perhappened mag
issue 5: LIGHTS OUT
a monsteriary
MEGAN BURNS
CW: suicide
cut through clipped wing, i am part eternity
inside me, i see the way corners
of the universe are carvings we choose
like star lights be damned, my mouth unhinged
slithering beneath the scale back design
to the twinned tooth where we suckle
i think bodies are one way to kick
a habit, like inside me we trembled
come apart till a blur, try not to dream
too long about places like this
gorgeous laugh inside the hotbox
once i emptied closets of my dead
brother’s clothes & to unspool memory
from scent, we be brief: time, a disruptive
metaphor i will erase the past
by going over and over it
look, we came into this world
to lay in the wild abandon of not
look too closely at the threading
& the whole picture dissolves
a believing heart is your magic
handle this: it would be six
years before i considered if the gun
was in his mouth or under his chin
as if i knew or could know. and do
you think it will matter if there is
no return where the sound echoes
differently.
inside me, i see the way corners
of the universe are carvings we choose
like star lights be damned, my mouth unhinged
slithering beneath the scale back design
to the twinned tooth where we suckle
i think bodies are one way to kick
a habit, like inside me we trembled
come apart till a blur, try not to dream
too long about places like this
gorgeous laugh inside the hotbox
once i emptied closets of my dead
brother’s clothes & to unspool memory
from scent, we be brief: time, a disruptive
metaphor i will erase the past
by going over and over it
look, we came into this world
to lay in the wild abandon of not
look too closely at the threading
& the whole picture dissolves
a believing heart is your magic
handle this: it would be six
years before i considered if the gun
was in his mouth or under his chin
as if i knew or could know. and do
you think it will matter if there is
no return where the sound echoes
differently.
Megan Burns is the publisher at Trembling Pillow Press (tremblingpillowpress.com). She is the co-director of the New Orleans Poetry Festival (nolapoetry.com) and has been hosting the Blood Jet Poetry Reading Series in New Orleans for the last six years. She has three books Memorial + Sight Lines (2008), Sound and Basin (2013) and Commitment (2015) published by Lavender Ink. Her recent chapbooks include: her Twin Peaks chap, Sleepwalk With Me (Horse Less Press, 2016), Beneath the Drift (Red Mare, 2019) and FUCK LOVE: I’m sorry someone hurt you (Shirt Pocket Press, 2019). Her fourth collection, BASIC PROGRAMMING, was published by Lavender Ink in 2018. Her forthcoming collection is called PLURALITY.