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.
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