Primal

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.”