DIANA TAKES ME HOME

i.
i write your name on my wall. right next
to where i sleep. not as good as having you beside me. i picture
your body but through canine eyelids
it is eroding, all salt and slivers of bone.

godless antler crown and sacred stare. you can kill me.
take my brain out of my skull.

frontal lobe. we are strangers. hello.
show me your face. the sky is an ending, a string of honey and hurt.

parietal lobe. i am almost my shadow.
the ripples are the tomb and in
our wake, echoing, stillness
bloats and bleeds.

occipital. you used to make my skin
break open, you used to make me
see the moon and see the moon
with all its craters
temporal craters skin petals protrude sky skin skin skin

ii.
you can keep your daughter and i will keep my deer. i understand.
you’re still my favourite scratched cd that
skips half the songs. if i’m just the recency
of your matter,
i understand.

i will distill your impression, impartially,
untruthfully. every surface
ripened with you.

---

Ryan Monaghan, 16, Richmond - Canada ✯

“Ryan Monaghan is a poet and fiction writer who writes much less than they should. They are previously published in ECHO Review, and enjoy drinking tea, listening to Adrianne Lenker, and wandering in nature. They live on the unceded territories of the Musqueam First Peoples.”