sometimes i say your name and it feels like an exorcism; it feels like catharsis. it feels like i’m cleansed. then your eyes lock onto mine and it is painfully clear how we are—and we are, we are, but we are cruel and callous, we are occupier and occupied, and somehow you still manage to speak all your useless apologies like they’re aphorisms.
you paint yourself a wounded angel. i look at you and your eyes are crying, the space between past and present is closing, and i say your name and you brush it off. other times it happens and it fills you. but i am not invincible; i am damaged in your turbulence, i am strapped inside your stare. as you’re spilling from my mouth you breathe me in and i realize this is stockholm syndrome. you are an architect: i made a
home in the sorry personality you built.
you tell me i am senseless and you treat it like a christening. i am made a pacifist the moment i touch you, the moment i see you, when we become blushing and bodies and breath; you growl “tell me the truth” with a hand against my throat and i say you are still beautiful but your body is a valley and there’s nothing left but dust between your bones.
i say you can feel nothing; you shove my hand between your legs to prove me wrong. we are burning in your never-ending purgatory.
ABOUT
Rose McCoy is a poet from West Virginia who frequently writes about love, grief, and mental illness. Her first chapbook, Sink or Swim: Reflections on an Ending, was published through Bottlecap Press in 2023, and she anticipates many more to come. More of her work can be found on Twitter or her website.
Moonbow Magazine 