AS ANGER EATS YOUR TEETH
We’ve been living in the tidemark
Dragging our possessions
through the shells for days
We can’t save the people we love from drowning when it happens on sand
Grit sharp rough life is annoying
Life is a shit show made
out of actual shit
Missed punchlines sitting in the missed connections section on Craigslist
To the woman on the train in the blue dress:
I almost told you how much I hate you when your leg brushed against mine for the
seventh electric time and I thought about pulling out your teeth
To the sand on the beach that rubbed my neck as I wrapped my lips over your drowning face:
we touched each other in ways I’d never imagined, I’m sorry I was distracted
To myself in the lamp in the dark in the morning: I look at you and know you’re already dead. Drowned on the beach in the dry, dry grit. You can choke on anything if you take the time to force it down
Hold your lips so tight closed when I stretch myself over you like a disconnected jaw, force breath past your lips work your throat till you swallow
You can lead a person anywhere and make them do nothing
You can die without water, you can live in the dark
The horses have been let out of the field
Eliana Gray is a poet from Ōtepoti. They like queer subtext in teen comedies and not much else. They have had words in: SPORT, Mimicry, Minarets, Mayhem and others. Their debut collection, Eager to Break, was published by Girls On Key Press. This year and next year they will be writer in residence at Villa Sarkia, in Finland. You can find them online @foxfoxxfox and sometimes in real life.
