ADAM, OR; THE INFERNAL PRETTY BOY

In memory of the man that I’ll never be

See the sweat stain on your chest,
There’s enough salt to split the sea,
To choke the spit and pitter-patter of the wordless,
To snort, as snake venom seeps at your feet,
And I’ll swallow the ocean,
To one day stain a shirt with your name in limescale.

Because I’ve never liked my name,
You’ve said the or is too indefinite,
That the y is a question not formed for a man,
So good riddance, for you said I’m Adam,
And your words are fruitful,
And desolation has a name when I look at lilacs.

So, sink a petal, watch it float back up,
To the top of the tub half full of charcoal,
Then strike a match and make propaganda for purgatory
Out of burnt up bits of my idols and holy texts.
God is before Rimbaud and after.
Says Adam like the ghost of spirits and sidewalk spit.

Call sentences as senseless as insects,
Speak of bitter Hades on a Saturday,
As you blow out another ash-white cigarette,
And use the butt as a pen-nib for your fresco,
Because lungs are for the wordless,
And your breath is the heat of summer gun smoke.

So, breathe and let us relish,
In the foghorn of a trailblazing battalion,
Headed by the man called Hunter, lady-killer,
Cut the apple because the juice is what makes you a man
and silence is what keeps you a boy,
So, watch boyhood drain into Cain’s barrel.

---

Lewis Harriet, 17, England ✯ lharrietbusiness@gmail.com

“Lewis Harriet is a boy from deep rural England trying, as all teenagers do, to find their place in their parent's world whilst still maintaining the (overly) sensitive youthfulness that he thinks everyone needs sometimes.”