by Zoe Reay-Ellers

And I want to send him Siken,
send him Detail of the Woods.
He speaks abrasively and often,
scared the words are going to fly
away like any good bird
at cold, any bad showerer
at scalding. I want other lonely
people to be able to smell
my lonely like a post-gym-class
teenage boy drenched in Axe
and sweat. I want to tell him
this, to let him hold my brain
briefly. Gently. Want hands
on me in a way that won’t matter
to me like it will to him,
to be pedestaled for proof
of survival– holy and golden and
unfolded under shaky fingers
like a little kid on a stool, palm-up
in front of an old fortune teller.

Zoe Reay-Ellers is the proud EIC of the best dish soap-themed mag worldwide. She owns 20 plants and is currently a junior at Cornell. Her work has appeared in a number of places, including Kissing Dynamite, HAD, and Fish Barrel Review. You can find her on twitter at @zreayellers.