This is where it all began
with your hand half way up my—and the sand
I have a knot in my thigh, ingrained with a grain.
I was being literal about picking your brain
with a spoon. You’re full of scabs but when you’re naked
you shine like a ballpoint, an android
and you taste like a bit tongue, a mouthful
of blood, when I think of you I think of
being ripped apart. I think the snow is everything,
the way it muffles the sound of cars,
turns the world into an orchestra when melting,
stabs every shameful eye with light as bright as stars
I walked willingly ahead
it was summer then.
Spring
It was summer then
you had been drinking
since your brute first threw
a fatherly fist at your sister
Everybody’s got a childhood trauma
Shit lingers not like bruises but like
broken arteries or cardiac dysrhythmia
The coke makes you older see if I
care I always liked your ragged temper
and that you were gonna die young
I still go to Toronto
just to feel your eyes
on my shoulder I have put it down
as something insignificant
Fall
Something insignificant
like a shoulder covered only
with thin white cotton
on an unbearably hot day
or something like a sign / or a saying / if i cant
starved for attention
some thing
no one
ever did / as if / it mattered.
I loved you the most. I knew you
were a damaged motherfucker.
I held your whole body down
and it was light as a feather.
You were like a baby deer in the snow.
Summer
you were like a baby deer
in the snow, my darling euphemism
my Doctor Enemy God and Lucifer
I wonder about those
who do not want to kill themselves
are their veins less prevalent
their knives less decadent or their
convictions not worth fighting for
I can’t remember now
if you smiled or not if I
choked or not if it
rained all day / as it always did
back then / I bury my feet in the sand
this is where it all began.
Mia Eriksson is currently pursuing her PhD in Gender Studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She writes poetry in both English and Swedish. The poem here in 2River is her first poetry publication. contact