Bondage

tanner x

 

And I love you, ‘cause you hurt

like you did. ‘Cause God made us

a greek plate, two penny banks full

of passion, shattered into a union.

 

So I don’t think anything is more beautiful

than pain in love. Nerves under the skin. My fist

filled with your wilderness, red lampstand

LEDs beating our blood-dull shadows

into the walls, bailing light into the hallways

 

a burning fire shut up

I was weary                                     

I could not hold back

 

The heart lacerates with struggle.

It’s the force that blunts damage

into something desirable. A way

in which what is left behind, somehow

becomes a little less broken.

 

What we have we welded together

in the forge of your body. No love

was made with kindness alone.

 

fire                                                               shut up

my bones                      I could not

    hold   back

 

 

 

***

Tanner X is a student currently enrolled in Georgia College and State University, working towards an English major. He has had work published in Penultimate Peanut, SHARE, Evocations Review, Unlimited Literature, Porch Critters and The Peacocks Feet, as well as receiving the Academy of American Poets’ Student Poetry Prize for my poem “The Wind Gatherer.”