POETRY
“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
the strands of your hair on the bathroom tiles aren’t sketching defeat. that’s you spitting disease in the face with another day you’ve woken up to.
I slumped in front of a massive desk, a passive patient corroded with failure and dread.
here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome
I would always rather be happy than
dignified. Rather held than held
in awe.
If America is Babylon / and you are an exile / newly arrived among pagans / Catholic, ‘Ngolan, Black, woman / you already know how to pray
Dylan Krieger’s poetry is unflinching, grotesque, and beautiful. Her work tackles trauma, wrestles authority, and is a decadent sonic feast.
You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.
Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.
I want to roll in this moment until I become its vocabulary
until I smell like the bones
until I am its echo…
It recommended
soft porn, as gentle prodding and petting parent
to parent might calm and soothe the kid.
Okay, picture this: We’re in an elevator. The elevator shuts down. It doesn’t matter where we’re going, only that we’re alone.