declaim from subway stories by kerry justine

drop the pieces baby
make them pile up around my grin

your wreckage like your jewelry
a brash attempt to fuck
always sounds a little better in a story

well wait a minute child
did they catch your last bouquet?
did they wait around to see your decay?

i wandered through empty hallways
echoing my voice off of the teeth off of the dripping stones
oh how i’d make my tongue bleed keeping it inside
beneath the fifty-thousand reasons you were

too tired
too poor
to lost inside your own desires

too famished
too bored

we were already gone.

i am afraid i have this habit where i slowly unstitch all of the threads that i have placed between my ribs
and if you catch me in the morning i might ramble just a bit
but i never knew my songs could make you grow
i used to cower in a corner curled up in a ball
while i listened to the jeers about my silence

you use your body like an anvil
heating it in coal
you try to leave a mark between the stains
and you could let the blood run smoothly
into cavernous repeats
or you could lift your shoulder up against the blow

i’m not a vessel for a wrench
i’m not a pawn
i’m not a feather floating on
waiting softly
smiling slowly
for your empty affirmations
i am a fox
we are a key

maybe we tiptoe through the squares of black and white
while holding up our arms in waiting

and maybe we fold up our fingers
and maybe we get on our knees
and maybe we place our foreheads to the ground

and maybe we used to wash your feet with the same
hair
we used to cover up

but maybe we are finished
and maybe we are opening our eyes
and opening our mouths

go ahead and drop the pieces baby
make them pile up around my grin

• Folk
• jangly
• one woman
• storytelling
• windswept
• New Jersey