A cigarette bowed from my lips, burnt on one side as I sucked,
to even embers. The alley painted with ‘fuck you’ was where I went with my needle,
baiting. Sat on a stained mattress to poke and stick a heart and arrow on pink skin exposed
by the hole in my jeans that had been there ten years. He showed up but censored
the tattoo and smoke flowering from me because they didn’t crystalize, didn’t mold
in his hand. Scared as the roach paused at my side that I snagged and swallowed
so it would stay.
Photo Credit: VV Nincic Flickr via Compfight cc
Elizabeth Dickinson
Elizabeth York Dickinson received her MFA in writing from Sarah Lawrence College. She has work published or forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Picaroon Poetry, Ghost City Press, Riggwelter, and Ink in Thirds among others. She currently resides in Evanston, Illinois. Follow her on Twitter @aworldwanderer.
