Forfeit a part of you to accumulate another; maybe both wrists to find a self-love letter tucked behind your fingernails.
Let time take your hands now to save a humid space for when you cannot see; perhaps a framed arena for a free segment, only screened in, in time.
Save an undiscovered room so you have somewhere to riot; any rabbit hole will confine you enough or you can loop a straining thought in the open air.
Put that thought away in consideration for the future; when you called your teacher Mom while at the zoo? When you cried into your sleeve on the bus ride back?
Dig the trench in your field deep enough to forget but don’t expend too much desire; do whatever it takes to admit that your life is no longer yours.
Crawl away without a scent and hope it doesn’t bleed out; your aching necessity scampering from death in a forest glade, the one you must nourish from afar.
Nick Boyer is a 20-something-year-old poet living in Upstate New York. His poetry has been published in Taj Mahal Review, Jackdaw Review, Verses from the Underground, and several other literary journals. If poetry is like ice cream, he just wants to have his own flavor.
