a. kosmicki poetry

hereditary

a girl is born with an ache
inside; bursting
at the seams with wrath,
forever showered in this
curse to be gentle despite
the lump in her throat, day
in and day out.
and it’ll always burn,
this incubator of hysteria
pumping blood between veins
into a dying thing—
all that fighting to exist,
just to kill anything,
that comes close. well,
i tried. i took it, and
with a fist around
its throat, i breathed it all
in. but i only anger

in a demand to be loved.
it came from my mother
and hers before hers:
from her womb,
a damnation begging
to be followed. still,
we take the blood
from the water and
drink until we separate
ourselves from each other.
now, the museum of them
lives outside of me,
but the teeth marks are all
the same; we’ll never share
a name or anything
besides the reign
of our own rage,
and the same old sin.

JESUS IS ALIVE FOR THE PEOPLE NOT YOUR DATE HEAVEN INTO HELL

youth group in the summertime barefoot dates first kiss in the back of his pickup tossing in her bed that night ribbons in my hair good little girl black coffee burns i missed church that day but i prayed harder that night feet swinging above the lake telling fairytales at the army recruitment center doing it for god meat and potatoes belt buckle sounds like a cardigan on the side of the road mud on the bedroom floor if i bleed enough maybe it’ll be enough seventy-three days later he’s not listening anymore hyperventilating to joel olsteen still yelling at the sky when it starts to rain through the sunshine sometimes they call that the devil beating his wife sometimes they just don’t speak watching the news another baptism in 223s bury them in lotto tickets when a new sin is announced practicing holding our breath our faces on the kitchen floor i could do this since i was six i could do this in the womb i could do this with my eyes closed and my hands up high every sunday til i die