tanner x
Cut me into scars that reach down
to the roots of hunger. Find me
those mountains I once knew,
in the dark beneath the skin;
the tips of evergreens bent
over the dampness of the fog,
the flash of wet black hide
strung between the thickets
and the shadows.
scrape me down to that rawness,
the untouched and
animal
Show me love drug through the primitive,
intimacy alive on a field of violence.
Show me the coast of your wild heart
ate up with cavern darkness, the coldness
of deep rivers and the heat of stars pulling
close, the pounding like skin drums
and thunder, the ritual of struggle and need,
the love and anguish of burning alive.
Tonight?
Prove to me you still know the ground
we made sacred with love and were dangerous.
Show me how bright those fires still burn.
***
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.”