Photo by Scott Rodgerson on Unsplash
if I told you what migraine tastes like
you wouldn’t believe me
but listen to your skin rot
and ask me again.
the lamp knows
more than it lets on.
if it wants to burn it will apparitions unfolding from its
bulb misting the air
with summons to your gravesite.
ghosts have an appetite too and those like vultures
miss what it feels like to breathe
so they will take yours—
ours—
and feed on it the way God
fed on your childhood terrors.
you don’t have to look to know what the autopsy
says.
silence will not do here nor voice just shame
of the type that boils in your belly
boils the way it sings knells like a grandmother’s.
Madison Zehmer is an emerging poet and wannabe historian from North Carolina. She has published work in Isacoustic and Wards Lit Mag and forthcoming work in Ethel Zine, the Santa Ana River Review, La Piccioletta Barca, and the Origami Poems Project. Her twitter is @madisonzehmer and her instagram is @mirywrites.