1. |
gently treading water
03:36
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I saw us sleeping in a nest of string
our limbs joined by lines tangled, crossing over chests as they breathe
and your hair grows long with thread
find this knotted mess
find safety where our bodies are rooted and nameless
and slowly some left
stood and as they did pulled our bodies from their rest
cut the points where our arms were woven
and from this we began to gather ends
found our bodies no longer tethered to this land
and soon we will stand
as light enters this cave and our bodies are light again
as my chest is weightless and I can breathe again
as your hair has grown past the spool you were given
we will take this nest and bring it somewhere open
keep our fingers knotted and learn to let go of the rest
but these hips wrap fevers with he dark
I'm never done with the world I've regressed from
and someday I'll wake up to infant birds behind my ears, nestled
and my hair won't cover them
I'll have left clothes at the foot of the bed
rolling to soften the skin that holds this nest
their cries are unlike songs
it will never be raised normal
I will never be thought of as its mother one else I know has this tree body
I am a host, providing the clothes I've become
timid claws
feel my hands beneath you to live
objectify this world with me
it's a phallic word for love
where this bird's beak ends and my breast begins
alone, these bodies don't have one
I'm never done with the world I've regressed from
someday I'll wake up to birds nestled inside my chest
over the pillow, my hair won't hide them
here, I'll have left my clothes at the foot of my bed
claws in soft skin to make me feel less
I'll grow up only knowing this feeling was rooted in beauty
I've left this room to become branded
I hope you're proud of the cage you keep around me, still
forgive me
I'm not the host you thought I'd become
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2. |
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but I’ll wake up hungry with breathing and dishes
cold clothes cover the windows like my body was born with curtains
distance is a form of communication
and sewing a womb to sail off in is a start
these arms need tools to determine what they’ll become
sometimes I like to think I was enough
until this trail has grown I know you won’t think I’m gone
someday what I am will be enough
if I give my body to the water will you listen
for my voice calling back from the raft I left in
struggling to cut the rope I’m tethered with
feel guilty when I get in
to feel nothing where my body ends
to help something begin
and if I return
it will be somewhere my bones can feel solid holding weight
when I wake
take my tired arms and show me where my chest is
wrap my body in itself until I believe there’s warmth where it ends
that these limbs are worth more than the wooden box I’m given
that my body is worth living past this violence
that I can hold the hammer beneath my ribs
and build something i can live with
or leave in
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3. |
deer in my chest
02:51
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moss is growing on my forearms
nick my skin when I shave it off
dissolve the growth with drugs
freeze and melt cracks in the sidewalk
my ribs are growing into antlers
gnarled as I bind them tighter
they reach higher than my body
past branches I can't see
my chest pulls to the lamplight
glowing far from my eyes
caught in metal pines
bending as they lie
I thought windows meant more light
but all I feel on my skin are searing eyes
ribs crack until chest takes flight
white lines grow when the temperature rises
this yarn catches on thorny vines
they've unraveled my insides
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4. |
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I haven’t lost my teeth yet
I buried them to remember something and forgot
I thought I'd let the roots rot new roots from porcelain
Though sometimes nothing grew in
There was just a hole in a place where I thought I'd be full again
When I move I won't remember any of this
I’ll leave my teeth in the dirt for someone and it won’t mean anything
And my body will just stay in the holes I made for my bones as a bed
And nothing will grow from the places I rest
Nothing will stay past where my body is
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5. |
illness
03:50
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I'm bending with the weight of the nest you built
when I extended my arm to call you home
I made myself the body and the wood it lies on
wouldn’t drink from your palm when you offered
but this is my blood and the place where I'm welcome
I’ve taken the beam from my back and built shelter
their nails ripped our clothes
so we took their flags and burned them
our bodies hold fevers as flames in tangled fingers
married to destruction, kindling something greater
burn the illness, survive the winter
hold my head and feel for where it’s warm
let it make your calloused hands soft
I'll give my body as a furnace for the ones I love
set fire to myself when blankets can’t disperse the dark
make a bed of ash and sleep when I’ve done enough
when I’m gone send me to the sea
this raft is more open than the coffin they promised me
where smoke meets the air I’ll go gently
where my body meets the ground I’ll find peace
if I find you will you cut the rope tied to shore
and woven through my rotting bones
your hands are rough as you walk home
trust the ones who let you go
slow
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6. |
an unsettled part of me
02:38
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it’s just an arrow in a tree
a wound inside of me from my bones breaking
the surface screams get rid of me
keep the ground beneath your feet
not letting air get in between
we need comfort to find stability
(and feet to find release)
expect arrows from these trees
abort the feeling between my knees
recognize the torch still left burning
on the inside of prosperity
and i don't know what i am
but despite this naked howling
i have blood left to bleed
and until i can focus on living
find me gnawing at a chance for solidarity
taste me, but leave a tired heart
heaving
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7. |
bird with no feathers
04:51
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I was a bird with no feathers
only warm from external sources
fell from my home a while before the ground became something to leave
I was a bird with no feathers
only warm from external sources
fell from my home a while before the ground became something to leave
instead of something to break me
the blood on my knees parting
as my fingers probed for cobwebs in my teeth
learning my body from the places I bleed
putting makeup in wounds as a way of healing
I’d never been conscious until you told me I should be
now you keep dying in my sleep
and I wake up hoping it was me
the person you didn’t think to leave out
left deep in the gutters of a house, abandoned and burning down
what I’d do to release these feathers and call out
a coffin you’ll never grow out from
born into the mold of your hips, catch it stunting your growth
I have holes where I’ve sprung apart
bones only break wood if they’re tough enough
from outside this black box you can hear me cough
from inside I’ll hold my tongue
cover it up with a quilt
acting like eyelids, I know you despise this
but healing is much harder when felt
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8. |
god is loud
06:35
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we were already built on digging through frost
on biting our nails to let the blood run
in the silence we learned to be rough
in the anguish we learned to be soft
I was wrong for calling this home
our bones collected in baskets with people we know
let a pile of dust on a giant’s window
let warmth in through cracks in the shadows
throw the shovel over your shoulder
the growing season is over
withered as the nights get longer
in the winter freeze and stutter
in the cold we hold each other
I will rot before I let go
before I held my body
in fragments of sky and string
a scarecrow to the rotting
I’m sorry for forgetting
fabric draped over the lampshade
to keep the light in
ink on my skin
to make it permanent
thank my hands for what they’ve created
in the wake of my body’s destruction
for holding me to living
faith is a form of dissociation
and god is a form of accepting it
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9. |
thrown through windows
02:52
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I will take these cobwebs from my skin
lend you my life as thread to sew with
see time as fabric we can find shelter in
see age as the space we inhabit
found space between cloth and mattress and tried to stay hidden
realize from the outside we have grown into mountains
from there you look in
and i feel your eyes in the light let through my ribs
my organs have been blind to the size of the cage we live in
it has grown since I was a kid
I am held by this body
but now I can spread my arms to the edges
until I am close to open
with these arms I’ll welcome those who share this prison
and hope it grows again
there is no leaving
this body is human
there is no breaking out if it leaves this body broken
I’ll tell my hands I have committed to this life
I’ll use them to make a home of the bones I’m held in
your wings are folded and still pressed to these wooden edges
splintered from the ways they’ve tried to open
still, stretch your body farther than this coffin
and I will stretch my hands
to reach your body where they hold it in
we will take more space than we are given
and use it to hold breath
to say
pray with me to someday rest
in the unassociated light of societal desolation
none of these feelings I’ll truly comprehend
I was raised in your hands
and only when I die in them
will this curse be put to rest inside of me
long live humanity
free in our abandonment
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10. |
ravens
01:56
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11. |
as a witness
02:40
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as a witness I say corrupt
as the bloodied body on these docks I say kick me in
this feast can’t exist without the dying
and I will never let this age me peacefully
soon we’ll address the place our food comes from
and these seeds will break soil then
I’ll be crawling back out through your teeth
deface me
it’s this system that holds you up
this dark water will boil over and cover the ground you stand on
you won’t be lying on a pillow in your grave
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12. |
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running, but eyes stick to the beading sweat on my body
folding closer into where my veins meet
fraying into static ends
hoping for more broken shards to build with
the glass is not reflective
or i just can’t see myself
shelved with other gaping mouths
words torn from lips until there’s nothing else
sight is a cloth that’s wearing out
sea crashes on cracked boughs
drowning in a fallen house
my body is useless
my body is useless
my body is useless
if i hide their use for it
in growth and silence
in death and triumph
in care and acting out
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13. |
driftwood
01:53
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peacefully put me on a boat
burn it down with your eyes closed
softly know what I want
there will be no note
this was a murder
this was a murder
if you didn't know that now you never will
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14. |
god is quiet
01:57
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we were already built on digging through frost
on biting our nails to let the blood run
in the silence we learned to be rough
in the anguish we learned to be soft
I was wrong for calling this home
our bones collected in baskets with people we know
let a pile of dust on a giant’s window
let warmth in through cracks in the shadows
throw the shovel over your shoulder
the growing season is over
withered as the nights get longer
in the winter freeze and stutter
in the cold we hold each other
I will rot before I let go
before I held my body
in fragments of sky and string
a scarecrow to the rotting
I’m sorry for forgetting
fabric draped over the lampshade
to keep the light in
ink on my skin
to make it permanent
thank my hands for what they’ve created
in the wake of my body’s destruction
for holding me to living
faith is a form of dissociation
and god is a form of accepting it
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Corvus B. Massachusetts
queer spoken folk from the mouth of the Merrimack River
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