Kaitlin Van Zile

I wanted to sing to you. I did.
With that look in your eyes and the sweet words coating your tongue.
It's all I could think about,
All I could focus on.
...

you and
your rust coated voice,
your tongue rolling over my name, biting down on the two lonely consonants with your smile
that sound weaves through my thoughts
...

we’re pulling the sweat soaked sheets above our heads
and praying that in the event of emergency

(on the off chance that your vocal chords finally sing loud enough
...

5 a.m.5 a.m.5 a.m.5 a.m.

The clock in my cousins room ticks, but the hands don't move.
It's always stuck on a time of day I don't want to see, it's always mocking me. If I stare long enough the corners fray and blur. Vignette's of the early dawn. Vignette's of desperation. I want to sleep, why can't I sleep, everyone sleeps.
...

Long corridors with no direction.
We’re all mice, trapped,
seeking molding brie.
Left, right, left, dead end
...

you.
were always good at zippers
at buttons
at pulling apart my chapped lips
...

recant the satin laced dreams
that dance between the linens
pinned to the clothesline between my ears,
sheets tangled around sweating ankles
...

I had a dream
that I hanged myself
from the dream catcher you bought me
last summer.
...

and it’s funny
the way your name curls between my ears
snaking like cigarette smoke
finding itself tangled in dirty thoughts
...

i plucked that envelop from the mailbox today.
i’d left it in the back and purposefully ignored it.
i hate opening envelopes.
paper cut after paper cut.
...

we swallowed our pride with a teaspoon of grandma's ashes
she always swore we'd be something special one day
and with dirges weaving through our racing thoughts
we wrapped silk bedsheets around our throats
...