Poetry by Logan Anthony
Poetry & Prose Contest Runner Up
the blue dew morning
the blue dew morning steeps in dysphoria.
on the counter, a mug of agave-sweetened rooibos tea.
a slice of toasted sourdough, still warm in the hand.
small comforts are all i can manage when the discomforts
of the trans body-in-progress distance me from myself:
patchwork body angled to stare at the unveiling of the dawn.
i rise from bed, from the morning, with smoke curling
away from the scars, binds to a recognizable identity.
a bloodsoaked book page crumpled and lodged in the throat.
language unrecognizable when the ink rivulets from the page
like a tributary off a cliffside, dribbling from the mouth
in a hoarse whisper. the voice pounds against
its barricade like a bull. the smoke runs, water in a flume.
i do not permit the bull to leave.
the swallowed outcry
whatever may hold captive your heart, whatever teeth you bleed and struggle between. do not tremble lightly between the grinding of the gears. when they grind to a stop, you alone witness the ceasing of motion. a hand becomes a bird unbound by the confines of a human-held sky. what sky we call ours dips a toe into the multitudes of others lapping like tidal waters beyond veils we are not equipped to understand. where cells upon cells coalesce. behind the crashing of the waves aches a somber, hushed breaking. the choked sob of a swallowed outcry. an unfettered nightingale piercing the unyielding dark of night with more to the gore pulsing within its sheath of feathers than the dissipating song woven to its exhale. always, there is more than the senses are apt to find. hills of salt balance the scales and bleach the hair. the salt dries the skin and draws forth something from within your very depths, a pitiful thing you never thought you’d see in the daylight. on the sand you encounter less and less of the recognizable worlds you’ve occupied. there are stones, fossils, and bones, a history shifting beneath the scraping of your soles over the land. which will you gather? which will you throw? the pockets of your sundress sag like saddlebags reaching for the shore, pulling you down to once again meet the earth. you walk heavily on your light feet, resisting this return, this homecoming. you have resisted the earth your flesh all your life. it isn’t fear dancing in your limbs, fueling you beyond what strength you knew you carried, but defiance. your knees exalt themselves above all else and thus cannot stomach touching any but each other, not even the land. not even for rest.
cycles
you’re engrossed in the pursuit. one true, raw, innocent and unbridled high.
months burnt through like matches, books of them, yet you will never find
your body that in tune with itself and all that surrounds it again.
your fingers float over the keyboard as individual strands of kelp.
this water has taken years to rise, yet you sit beneath the surface,
unaware you have sat idle for your lifetime. for lifetimes.
lifelines litter the sand sifting over sand below.
the strength it takes to lift a limb left these shores long ago.
everything you think you know is merely the film gathered
on the surface of a pond. you are the pond. a pond unmoored,
capsized, overrun with regurgitated sorrow and the half-fossilized
bones of a planet once called home. sunlight filters through in thimbles,
in milliseconds. a swimmer's stroke sets between your shores. the rush
of icy air on wet lungs. the freeze and the shatter. there is no swimmer.
only desire. the memory of lust. how it delegates its fire.
the ripples in your skin reflect the thing you lost, but you can't remember
its name or the hue of the barrel before the fall to rust. your rubble will
continue to dissolve back into all things slowly, over a period
of many years. you will find what you always longed for, yet
you won’t see it: becoming one with the land, the overturning
of a new, crisp leaf. all green and good in you breathing back
into the grass from whence you came. cells consumed by cells consumed by cells…synonyms
weak knees crashed to the stony earth.
the ripple distracts from its effect.
water has been the world, eaten the world,
and outgrown it. mouthful upon mouthful of gravel.
silt. sediment. the body becomes a vessel.
it’s what i’ve been told. most imagine a ship,
but a glass is a vessel, too. one wrong move
gets you shattered on the floor. a vessel holds and pours,
fills and spills, carries and empties. contents spill, run,
or drain away. even after the stains are scrubbed,
i won’t learn how to set foot upon those floorboards again.
i’ll need a rug—one i can learn not to look at often.
too many familiar places bear the stain of my blood.
despite the human in me struggling amidst the weeds,
i hunger for more. the trees have thinned.
the last two years cleared the smoke from my eyes.
no longer does the forest loom as she once did,
nor do i believe she will. time is never re-raveling
the yarn unspooled in the floor, and every day
for the last year i’ve spent tripping and untangling
my ankles from the mess. jawbones and mandibles.
different words for the same thing. lovers and mourners, so too.
for all the time spent loving will too soon be lost.
the cleanest gods have the dirtiest memories
even a clean god clings,
through the opacity,
to the memory of the mess—
the highs—soaring over valleys,
remnants of crash-landings past
shimmering through the thickening smog
like shards collected in the bottom
of cupped palms. all that makes a valley:
two cupped palms overcome,
spilling, wretched and upheld
untouched even by the grace of its pair
hanging limply a mere reach away.
a reach away. a way to go.
to go back is to remember,
but to remember what?
what is the most noise
a single mouth can make?
make me bigger than i have been.
i’ve been cold, smaller and colder
than ever before. before i had a claim
to stake and a name to proclaim.
to proclaim is to grieve.
to grieve anything is to make way
for forgetting its name.
name me your one and only.
only a pair to yours.
yours was a hand i couldn’t see
from across the room.
the room we entered, with
its wallpaper peeling like skin,
that room we never left.
left behind, outlived.
trailed behind like comet tails.
tails or heads, we didn’t wait
for the coin to land.
to land, we swam as fast
as the opposing of the currents allowed.
a loud crash burst our drums.
drums devoid of sound, the chanting,
too, ceased. to cease, to crumble,
to wither and to rust away.
away, once more, you say.
you say “reach for me:
only but an arm’s length
to reach across and find
another day.”
unceasing
“i can sense you leaving behind the quiet breathing
of the walls.” the last thing i said before you frayed
to a husk of who you once were,
when our tongues hadn’t met and your eyes
still shone. feed me by hand like you used to,
and i’ll never leave your side. but if your hands
empty like the rest of you has, piece by piece,
i can’t promise i won’t slip out the back door
in search of something more than the sustenance
you’ve, piece by piece, ceased to be.
the window gapes open-mouthed, waiting
beneath the pregnant belly of the storm.
the door swings open and cracks thunder against
the dent in the wall where the buffer used to be.
when’s the last time you came over sober?
that need’s gnawing and aching, somewhere deeper
than your gut. i recall that desire to be tamed.
that hand around your throat. rain down your back.
fire building inside.
midnight wrenches open the curtain. an owl perches
on the window sill. how often do you wake
to a yellow-eyed harbinger waiting at your bedside?
i want the night to cleave the day into pieces. morsels.
bite-sized. maybe then i’d be convinced to seize one.
when i wake to midday and find i haven’t changed,
a lotus of disgust blossoms inside me. every morning
the same tired moon disappears from the womb
of the winter sky, and every morning the same stone
face stares back at me from the cracked, white wall.
you wanted something you could count on.
not a hand—a ring. but baby i'm just a cheap plastic
rosary knocking against your bones like i do.
like anyone could. call me what i am: disposable.
placeholder. featherweight. one night in october’s all
it took. still incapable of self-love. the hands shrivel
up and drop from the clock. one night in october
’s all it took for the blood to pool too thick.
another night spent scrubbing floors.
another stain to smother with a rug. nothing
feels safe anymore. the chasm’s deepened.
the bubbling doesn’t bother me any longer,
but i miss the body that came without
phantom pain and paperweight limbs.
saltwater pooled in the backseat. sea glass gleaming
in the bedsheets. you never separated yourself from
water the way you meant to. despite the sun chanting
in the window, even the afternoons are difficult
to bear. cold glass against a red cheek is never
the same when you hold it to the ache yourself.
i’ve been trying to go home my whole life—
how can i still be this far away? the past remains
lapping behind me, siren song of the waves
pulling the skin back from my bones
like lips over pointed teeth.
and again, i coalesce. and again: holding myself
beneath the water until my lungs bubble
up from my chest and churn the water to pink
isn’t enough to fall victim to the spell.
when the stitches across my underbelly fester
to black, rub me with salt. pour fire into my veins.
nothing left to blame but the desire caught between your ribs.
remember your lines when they start asking questions.
we were never in this for ourselves anyway.
nothing about this is gentle. the light across the street
blinks to me in morse code, and i’m still waiting for you-
r phone to send me to voicemail. the old habits come
knocking at the door, too easily sweep me into the familiar
bend of their arms.
the illusion of safety leaves my throat warm and golden,
just within reach. two fingers twitch in unison at my side.
a phantom blade digs into my wrist. no matter how far
i’ve come from that tiled floor, this is who i’ll always be—
same husk i’ve always been. smoke follows me, billowing
‘round my head like an omen. there was a time i thought
i’d outgrow self-medication. i’m still growing.
one day i’ll be less human than garden.