Can I Write Your Name in Cursive

Kaila Young

We left the winter full of beer bottle

splinters — the smoke fled

Ohio when you moved. It traced your eyes to

Philadelphia where the sidewalk licked at your

nickels and dimes. In

Chicago I poured vodka into your

mind from a Buddha cracked in

two.

In Montana we watched the sun sink as it rose,

your acid bloomed ecstasy in rotting

lungs — I inhaled until the petals grew

thorns,

dripping with white powder like your

fumes uprooted — I fingered every vine,

playing with the needles in your skies,

slicing plaques from the sockets of my bones.

My ultraviolet rays blurred against your

starlight. Under a moon and a stone

demons swam my veins,

drank from sword-tipped straws. You

spooned the molasses pouring from my

lips until clouds cradled them into

tombs.