Magic with Skin On

by Morgan Nikola-Wren

if i'm lucky, all this longing leaves room for air

maybe that's why you have yet to stay when i tell you i have no mind to leave

She cannot stop pacing through the house. Searching for him in all the quiet. Every time she walks by his room, the cavern in her chest yawns wider. He was magic. She could never stop being unsplendid, but at least she had him with her. All the powder-keg potential a person could dream of, sometimes just inches from her. Enough to keep her fingers branching out toward anything she could find blooming tepid between them. And now that's gone.

i wish all pain left poetry in its wake this one just steals the light of me

your smile is just my favorite ghost, ever pressing chills against the back of my neck

today, every voice that sneaks up behind me is dipped in your laugh and i can't help but hate myself for it

i swallowed you whole like forbidden fruit and the seeds of you planted something wild and strange in me

i want to soak my story in any voice but whiskey 'cause i only talk my loudest when i wish no one was listening

the very last crushing velvet affair that i, however hesitantly, lay my heart against