how does that make you feel?
like i cherry picked our singed mail box for a dead invitation
to my own 4th birthday party. the cashmere unicorns and nylon stuffed
tigers that ignited toddler hearts left grill marks and the crystalline frosted
cookie cake burned in the freezer.
like i sold my kidney on facebook for ten dollar bills
that exchanged green presidents for silhouettes of contorted women. i bundled it
with a lottery scratcher and surgical tools and now the owner has stones.
like i spotted my daughter exploring our pharmaceuticals and she sobbed
under a spell to clog her throat because i birthed her.
then i searched my high school backpack for drugs i hate.
like i split the radiator on my toyota camry, let it sweat in a wedged ditch
and realized the other driver is paralyzed
it makes me feel
like a weapon
egopoem
i want to peel the sky
like reishi burial skin and walk
past the curtains that join
prism blue and vantablack oases
for a terminal breath of ethereality
i want to draw the foyer slab
like an undead escapist
and relish in the liminality
of sun and room and birth
a rhapsodic routine
i want to spread the arms of broomstraw
like a june beetle hug
brush the cilia of the powerlines
with my hands of dust
and drown in the sisters of wheat
i want to wade into thorns
into rays
into dew
into dark matter
and forgive
copycat
the sky is sleeping
protect my pen
holding space in absent ink
like salted dust shaken by silent bells
wake and rinse your harvest
make peace with the damp
because
hell will dry
Hanna Hathaway is a writer and educator from rural Powhatan, Virginia. Her poetry explores childhood, psychiatry, femininity, and the potency of reality. Achieving access to these themes is often facilitated by the embodiment of several alter-identities. She also likes to incorporate French language into her work when possible. Hanna is grateful to have pivoted from researching nanocapsules for drug delivery in chemistry labs to becoming a fully funded MFA candidate in poetry at George Mason University. Her experiences inspire her to pursue concentrated ways to articulate them, and an alter-villainous secret identity (Hazel) is often responsible for her most adventurous work.
