Lizzy Burnam 🐞

And it’s you, my hagfished phantom floating 
in your bubble room. I lick the corners 

of emails before sending them to you, 
tongue careful wetted and raspberry pinked 

by Zinfandel. When I write, I write big 
so I don’t have to beg for the steady 

fidelis of your mouse to the button, 
of your seeking mouth to the back-lit screen 

where I bleed with as straight a dignity 
as I can muster. Yes, I think, a kiss

would make it better. Where the crime occurred,
the broken glass and the wailing alarm, 

the bruises still linger. But time and space 
are irrelevant now, and reader, you 

don’t need to be near to hear me howl. 
I am the tigress you feed through the bars,
 
dancing to the beat of the skeleton 
key in your pocket. The hook I swallowed 

still stuck in my throat, leaking. Your one tug
could send me soaring. Let me hide

inside of you like a gold tooth, only 
glimmer when you grin. Trust, I’ve been entombed 

by worse and your bite is always the most 
like flowers climbing fences, or at least

like spiders spinning meals in white silk first. 
Table manners, you know. I want to chew

through your battery and suck the acid 
down, as anonymous as the throbbing 

blue dot on a map. Here’s me, and there’s you. 
Reader, this masquerade of black and gray

is all that matters. Don’t you imagine 
the apocalypse as a woman? Red 

and purple like an open wound. She waits
for you, churning like an imminent storm

with a secret she wants to share: here’s how
you and I can love the whole world at once.