I’m all recycled phrases, bullshit metaphors. Don’t read me. I’m rotting meat. Maggots in pits. I’m blood crusted under the surface of bruised skin. I’m broken teeth, cavities. I’m the fucking soup du jour. But not today’s. Last week’s. Slop no one fucking ate. That paper sheet on the chair at the dentist. Used. Never changed. I’m the fever-sweat skin flakes you left in bed. Vomit in the toilet. Bandages, bloodied. That bowl you left in your bedroom. Covered in fucking black mold. Fucking black mold in general. Those giant sloughs of rubber tires that litter the freeway. Road gators. Fucking whatever. Spoiled milk. Disposable socks at the shoe store. Those plastic sleeves that magazines come in. Fucking useless. Empty coffee cups. Kitchen-drawer, dead batteries. Broken lightbulbs. Morning eye scum. I’m that last sip at the bottom of the glass. No one wants to fucking drink me. I’m last year’s almanac. Last year’s newspapers. Last year’s trends. Last year’s date. Last year’s...what the fuck was I talking about again?

I am ruin.

I wonder what your handwriting tastes like and what your bones find solace in hinging to. I crave the knowledge of how you lick your lips and shift gears in your car.

Your every detail and all of their possibilities consume me and I think you’ll like how I’ll devour you.

Gemnah Maley Bray

sink into the night sky

and exist within the touch

this crystallized soul

smells of

things once felt

blood that hides within a hush

floating under the rivers of thin matter

skin flushed with a fiver

I am your river

I am your tide

the rising and falling of your heart

a rhythmic expansion to those pulsating stars

each of your thoughts are mine to swallow

a light sip of chilled liquid

on a summer’s day

sink into my river

embrace the tide

breathe

**