gutters

come collect memories

from the dirt-dust corners

and from all the days you swept under the clothes

flung across your bedroom floor.

come collect me

in the places you touched my body

red: collect the blood

rush blush, the bitten skin, the flood,

and the float.

come collect the shade of your eyes in the dim

afternoon light, the tune

of your hands along

this body and brain. i hold them all

on rib bone shelves. they rattle

when i walk too quick

towards something new and too

familiar, when i stand in the kitchen

with darkened window glass,

staring

at the image of god they say resides in my body.

there is no mourning for me;

me and my sleepless eyes, awake at four a.m.

with shaking hands:

soft mango blushed orange in the right,

knife sharpened slick in the other,

and i stare

at this god mirror girl in night's window, and i

breathe,

aching,

craving blood, and

i do not make

gutters

out of these

wrists.

M. WILDER is a youth librarian and lifelong student, whose words may be found or forthcoming in Rogue Agent, thismuch, Cicada, Letters to a Young Poet, Desolate Country, The New York Times online, and more. An editor of Sprout Club Journal, M has also served on editorial staffs for New Letters and Elementia, and a handful of zines. M can be found on instagram at @hereistheend.