by Jillian Carson
Tonight, in the sepia ink of Sunday evening,
Your basement couch holds our bodies, bleeding loudly.
We know tomorrow we will saturate our speech
With antiseptic, temper our tones until saccharine,
Until artificial- corn syrup hearts on waxy paper stems.
But tonight, we peel each other’s lips like citron fruit
And come mouth to mouth with bitter, blistering tongue.
Tonight, we cackle and cry battery acid,
We dig for misplaced profanities
Between honeycomb cushions.
Tonight, we gargle vinegar and drain,
Tomorrow, sweet milk and drown.
When the evenings of mildew
Under peppermint upholstery cease,
An entire era of life evaporating into the atmosphere,
My days will consist of choking on cherry cordials,
Of pretty syllables and empty prayers,
Of stirring refined sugar to dilute my strength.
And I will crave, I will cave,
In silence, in secret.
Tonight we feed, tomorrow we fast.
We only romanticize what is fleeting;
Either we never stopped running
Or the basement walls are backing away.
