conch/sea
I am and I become
abecedarian as a personal charm
to am and become
to be and become
remind me to be light
inside each memory egg a gold inlay of an incident
how the brain compartmentalizes like a chambered nautilus
yet it is all one sand – the brain distinguishes one from the other to understand
i’ve made a career of privacy and compartmentalized objects
i’ve made a career of my traumas
what is privacy here with all exposed and sifting over one another in an endless span
how much of privacy or keeping secret is wrapped up in fears around judgement
light exposures popping up – the privacy book the mean latitudes of reason
a wish to bold concave belly flesh shoulders wrapped in marbled warscape
a wish to stand tall to withstand the seas at the door
i biked all over town in the early dawn popping off light exposures drunk on tall boys and crashed into a lexus
the me then the me
mortal rigor in the fountain in the landscape chasm
conch/sea
to rack focus like an aperture to let light in
object/frame stillness among the raging
majestic orifice right there
alate lion in the yard
these death energetics
i swallow hieroglyphs like a carceral bee
fires all around the island in a glacial crisis
war on my nerves a pallor a fungus
the lens has holes in it
a disintegration of the ephemeral
the segmented abdomen becomes integrated
losing its segments as an insect ages
cerci wave in weapons of copulation
wingless among the deciduous
the sense making
malicious octopus reticular trap
alphabet laughter in the yarrow
when you become the lens itself
so the pallor is swallowed, excreted
the moult can moult
electron nostalgia
Electra clasp the wretches
wretched the wretches wash ashore
pubic schema old days of the goddess
stressed belly the “curved inflorescence”
irascible pharaoh egg-shaped coffin
bury me in this alleged
Home
receiving familiar Legend
Hers is the felled heart a sword-shaped segment
when i curve toward you
the air stretches me pinnate
radio neuron electra radial split inquisitive
I split I fire on all radials
electrons of nostalgia acquisitive longing
how the “stigma persists at the tip” even though its buried
how trauma persists the skins a sun coming through it
kletic
wild mouths wild mouths
when the agor settles
when gold dust lament
covers it all
i am a beetle captured
in glass
my green thorax aglow
among the amber
my pincers akimbo
like come at me bro
i still believe in a female god
Melissa Eleftherion is a writer, librarian, and a visual artist. She is the author of field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), & nine chapbooks, including the forthcoming trauma suture (above/ground press, 2020). Born & raised in Brooklyn, Melissa now lives in Mendocino County where she manages the Ukiah Library, teaches creative writing, & curates the LOBA Reading Series. Recent work is available at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 
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