ROADKILL
I tore off pieces of my tongue
to turn into poems
and watched them wriggling around, their words
congealing
into fleshy pulp. The birds are converging
on the roof across from my
window. It won’t always
be this clean.
ODE TO PINK
As a child it was righteous to hate pink,
and nothing gone was noticed for long.
Now more woman than child, a shade called marsh-
mallow wombs itself around me, and I don’t believe in
God, but you have to be accountable to something.
My bedroom was the first place that loved me.
To the walls, then. To the wind that oozed
through the baseboard cracks so loud
I had to sing to calm it down.
Tonight, under the static eyes
of a bear slept to sickness, I think
of everything lost. Right down
to the hairs.
NOSEBLEED
I wanted to die in the arms of something worse than me
And you couldn’t even give me that. Your voice
A Rorschach,
Blood spatter dripping down the telephone
Wire and
We all know how this one goes. Hymn or haemorrhage,
These habits
Die bloody.
Come, light, and make language
From our hands. Give in
To the body, your voice receding; there is still time
To confess our wounds.
Holly Humphreys is an Essex-based poet and has recently completed her MA in Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln. She is a Poetry Editor for The Lincoln Review and her work is previously published in Abridged.