Philip Elliott
he slipped through the / cracks of this hungry / world kept on / falling / your mother was a / whore Sister Rose said / once before Sunday prayers / by thirteen he knew / three things with conviction / that he was no good / that he didn’t want to be / that God could go fuck Himself / nineteen kissing the / needle blood turned / ice in his veins / a warmth like worship / spreading up from his toes / eyelids fluttering / mind body soul / knitted together at last / the Holy Trinity / true love // she worked Gerrard and Jarvis / seven nights a week / two years that felt like ten and / aged her the same but it kept / junk in her blood / thank God / she could never quite figure out waitressing anyway / only once had she ever / feared for her / life / got away with sore / jaw flame under spoon / one hour later / citric acid / cotton balls / falling / onto her bed never / hitting the mattress / eyelids fluttering / palms open like Christ / drifting through open fields / clean sheets of her childhood / bed her father’s hand / coarse and huge and safe / guiding her back home / Hell to Heaven in a plunger push / Hallelujah
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Philip Elliott is an award-winning author, freelance editor, and founder and editor-in-chief of Into the Void. His debut novel, comedic L.A. noir Nobody Move, won the Indie Author Project Award for the region of Ontario. Philip was a National Juror of the 2019 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and a winner of the 2018 Big Pond Rumours Chapbook Prize. A music and film obsessive, Philip lives in Toronto with his wife and their spoiled pug. http://angelcitynovels.com/