These moments are just little snapshots,
frozen celluloid dimensions
where I keep these secrets.
It’s like a flip book.
No, a journal,
black words written on
fallen dry leaves,
hard bone,
white snowflakes,
dandelions, seashells
pasted together by the hands of the children
we will never have.
Yesterday
I realized that everyone must be careful.
while making these little choices
to keep
or not keep
things for themselves.
Women who rage with dissatisfaction,
with the blood boiling need for the things
they aren’t getting. Women who hammer and nail
and cobble together a Frankenstein.
Men who fail
and turn that failure into food
and eat and eat and eat it. They board buses
and disappear in the middle of the night
curious about blowjobs and murder.
This is how we steal.
And damage.
And undo.
This is how we kill for God.
This is how we pass the seasons.
–Ally Malinenko