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.”