"Without Breaking a Few" by Lorelei Bacht
When we first spoke, the colour
dripped from our mouths, a rich orange -
it did not need a protection.
Elements. We were our own, weaving
the space around us into happening.
How I longed for my face to melt
into the yellows of your face
and make new gods.
Nothing could penetrate our deeps,
our liquids: we seemed to seep
our substance into everything, and colour it.
So, I misplaced a skeleton, forgot a scute.
We stayed naked,
disbelieving of defenses, thinking
ourselves invulnerable.
By the time I sensed a trickle -
it was too late.
Or was it? Is it not true that a fracture
is how the light gets in? If so,
come here:
let us repair our whites with gold.
Lorelei Bacht (she/they) lives and writes in Asia. Her recent work has appeared and/or is forthcoming in Visitant, Abridged, SWWIM, Odd Magazine, PROEM, Harpy Hybrid Review, and others. She can be found on Instagram @the.cheated.wife.writes and @lorelei.bacht.writer, and on Twitter @bacht.lorelei
Related Posts
See AllThe weather is batshit crazy, temperatures flying, echolocation useless in the face of this speed. It snows and rains and hails, the sun is a warm bath. My plants have not been watered, I might even m
Exeter Pride 2018. In a bar crowded with maskless people, a stranger wrapped up in a stripy flag ran to me and asked for my name and pronouns. I heard myself say they/them and it was like a galaxy was
at 17 I realized that being in over my head felt the same as sweat-sticky bare skin on leather seats, fumbling, awkward - hot-breathed I love you in my ear turned shiver the sound of fear grew familia