Tess Nealon Raskin is a teenage writer who lives in Brooklyn, New York with a fish who may or may not be dead by the time you read this.
“and yes, this is the metaphor i chose to use
and maybe i am as weird as a waltzing animal cadaver
but at least you get a poem
because out of all the things not worth writing about,
i chose you”
the weight of wombs
i have seen the unborn through pale blue visions
flesh pressed against flesh
tumbling in the dark
soft cries frozen by winding membranes
tiny lungs filled with water and mucus
without thought, without unspoken language
little winter animals
(what makes something human anyway)
i have seen the mothers collapsing like balloons
heavy inside, weighted by
the impossible pain of miniature hearts
skin stretching just to fit the two of them
and when her body has swollen and her eyes are red
(because it is wrenching her open)
and she writhes in the dark until she feels
light, light
clean, clean
and cannot move with her spine of stone
so she reaches out with a hollow, drained body to see the thing that left her
and waits
will it cry? will it cry? will it cry?
welcome to the world!
-i want to go back
-i want to go back
growth
wouldn’t it be funny
if i was dead
and they put me in a boat
of sweet-smelling evergreen wood
and rested my makeup-plastered body
on a bed of periwinkles and baby’s breath
(like it said in my will, of course)
and surrounded me with the glow of candles
and pushed me out into the icy sea
into the afterlife, the great unknown
and 3 months later
the waterlogged wood
clanks against some dock down the coast
and some white guy fishing
and posing for a tinder profile picture
sees a million soggy brown flowers and a mess of
wax, and extinguished candles
(like it said in my will, of course)
and the colony of snails making a home
in the pale swollen flesh of my face
skin peeling off my leg in soft, curling strips,
barnacles growing on my lolling tongue,
the last clumps of my hair tangled in what was once a candle,
and yet-
somehow-
i am more beautiful than i was before?
feather
i couldn’t swing the axe so i held down your wings
spread wide apart as if in flight (but you can’t fly)
and my hands were still stained crimson.
your flesh was still tough so i boiled your body
dipping you like achilles in the river styx (but you could still die)
and my hands were still stained crimson.
you still looked whole so i peeled off your feathers
keeping a pristine white one in my pocket (and you could not protest)
and my hands were still stained crimson.
you weren’t hollow so i took out your heart
even smaller than i had expected (and it did not beat)
and my hands were still stained crimson.
*i took the feather home and i made a necklace out of it.
pebbles
in time you will come
to know the truth
about the shadows
on the edge of the forest
about who lurks
in the murky water
about the women
in your storybooks
but for now,
sit on your
sunny windowsill
up so high where
nothing can touch you
and read your books
and comb your hair
and when you do
leave your tower
wrap your body
in geranium silks
tend to the rose garden
and cultivate your
delicate and gentle facade
and when it is
time to fetch your water
stare into the
deep and inky well
as you draw up your bucket
slowly, carefully
make sure to keep in your pocket
the smooth pebble
that i put in
just for you.
i’m wrong about movies
let me just warn you
i’m wrong about movies
i like the movies where women die
running through the dark and screaming woods
or shivering behind shower curtains
getting phone calls from child demons
hiding from their psychopath husbands
in maze-like hotels, all work and no play
staring at dolls from across empty rooms
talking to cannibals through glass curtains
following the sadistic rules of strangers
even attacked by birds, for fuck’s sake
or sometimes sharks, but usually men
i know this genre is seriously fucked up
i know these stories shouldn’t exist
i know as a woman that i wouldn’t want to be
chased through hotels and psychiatric wards
by dolls and birds and child demons
and especially not by men
i’ll apologize again
i’m wrong about movies.
rituals
oh how the dead bird danced
when it met the necromancer and his circle of blood
and it had never been able to dance before
of course it didn’t know it was dancing
but how happy it looked when it waltzed across the pentagram
and the necromancer wept at its grace
what i mean to say is, i am the dead bird
and i danced my little dance for you
because you wanted a dead-dancing bird
and yes, this is the metaphor i chose to use
and maybe i am as weird as a waltzing animal cadaver
but at least you get a poem
because out of all the things not worth writing about,
i chose you
i dreamed last night
they called it the second coming
and god had died of heatstroke
they filed us into tall white buildings
and the sea screamed and the sky broke
they prayed in long white lines
as we piled up the dead
they always blame the devil
when it’s always them instead
so we sat in ancient churches
with the windows busted in
and prayed silently to nothing
that we’d return to how it could have been
we look for faith in madness
and with the broken god we find
give our blood for the ascension
so we won’t be left behind
can you see it yet
we’re pinned to planets like moths are to corkboards
dancing and spinning with the clusterfuck carousel
that just so happens to be the universe
my horoscope insults me on a daily basis
but i dodge your questions and keep my faith
tucked away,
and look at the stars
i might sound cliché
maybe it’s because of mercury retrograde
that i’m not biting my tongue today
i’ll steal herbs like a pest from your garden
to appease my never-ending desire for more
the tarot cards tell me be patient, be patient
so that’s what i’ll do
and i’ll believe what i want.
2:45
the stench of youth is suffocating
it wafts through the air as if in flight
we are shut inside a cement block
the place where dreams go to die
(and hollywood goes to profit off nostalgia)
and outside the skies sit fat and heavy
where i could be shivering and drinking the rain
but instead i tap my foot against the promises
and count down the minutes
youth smells like chemicals and cannabis
i wish i could float through the bathrooms and halls
on stick-and-poke tattoos and secondhand nicotine
but i wait at the bus alone again
drowning out my needs with music and donuts and dehydration
i still can’t comprehend chemistry
worrier’s ghazal
the day when all the doors were opened, no one hesitated to walk out into the wind.
all agreeing not to think about what comes next.
i second-guess my own thoughts, i disregard the moment and the ability to make plans.
nobody should plan for the nothing that comes next.
in films, when a person hangs up the phone, they rest against the wall in thought.
in reality, there is much too much next.
epilogues are lusty, temptatious teasing
i lay down my sword for the possibility of next.
i go crazy when clocks tick. time doesn’t work for me like it does for others.
every turn of the little hand says next, next, next.
i lie on my back and watch dead stars lose their light. the boy i am with is silent and sleepy.
and for once, i don’t think about what comes next.
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