The 34th Bending
A poem definitely not about tattoos.
SHSID|Times, English Literature
Issue Nov/Dec 2024
7.26, 12.1
I speak rambled lines, incoherent is the past
I murmur the letters that I never finished writing:
On the pedestals of the thirty-fourth bending
I let out my crystalline blood at long last
For my hands, they fold up out of hiding
Maybe one day I’ll engrave in my arm
an ink emblem of you, a picture of your face
For under the scarlet sky of the thirty-fourth bending
I trace into the creases of your navy yarn
But then there was none, how cruel is the haste
That day I couldn’t keep you, your migraine or ache
I wade in solitude, out of the place we snuck in pair
Still a bit farther away from the thirty-fourth bending
against a chemical blow, my whimpers, my mistakes
But you had no idea, how so you’re so rare
How I craved miracles, how I put up a mask,
how I shapeshift until I find a way to please all
So how I loath myself on the 34th bending
when with my locked jaw I forget how to ask
If my sparks draw out your hands too, if I fall
I have the smell of toothpaste and my sight wanders long
Into your unwavering eyes, graphite and vehement
Until the Liberty Bell chimes across the 34th bending
I’ll be behind you in the daylight, auroras across the spawn
A fine line of testosterone passions, lest it be resent
And if despite all these signs, my words were bent
Shall you be the grizzly on my arm, a permanent mark
So dynasties should rotate, beyond the 34th bending
unto the bridge out the Hill, into risk of squalls I'm sent
May they make me petrified, so to you and liberty, I hark