Nat Raum

he never married

here lies my body in the depth of your irises twin casualties
between the sheets of a mattress on the floor supple
lips and front teeth parted by sinner tongues now well-versed
in the futility of virtue

[i used to drink kriek lambic alone in my underwear on a
blue brocade sofa with the thought of you between my
quivering thighs, staring up at me like i am the deity of
high altars while i tell you how beautiful you look in red
and green.]

lay down your sword and my dagger we melt into pooling
holy sugar glazing sternums and jawlines alike crack open
like earth under pressure pointer fingers tracing patterns
like skyscrapers in the tyrian purple shadows on my back

odd fellows cemetery

my body is a bumper car in that i am
destined to crash like racing steam trains into
ghost towns in the mountains yearning to run not
walk into the smoky ether

[right before the floor drops out there’s this part where
the room is engulfed in flames and i don’t remember a bit
of it after that but it’s been fifteen years since i went on a
thrill ride and i’m still overcome by that vertigo twice a
week at least. back then i couldn’t scream loud enough
but i lost my voice that day and i think it’s still
somewhere in that shaft.]

anthracite mines burn in my hollows deep dark
space that can’t help but breathe preferring to smother
instead still kept aflame by just a thread
of continued breath tunneling beneath me

[it seemed ok on the surface but below the lithosphere
there is always something lying in wait. i can bet on it.]

perideipnon

i no longer curl inward on myself i’m honey glazed and hate
the sound of broken glass crunching snow and ice footsteps
across the quad i no longer wish for death by fire

the vault is lovely dark and deep i scour the floor with
frantic hands searching for escape hatches divots under
spread fingertips gaussian blurred light aberrations
split to double then quadruple vision everything is
chrome in the future

[all i remember from history that morning was the flash in
which my classmate bolted.]

under the winding sheets as camphor sinks in retired h-named
hurricanes dredge everything i own calling home telephone
numbers that probably don’t exist anymore distant relics
chiming gently in the background of catered dinner parties

[maybe if i lay outside in the stream it will wash me away
when it rains later.]

thoracic vertebrae

wisps of thin skunky smoke curl under the glare of a floodlight
dappled by mothwings my back is comprised of several
thousand rubber bands stretched to thin strings i was never good
at putting distance between my head and shoulders i tear
like holes in the thighs of my new jeans

[please lord, it is not my choice to exist in a body.]

pink and black and blue and welts i saw it all nineteen years ago
through tear-soaked visions of warm chandelier light july can be
cruel but august is brutal i just didn’t think it would take this long
bloated lungs straining ribs with each pop running further
from the shrapnel

[if i could i would have my spine pulled out like a butter
poached lobster from its shell.]

my mother climbs an a-frame ladder (i ache to slouch so much
it hurts to slouch) raven-symoné playing through scrambled
radio disney in front of a box fan in a light street doorway
thoughts of making it to thirty wane expiring like afternoons
spent watching tissue paper and burnt orange paint stacked over and
over themselves in neat piles

Image ID: photo of the poet's facewhere 47% of the way across the photo (horizontally from left), the image switches from black and white to inverted black and white.

nat raum (b. 1996) is a queer disabled artist and writer from baltimore, md. they are the editor-in-chief of fifth wheel press, a queer literature and art space. nat is an avid fan of ambient music, the witcher 3: wild hunt, noise-cancelling headphones, and bisexual lighting, preferably all at once. find them online: natraum.com/links.