falling in love w/RECKLESS BOYS

 

 

he pulls the car over

to the side of an abysmal road

 

he’s drunk so he opens his throat

to the moon to vomit

 

i told him earlier not to mix

beer with whiskey with feelings

 

it’s a recipe for Armageddon

i’m his wet passenger & i watch

 

death pass by in a bright red raincoat

i watch liquor & bile & electricity

 

pour out into the street

death is knee deep

 

& though we try to keep our rage

tangled in the fibers of vinyl seats

 

the world is breaking into anarchy

reapers waiting nearby to scrape

 

souls off the asphalt

we drive on & i picture them

 

buried beneath black tire lines

accompanied by other road kill

 

death stuffing what debris of body

he can into his red raincoat

 

the tires squeal & i tell my lover

i’ll hold his heart for him

 

while he takes one more swig

the car slithering like a serpent

 

with its teeth shown

a sort of swerve & bite

 

i reach into my body for more

gut, brace his heart & my self

 

the rain pounds loudly

& death hands me his red raincoat

 

 

falling in love w/SAD BOYS

 

 

i am lonely without angels to keep me company

today, i found a fallen star on the beach

 

from an exhausted journey  of gas & smoke

its wings spanned the coast line singed into the beach

 

half hanging in the ocean, half hanging off my lover’s back

i trace his scars with my pen etch his body into my notebooks

 

we put our initials in the sand & build hearts with our fingertips

i don’t ask about my lover’s history—i can see the burn in his eyes

 

scars with too many stories to become mine

i walk in on him sometimes falling to his knees

 

i walk in on him sometimes in his agony speech

i tell him i am not god, just a coast guard for the stars

 

when they drown in the atmosphere, stars abandoned

i pick them up i collect them i often dust them on the shelves

 

by licking them—pain is flavorful

i don’t relish in it, but i’m hungry for something

 

other than the moon & the stars, there aren’t enough

angels to fall & keep me full—i just hold onto this one

 

burn more love notes into my palm

 

 

 

falling in love w/STUPID BOYS

 

 

my lover plays poke-the-carcass

by a creek in the red rock

 

there are vultures circling above

waiting for the taunt to end

 

the carcass’ blood coagulates

& slowly seeps into the creek

 

we are our own worst enemies

with our selfish anatomy

 

consumed by desperate curiosity

he puts rocks into a box

 

he tells me his heart is heavy

with a maniacal laugh

 

his stick deep in the cold belly

of the carcass, crying for peace

 

he hates his mother

& i cry bc i am his mother

 

today & yesterday & every

day he feels abandoned

 

he talks about dependency

his independence but dependence on me

 

if i ever leave him, he will cut

himself to pieces cut himself

 

 

if i never leave him, he will

surely drown me in his blood

 

i grow weary of this baptism

his death born again & again

 

i hide within the carcass’ exposed ribcage

because i want my mind to be free

 

floating in a box of rocks

down the red stained creek

 

 

falling in love w/DOPPLEGANGER BOYS

 

 

my body is a two-sided mirror

divided by two lovers breaking

 

my heart, i am wasted on their walls

in a room of realms in opposite want

 

i’m torn between sugar & snakes

the comfort of a lying tongue

 

the danger of breathing—

i burn my esophagus

 

on pink rubber balls

soft hearts beating beneath

 

my double-heaving chest

ghosts entering my body

 

through my heaving breath

i can’t help but coffin-swing

 

in & out of flesh & hell

for more pandering of soul

 

so fragile each mirror

to crack a little is enough

 

to feel something different

the want to be whole again

 

its own catastrophic intrigue

& i’m suiciding between both

 

 

on this sick-dream          balancing beam

 

 

 

falling in love w/DÉJÀ VU BOYS

 

 

i’ve met you before

in a dark red corridor lined in doors

 

embellished in the sins of my past

i’ve visited each room where

 

i’ve met you before

your face in many forms

 

but your eyes remain the same

& your interior is furnished

 

with a similar sense of self-pity

dark red tapestry of guts lain sideways

 

 

i’ve met this protrusion before

in a face of many doors

 

i’ve entered each eye socket

into similar dimensions

 

all in your green/blue/brown seascape

but in them, a dark red corridor

 

with many rooms i lie naked in

or clothed or naked & clothed

 

& the colors

no longer look like different shades

 

i follow sadness because it follows me

 

 

down

 

a dark

 

red

 

corridor

 
 
 
 
Courtney Leigh is The Bowhunter of White Stag Publishing. Her chapbook the unrequited <3<3 of red riding hood & her lycan lover was published by Dancing Girl Press, & her poems were most recently published in Alyss Lit, Hermeneutic Chaos & are forthcoming in Menacing Hedge & Yellow Chair Review.