We Write for Fear of Silence

the gnat poem

I am always both predator and prey

Living in a prison that consumes itself when I give it nothing else

To feed on

When I nourish it

I revoke the sustenance as penance for

The space that my ribs occupy

The dips between them

The softness of my thighs

I kill a gnat that lands on my computer while I am writing this poem

When I run my hands under the sink

Whispering eulogies

It’s guts glue its corpse to my palm

And I cannot rid myself of this dead thing

Clinging to my skin

This dead thing

Eating me from the inside

I am both mourner and murderer in this moment

But this body

Does not swirl down the drain with the gnat

It reminds me that i exist even against my will

It trails after me when I run from it

And swallows my paint

It drinks the ink from my fingers because it

Has not tasted acceptance from anything but

The pen in too long