Taylor Rhodes

This city is yawning before me, but I'm not tired.

We screamed this primeval scream built on a base of freedom, raised from beauty of a dying breed, and threw our heads back to laugh or cry, I'm not entirely sure which. But the scream shook the golden sunset, bringing it to its knees.

The smell of cigarette smoke in the air in a tavern that changes names often,a bar cursed because of a girl who died of a drug overdose in the basement, we put a few coins in the jukebox;chose __ngel Band_ by Johnny Cash and sat down at the bar,ordered a soda, you wanted a whiskey on the rocks.We saw the coal miner who moved here from West Virginiaknocking back liquor like I drink sweet tea.No one asked why he was so solemn today.It was warm. It was relatively quiet.To anyone else, this place could feel sinister.But to us, it was freedom. It was a hiding place.No one was ever here long enough to know us.And we liked it that way.

purple threaded evening. a torn goddess laying on the roof. milk sky. lavender hued moan against hot asphalt. the thickness of evening presses into your throat. polaroids taped to the ceiling. ivy pouring out of the cracks in the wall. i found my courage buried beneath molding books and forgot to lock the door behind me. the old house never forgets. opened my mouth and a dandelion fell out. reached behind my wisdom teeth and found sopping wet seeds. pulled all of my teeth out just to say i could. he drowned himself in a pill bottle and the orange really brought out his demise. lay me down on a bed of ground spices. there__ a song there, i know it. amethyst geode eyes. cracked open. no one saw it coming. october never loved you. the moon still doesn__ understand that.

instead of mourning, instead of a moment of silence or a hateful, islamophobic message, how about today we make the world a little brighter?be kinder. be a little gentler, with yourself and others. take more pictures. tell more jokes. be a better human.today is a lot more than a tragedy. today is a birthday. a day of suicide awareness. a wedding. a birth. a new job. today is a kiss and someone on a tarred over warehouse roof whispering about the day the earth stood still and the day it began spinning again.be kind. just be kind. it's time we took this day back for the wild ones, for the fiery eyes, for the happy and the brave and the new. no more mourning. let it just be a sunday.

Moving on should be a required high school classbecause Lynchburg is determined to make me forget.

blessed beshewho isbothfuriousand magnificent

He tilted my chin up and I swear those lips are magic. Witchcraft. Sorcery. Whatever it is in those lips, it__ addictive. Unassailable. I had to have more. More of this feeling of being wanted.

Wrap him up in floral wallpaper, wishing the envelopes I seal were his lips, leaving hickeys like stamps to show where he's been.

I__e never been with a boy who hasn__ seen me naked. It__ always the squeaky futon, bear-it-all, turn-off-the-lights quickstep. Don__ chalk it up to __addy issues.__aybe I__ sick of keeping private parts private. I don__ want rainwater secrets on my lips, tasting of __on__ make too much noise_. October__ dust in my lungs, maybe I don__ want bits of four AM lingering in my subconscious. Smokers breathe in fire, coat their insides in ash. Is that suicide or arson? Listen to me, listen to me. I__ alive. I__ ALIVE.I__ naked and bruised, but I__ alive. I__ not a piece of fruit. Don__ press into my flesh, looking for soft spots. My whole body is tender and rotten, but I__ alive.I__ alive and just because you can see it all, doesn__ mean you know it all

I drank from the crisp mountain stream, tasting filtered sky with a mossy undertone. I__e never understood how being loved fully could change your entire perspective of the world. I only ever understood the wistfulness of it, and the longing and the frothy, violent bits. The mixed up, rained on parts. The escaped bits that smudge and bleed through. Slowly, I am coming to terms with how vulnerable I am to you, flat on my back like a submissive wolf pup. Daisy petals line your eyelashes, juice of a nectarine flavors your tongue. The side of your mouth twitches, hazy dreamscapes overtaking your mind while we bathe in the glorious autumn devastation.

highway wildflowers swaying like the ocean. queen anne__ lace like doilies for a tea party never attended. this is a conversation between two parts of yourself. the fever will break soon, but until then i__l be untangling you from the knots in my windblown hair. i smell like a wet forest, like long grass covered in sequins. i called your name but was drowned out by the thunder. i remember you murmuring, __lease,_ while you took my shirt off. i remember you and the airy __lease_ when you pulled me toward you by my legs. i remember __leeease_ while i learned how to let go. i remember your divine __lease._ chanting it as if it__ draw a demon out of hiding. __lease, please, please._ and i screamed, __es.

we are born into this world on the tailcoats of a scream. born into gritted teeth and a shock of red across the pristine. born into a solemn hush. are you evil? you, who tore into this world on a steed of crimson_ are you a monster? we are born as angels, toothless, a mouth a gurgling brook. and as we grow, so do our wings, until we are high enough to see that our church is no more than a small forest and the altar a tree. are you a monster, angel with fangs? all teeth, thick with teeth, you can__ even close your mouth anymore. it rains and it__ like drowning. corn husk skin and we__e born again. into a time of being tied down, to a person, to a bed. a time of clipped wings. of holy cries out to a void. your wildness a convenience store in the desert, pale pink, dusty, arid. your wildness staring longingly at the screaming horizon and flicking another cigarette butt into the dirt, a lone oscillating fan its only company. we__e born into this concrete world, where sanctuary is to be alone or to pretend to like it. this world of broken bottles instead of leaf crunch. roadside motels proclaiming vacancies. inside and out. that pluck your heartstrings. a new church, a fresh sin. the altar now a white railing against a muted matte pink wall. you lean against it, hips jutted to the side. some of the eighties still lingers. you see a man in a leather jacket kissing a girl__ neck purple. he looks up. teeth are everywhere. hundreds of glistening teeth. you turn away. your wings shush against an old telephone booth, door forced closed. you__e calling your mother to say you__e sorry for hurting her, but when she answers you hang up.

holy, holy, holy dawn. my hips rocking into your face. the edge inviting. your name like dry wine on my tongue. your name branded into my inner thigh.

he walks into the bedroom like he owns it. says, __ wanna be filthy with you._ takes me down hungry. helps me shed my skin. cafuné. he looked at me like i wasn__ something ruined. filled my vicious parts with gold. touched me with too much yearning. he said, ____ burn for you._ how can he not see we__e the creators of the fire? he growled, __oan for me._ the wolf bit down and i howled into the night.

if god is real, she put all of herself into this girl. she vowed to unleash a woman so violently herself, the sky would collapse every time she came to orgasm.

they told her, __ear the reaper."she laughed to herself and muttered, 'baby, death ain__ nothing_ more than a quick fuck. a little bit of silence after he comes.

i dreamt i crawled on top of you and kissed your hips, one at a time, my lips a smolder. i straddled your waist and pressed both shaking hands against your torso. spongy, like an old tree on the forest floor. i push and your flesh sinks inwardly, collapsing with decay, a soft shushing sound. a yawning hole where your organs should be. maggots used to live here until your own poison killed them off. i laid my cheek into the loam and three little mushrooms brushed over my eyelid. peat, decomposing matter, all of it, whatever you wish to call it, rested in the cavity of your chest. and there i planted seeds in the hopes something good would come out of you.