[241 words]
i hide from you calling me in bed HOW TO fall in HOW TO track the HOW TO with john wilson only around for a jaunt or2 and a madman dances in front of the mirror my shadow slips like fallen light into the gelato rain of second grade ants in raisin boxes once so wild – you got tamed. ablative errors by whom by whom by whom. tender in the night u2 never forget the mantras you speak of the monsters you dream of when you write fiction you pound a glimmer of truth to speak the way you write i love you outside the window: broken umbrella weeds and no one was within me holding secrets carried at ten by whom by whom by whom don’t let the language be a cop out ablative errors holding secrets carried at ten: yours or mine yours or mine yours or mine are mine are yours are yours are mine are yours are yours mine? and desires emerge dire i let the universe happen to me i let myself happen to the universe i embrace stillness and
I am the boy in the fiction when
the
mother
becomes
all
but
a
stump
and
he
sails
far
away
your freedom came at a cost, boy,
at a cost atta boy at a cost atta boy at
accosted, already the trunk of a tree for the
boy who will eventually
sail far away
from me.
Azure Brandi graduated from NYU’s Tisch in 2023. Previous work in New Croton Review, October Hill Magazine, Virgo Venus Press, SORTES Magazine, and Thirty West Publishing’s Afterimages. Forthcoming publications in The Underground, Alien Buddha Zine, Bending Genres Journal, Stick Figure Poetry, Flapper Press, Basset Hound Press, Brevi Mag, The Up and Coming Magazine, The Gorko Gazette, Kaleido Zine, and Vol. 1 Brooklyn.
