FOUR POEMS by KAITLYN KESSINGER
what’s the deal w/ water
my heart is sea sick on your riptide body, i know
i’ve said it already but i never learned how to swim
and i’ve been carried out to deep blues
and left / i cannot stop vomiting
long enough to think a plan or what’s for dinner
baby, its weird to date
your dad, it’s weird to date
without your dad, it’s weird
to never learn some vital skills
he threw me into a pool once
Before he died / After he died
is problematic, because ghosts
in water are never kind
i do not have daddy issues, graduated
therapy, and know better than to measure
love in quantity, but please
tell me how much you love me:
submit in numbers of flowers in a pail /
in bumble bees in a barn / in tears to fill a leaf
when i cry / i scream
a scream that rattles my gut
rocks my body like when i was a baby
i was never held enough
cradled close to the chest
once i was somebody’s baby
but i don’t remember that state of mind
or where to draw the lines on suckle
honey that drips from spoons are coddled
shades of brown / wide eyes in the scoops
i heap into my tea with thoughts of tomorrow
and titles of all the books i need to read
i nurse the cup painted with flowers and hold it
closer than i’ve ever been held, it warms
my chest where i imagine my heart to be
but i’ve never seen the gore beneath puckered skin
i forget the feel of lips as they peel off mine
but not the limpness of a plant i stole
although i fear i am equally responsible
for the ache that has made its home beneath
my breast / lace like a strawberry, sweet like
a marigold, carved like a whale into soap
i did not cut myself when learning but i did
not learn very well, the entire house smelled of
springs and ireland and the bite of metal before
the break of skin / the tension of knowing hurt
before i hurt you and knowing to know better than that
is just cleaning windows and killing birds
until there is a pile of little bodies at your garden gate
i have never felt as welcomed / as the time i was met
i cannot wear my prescription glasses into the ocean
seagulls’ seafoam shit dribbles
into my palm and i rub it
into my skin exfoliate the sand that has
flayed me, preach me, leave
no trace and watch my husk
dissolve into the water how far
does it travel? if aggravated
more pools into my bones
my knees are red dragged
down the dunes i have done
wrong i have never done right
i have wire caught round
my throat where my throat
used to be i cull i crow i cry
the birds croon too close
to a humanchild’s scream, my lies
are finger nails separated from
flesh by sand, they bulge to
form shelled claws, the flys
sting in their bite they look
for open cuts they gore at
razor burn i bear them as i bare
broken curves as i break them into
sand i cannot see in the ocean
i cannot see God as he
cannot see nature as I am and
he is and she is and they are
whole, broken down for larger
enjoyment, i cry
the collapse of civil society is tied to the tremble of thighs
they say women are too much
of the body not enough
of the soul and that’s why
we’ve been overlooked
so much because tank tops show
curves off the top and hug where hands hold
they intrigue the souls of men
who are not the body
something primal and carnal
like the raptors red in the sky
which are rarely shot down
unlike ducks who make the ugliest
sounds when they die.
the magnolia blossoms at sunset
masturbation is such an ugly word
the syllables crash into each other
like we do not because my hand is angled
crooked and cramped but it fucks
better than you do with communication
i want you to know and i know you only know
what i tell you but it’s hotter if i don’t have to
because your hand is cramped and crooked
against my clit which is such a pretty word
like slang for a flower we name humans
i want to change my name so when you say it
your tongue has to curve and your toes curl
like your fingers (wet) and one of us breathes
the others breath like the trees that shadow
and rattle (as bodies do) against melting windows
natural blinds we don’t have to close
and the tension between good and yea
is palpable like the sheen of sweat from a home porn.
Kaitlyn Kessinger (she/her) is the managing editor and poetry acquisitions editor at CLASH Books in Troy, New York. Her focus in poetry is the feminine, nature, and nostalgia. Her work can be found in the 13th edition of New York Upstate Literary Magazine Hypersaturation and online at archjournal.net. In her free time she enjoys cross-stitching projects she never finishes, writing poetry that her family will never read, and exploring forests better left alone.