Published in Atomic Flyswatter Vol. 1, 2020

Withered and acrid

are these stinging-nettle boys.

Their shallow, blackened sneers cuff my ankles in red lace

and my mother, pitiless, shrugs the blood away

having clearly given up on my

wearing shoes.

I ran by night,

from what I did

not know.

By that first pillowing of dawn I found

my legs etched raw,

as if by dying captive men that count the days

on walls of tide choked caves,

and prison cells

and on the ribs of tombs

when one gets mixed up in that unsavory business

of being buried alive.

They scored my skin to play a round

of tic-tac-toe to pass their time

incarcerate, and still

I sing only

of their thorns.