Alexandra Smyth

PITTED

There are years where everything
is rupture. What can be said? The
body ripens. Time passes. This is the
violence we can not speak of. Our
tongues: now swollen scar tissue.
A result of being bitten so frequently.
Now, everywhere I go, it is as though
I carry two buckets of cool, clear water
for all but me to drink. My back bends.
There are days I beg with it to break.
We are creatures of the moon, I am told.
My heart, the moment of eclipse. My
name is a secret I repeat to myself alone
every night. It is the last language I possess.
Understand this: I am trying to remember.

Alexandra Smyth's first chapbook, That Kind of Girl, is forthcoming from Choose the Sword Press. She is a graduate of the City College of New York MFA Creative Writing Program. Her work has appeared most recently in Cobalt Review, Rust + Moth, and Yes, Poetry, among others. Find her on the internet at alexandra-smyth.tumblr.com.