she wanted me
to change my size for her
like i was an wrong pair of shoes
but it wasn’t me
that didn’t fit
i had outgrown her
a long time ago

Esther L. Krenzin

Ship’s tipping,
children crying,
water lapping
against my feet -
summer-side beach shores
flashing Polaroids
through clasped hands
in false prayer.

You,
atop the bank
rough hands; calloused
grabbing the rail
as you hang onto the upper hand.

No longer horizontal,
ripped apart from the domestic bed,
your chants to God
beg Him to take my life,
and spare yours –

It’s easier to be the underdog
when everyone else is falling, too;
I am the water,
I wait to lap you up;
please, I ask,
fall onto me
and let me love you to death.

In short, sink.
In shorter, drown.

I trust and believe
that the words of others
are truth and law;
we’ve always been standing
on unequal ground here -
forever on this titanic plane.

The crowd of everyone
and the universal singularity:
me.

You say whatever
and I say okay;
I say I’m drowning
and you say
you’re waiting for something
in the water,
to pop up and tip the scales.

When you knock on my flesh
I tear open a door
for you,
let you worm inside
and deposit your truths
under my skin;
let them grow like parasites
within me,
festering in septicaemia.

With my rotting body
like sea-soaked decks
at the bottom of the ocean,
I’m asking you to validate
the fact that I am becoming the decaying waters
and swallowing the boat,
because you made me
this way - and I?

I am somewhere in the picture, too.

We bought the galaxy
on a mortgage of borrowed time.
Because I wanted
to give you something grand
and you wanted space
and all of the stars.

Who’s in charge of this?
Not us, lying in a single bed
traversing the skies;
you need a bottle-opener
for your wine,
so you destroy a planet
and forge one in a star –
one use only.

I tell you that if we fall
into a black hole,
we’ll see in front of us
everything that will ever happen;
and you tell me you’ll look behind,
instead.

We try and find one,
but our hands come up empty,
and you say you never liked
vacuums, anyway.

I know all this.
I’ve always known all this,
and yet still,
I let you destroy
any home we create;
your hammer on the mantelpiece.

Perhaps spinning through the universe
is worthwhile,
because it means you
have to hold onto something;
finally.

What happened with me and poetry?
I haven't written in so long.
I feel a little dead inside let's say,
when I have to be opening up.

Do I have trust issues?
I do sometimes trust and have faith.

It's the intimate thoughts and emotions that I'm scared to uncover.

"Control".

I talk a lot about it, yet I don't have any.

So I strive to carry it out on myself.
It's not such a terrible thing in my eyes.
But to others,
I'm a ticking time bomb, primed to explode.

Although I don't have that explosive self-hatred gunpowder anymore.

Everybody's a critic.
And I guess I'm just scared of the judgment?

And I do to an extent!

I leave for one year and come back,
Completely different in all body and mind.

To be fair, it might be a little overwhelming
but. Why should I care?

and pick up the pieces for those who have fragile incentives?

It isn't my problem.
This is who I am, albeit being primed to destroy.


nobody can fix me but myself.

I used to go
swallowing matches
filling up on lightbulbs,
light lunches

second degree burns
through my throat, I
coughed up blood,
splintered glass, ash

but the moths in my stomach,
they loved it, you see,
flitted around just for a glimpse,
a tiny ray,
until
blood-soaked wings
stopped
sinking insects
dropped

I bumbled through the bramble,
****** and stings and me entwined.
They cut me deep and deeper
As I stumbled through the vine.

I fell out onto a clearing
Where I bled smally on the grass
And though this moment pains me
I pray to gods it lasts.

She sat above me,  beautiful,
Upon a throne of thorn.
Her supple frame caressed by they,
Yet remained untorn.

A lady or a fairy...
Or even better still!
A godess of those prickly vines
That wrapped around her will!

With every step the ivy squeezed
And yet I dare not care.
If she would waste but a breath on me,
I would not want for air...