by nat raum

After “[All night I hear the noise of water sobbing.]” by Alejandra Pizarnik

soft crisp sizzle of slow destruction
rips across wood tonight and you are
the boards and i am the fire leaving you
expanses of charred obsidian after

my crackles and flickers and tears
like crumpled paper shoved into backpack
by schoolchild so passively suicidal
that the inevitable loss of homework

means nothing that anything outside
of death means nothing the vault
which contains me is dark and deep
and expands with each fatal flaw

i discover but i still know how to crack
the door like my kid self ditching naptime
to scarf lemon creme sandwich cookies
the pulse my body so spitefully insists

upon is surging and burning and twisting
through every vessel and then some
like sneaking out like letting go like violence
is the only thing i ever learned how to come

home to sob scream cry with such affect
i think the sirens outside must be coming
for us the night the flames the ash at every
angle it all must be coming for us

nat raum is a queer disabled artist, writer, and editor based on unceded Piscataway and Susquehannock land in Baltimore. Their writing has appeared in Split Lip Magazine, Baltimore Beat, Gone Lawn, beestung, and others. Find them online at natraum.com.