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.