2 Poems On Identity
Poems on Identity
Codeine Identity Crisis
What shall I call myself?
Perhaps I am a blessing
distributed drip by drip by drip
to cozied cups clutched within infinitely curling fingers.
Or better yet I am a catechism,
the spattering of fingerprints
laid across the face of the deep.
Hands holding hands clutching hands
at the bottom of the ocean.
Or even a fractal,
the weaving of the needle through punctured skin,
crimson miracles pooling onto human canvases.
Again…
again.
I am a ritualistic healing.
The tripping over nonexistent shoelaces on the first day of class.
Converse and bones plummeting
into self-imposed prisons.
Arms flailing aimlessly, proclaiming themselves as wings.
An escape,
and yet a heart.
an empty room,
a beating echoed against the walls.
My Better Half
There is writing on the interior of our eyelids.
They the bloodier versions of ourselves we find hidden
beneath couch cushions scattered about the floors of our third floor apartments.
Once she kissed me upon the interior of my iris,
once the walls were slathered in glycerin from nights prior.
Did you know people can hate something they adore?
For instance,
Crimson visages…ghosts…memories…shadows,
even those bizarre people they construct
piece by piece within tubes.
Once she made one “identical” to myself,
except it borrowed the angst from Clint Eastwood,
and an ankle from our neighbor Karen.
I insisted he be built with no lips to ensure he always smiled.
When he closes his eyes he sees me,
the bloodier version.
He steadies his face,
accepts the ghosts are gone, and finally lets me speak.
more by JENNER PAULSON
Photograph by Redd Angelo
