.

I thought maybe it’d make me feel something other than numb again…

I give in—a sin—

again again again …

I don’t know why I do. I never do. 

I think I’m programmed to give myself

until there’s nothing left. 

I’ve googled suicide more than I’ve been in love. 

I’ve stockpiled meds more than I’ve felt a touch 

without ulterior motive.

I’m there again—that floating shadow—

here and not here.

I’m on the ceiling watching what happens.

AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN…

Can I be that shadow me on the ceiling?

Can I end this plane and join her in ignorance and nothingness?

But I don’t think anything could make me happy—

not even death.

WEREWOLF

There’s a wolf eating my heart, 

and its eyes remind me of a mirror. 

My mouth salivates as it consumes me. 

I want it to be done. 

Was there ever a time that didn’t feel 

like everything was used up? 

Rotting like a bone-thin carcass?

Brittle white shards in the blistering sun?

I am the creature of absence that rips— 

and I am scared of what I am without it. 

I am scared the wolf will return like sin. 

It is already biting at my ankles again,

and I want it to.

When will I stop wanting it to? 

These woods are haunted— 

taunted by a light in the distance… 

but I don’t think it’s bright enough 

to get me out.

BLOODY FINGERNAILS

Bloody fingernails—

through pain, I tear— I rip—

Let that dark blood drip.

This hurt takes the mind away.

It’s cutting without the flirt with death

because I’m a coward for not committing 

and a coward for even considering. 

Bandaged fingernails—

because I like to make it feel better 

just to make it feel worse.

Let the wounds heal a little now. 

This curse

 inside me—

It asks for my being in whole.

And I give it a little—

piece-by-piece—

until I tear and rip out my entire soul.

MOLD

I can’t be alone with my mind. 

It’s parasitic—the self-destructive stereotypic…

unstick it from my ribs. 

It’s like pulling flesh from bone

when the deprivation symbiote 

has made a home. 

Alone.

Alone. 

Thought it would be something outgrown,

but I’m almost 30 now, and I am still here

with my knees pulled up to my chest 

in the mold-stuck tub 

as water runs down my skin like hot blood. 

The bathroom ceiling, pop-corned white—

I spend more years here than in life. 

Alone with those thoughts, and

caught in their snare again—

Let the water run cold—

running a finger along mold— 

a phantom touch to my soul.

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