Cry pretty

by Catherine O’Brien

I think honestly
I live dishonestly.

I play you
by and from the heart.
I am the water
that drinks the sun.

I lean on harmony.
I’ve dropped the tempo
and tickled the synth.

I comb the pattern
for its crime.
I taste the blast
of the furnace.
I drain the expenditure
from your sorrow.
I hit you with
the reason you are
abstract from fun.
I am a tornado that
upon impact chooses love.
I’m a liferaft when
you reach the shore.

Catherine O’Brien is an Irish writer of poems, flash fiction and short stories. Her work has most recently appeared in Ghost Parachute, BULL, X-R-A-Y, Frazzled Lit Magazine, Irish Country Magazine, Washing Windows V and Bending Genres. You can find out more on X @abairrud2021 and Bluesky @catherineobrien.bsky.social.