i hardly grew past that mindisck hospital
halls rung through old blanched scars
collarbone excitabilis
my heels drag places i should dare not go
my shame clots between [ ] and [ ]
dug into like an old blade kept warm
like a half strangulation
body curls with semicolon want
i nauseate myself and turn volted in fright
if you knew my urgency you'd empathize
what if [ ] and [ ] scaled cemetery's gate
pressed bouquet of forget-me-nots
trumpet breath glistens on linoleum flooring
yesterday's memory tomorrow's dream
today fraught with each hand clinging
please forgive me it's my first and last time alive
a golden birth looms hot air balloon
never planned to make it this far
but i'm here until
###
Madeline Blair is a poet, editor, and award-winning filmmaker based between Chicago and Dublin, with a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is the founding editor-in-chief of Sabr Tooth Tiger Magazine. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Blood+Honey, Some Words, Okay Donkey, BULLSHIT LIT, Burial Magazine, Michigan City Review of Books, Dodo Eraser, Luna Luna Magazine, Ekphrasis Magazine, and more. She was once quoted in The New York Times on her passion for clean air.