Cailey Martin

Girl sits in front of a
Pink and white vanity,
Feeling vain
But rather plain
...

Be striving always for the silence that dies
Between the rising wings of butterflies–
Not toward sleek shelters, paned with twisted glass,
Nor peopled halls, where the exalted pass.
...

The sidewalks in this city are positively filthy,
Trampled over by millions of leather-clad feet.
Some bare feet, too.
Dead flies, dead cigarettes.
...

Table
salt falling
in, clearing up
negative space, falling
...

Redecorating your room is like deciding
who you are going to be for the next
several years. I suppose white is always
fine... but that’s all. And you are more
...

It amazes me that I still have the capacity
To experience awe; defying the years
That have washed down my throat,
Stinging like saltwater. To think
...

I tried not to wake you up
but hoped the entire time
that you would. Before you
went under, laughing,
...

My ears are full of clay but I
Collect secrets like stones,
Trace handprints on the wall.
One day, I and all will be nothing
...

Yesterday, on the train home
I was sitting in the window seat,
Letting my eyes rest
On the lush green of
...

If Monet had seen
What I have seen,
Fading lilies might not have been—
...

Today, I will wear knee-high socks.
These will I camouflage in combat
boots, so that the cotton tops
peep out from their trenches,
...

When the church bell sounds,
It bellows with might at the fragrant
Night, and astronautical exploits
Pause with wonder as their
...

As the last segments of shimmering
life-fog light slip beneath
the oaken skyline, an anxious gust hurries
to fill the aftermath. With a
...

Light fell through trees, light lighting red earth
like a rusty wagon long since abandoned.

I remember leaves nodding up and down,
...

I said, but did not insist–
You took your own initiative.
From whence this utter undoing?
The most futile of artifacts remain:
...

They said there would be more.
One by one, stepping-stones sink beneath
The rising tide, vanishing like myths
...

Manifestations of (f) hate have
run amok/c-king absolution for crimes
they only said they had (c) o(m) mitted;
now they are waiting to be noti(ced) fied by
...

I am deadlocked in the certainty
That this immaculate moment
Will overshadow the infinite dark.
The ringing in my ears
...