Faith

Poem. Published in Red Light Lit’s Love is the Drug & Other Dark Poems: A Poetry Anthology (2018).

Faith

For Chelsea

I build a monument to you every morning
from petals and rose quartz
from sequins and neon
your songs
my bruised pulse
with paper hands

I found a single bud of dry weed wrapped in a white, wrinkled cocktail napkin
tucked into the zipper pocket of your gold purse
I planted it under silt still wet from creek water, still smelling of rot, still blinking
Recited your lost numbers over the seed like a plea

You live on my left thigh
You are made of disco balls
You are made of gerbera daisies
the red ones you tucked behind your ear

You are made of roller skates
You are made of cashew cheese
You are made of mimosas

You are the hot coiled dawn after the party, our caked-glitter eyes never adjusting to day

You are the bell sound of my name in your throat

You are the bacteria to my gutless marine worm
The lungs we both breathe with
The bullet lodged in my brain