Poetry, Caitlin Kelly
born with a small baby animal in my brain
the size of my fist
skinny, rib cage poking
like needles
siphoning through thin skin
shedding tufts of hair
molting.
revolting, pig-like face
relishing its own power
but so sweet, so pathetic.
rules to live by
rolling off of
serpentine tongue.
shaking husk body
secreting answers
built a four-walled house
out of my skull
birthed a billion babies —
in my cranium:
buried botched bodies
but the generation persisted
19 years old
slamming head against
stucco white wall
unharmed under
my bruised apple head
protect!
it’s propagated:
she is the puppeteer
and this bag of meat
is the puppet
tells me the sky is an eye
that's tears will waterboard me
in a muddy river
takes my head
to the bottom of
the river
like a torrid baptism
taking turns bobbing for bullets
“you have to sew your mouth shut
so that people will love you.”
looking in the funhouse mirror
I begin the operation.
sew my lips taut
like a drum
letting blood streak
strained face
leeches smelling
what fills this flesh balloon
bloodletting for a
wordless world
she keeps me safe
lying in fetus shape
I want the brain of someone else.
float in that liquid
forever suspended
between fleshy walls in the womb.
we die a thousand deaths from
waking to burial
bloody birth of the baby vessel
colorless corpse of the soulless one.
essential to swim through the sewage.
essential to lie
sick and feverish
in a public bathroom.
baby animal
sickly fawn
i’ve thrown myself to the wolves on
snowy cliff’s precipice
fragile neck between their jaws
I have never been more free.
Caitlin Kelly is an MFA candidate at the Pratt Institute. She also earned a bachelor's degree in Comparative Literature from the American University of Paris. In her writing, she is fond of utilizing liminality, ghosts, and gore to convey a deep love and appreciation for the world.
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