holy land postcard 1
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It’s quiet here. The house with blood drained from
its face lights up then dims so many times, feels alive in
the way most things feel alive. Their pulses knocking at
my door like holy men at gunpoint. How many jokes about
dying have I made today? I know. I know it’s
stupid. Mouth full of my own ashes, I can’t do it, marbles
of bone worn down on my tongue. Some wraith of me is
climbing out, which is fine & whatever & whatever & fine
okay okay ok
—Xxxxxxx
holy land postcard 2
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My stomach braids itself & I blacken. I am under
my own fingernails, crawlspaced. Fluted edge of bullet
hole. If there is something I can do to change things, tell
me. What I care about most is becoming perfect, long hair
in the wind, the hem of a white dress kissing the
grass. The clear eye focused on an exit sign.
—Xxxxxxx
holy land postcard 3
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I am househunting with that double I
mentioned. Her shadow in my milk. Her shadow taking
me to middle of the lake and dark hair on my legs & pulling
down. She needs a new space, her black magic coils in
on itself, goes critical. Room for all the shapes that stir,
rodents in formalin, long line of animal children pressing at
their glass and biting through. I’ve never seen anything die
on the floor, but I know they must have when I left them.
The dove in the hedges, its breast pierced, its red
unfeathered, Chelsea, you can’t take that home. In
double’s house, the bird hits window every midnight,
drama queen. The double goes outside to pick it up, keeps
room full of birds, keeps everything. Some of them even
alive.
—Xxxxxxx
holy land postcard 4
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When she crawls out of my throat, I’m used to
it. Her long hair sleek and pretty in my teeth.
Rearrangement, my husk unformed, boiled shell thing, her
borders shimmered, white opal. The pearl from all this dirt
I swallowed down. Could you care about her? She moves
between things, catches on the wind and twists away. She
was born in a housefire before me. I didn’t catch up. Here
is my better half, move her in, clean her. My blood clots in
her hair but washes out.
—Xxxxxxx
holy land postcard 6
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Down on my planet, the usual suspects & the things
I knew would happen: eclipse of the black moon, the sick
animal throwing up mud. The ill-formed beasts hunched
in their nests of sticks, my stars ashed out in solar flare.
Heaven is a hole in the sky full of gold and white with fire
that pushes everyone out. Our heartbeats dropped into a
nightmare mouth. I’m writing you this to say I’ve thought it
through just hard enough to fake it. The valves scrape at
my teeth and spill between. Blood is so real, I am real, I
am very real in my gown of blood. My blush-pink plushed
and incorrupt, the world’s split lip daubed tenderly with
poison.
—Xxxxxxx
holy land postcard 7
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I am sleeping on her couch. She combs my hair with
fingernails & doesn’t mind my face, one yellow-edged
bruise, its pulp of grease and muscle phasing
through. She is neutral, my neutral, evened out all over,
beige skin and hair and nails and sheer white nightgown,
the un-pink powdered mouth. And I am sick, the leeches
of fever needled and heavy. Bring me warm water, bring
me small quiet music; the huge flower in my stomach
blossoms in a spasm of rust. The want of what chokes
you. I’ve read it can happen. The world drowned in a
teaspoon of blood.
—Xxxxxxx
Chelsea Margaret Bodnar / 1990 / legal secretary in Pittsburgh, PA. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in: The Bennington Review, Rogue Agent, Thirteen Myna Birds, Sad Girl Review, Wyvern Lit, and others. She is the author of the chapbooks Basement Gemini (2018, Hyacinth Girl Press) and dead people’s bedrooms (2019, Ghost City Press).
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