Grim Reaper Makes A Friend i miss what i cannot have now that i know you were here all along a fresh, clean break of dawn unbridled futures the peacefulness of past ignorance movie nights and instant ramen at age fifteen so soft, no need to lose your baby teeth stirring a flavor packet into a pre-made bed sleeping with abandon barefoot on the bicycle path in summer headphones as catalogues of possibilities a subtle dance. then, the first odd passing a slippery slope buzzword bee extinction hashtag firing squad goals now, buying snake oil based lubricant at a trade show-and-tell just to feel something tagged faces of friends in missing person posters public wailing made possible by tiny, yellow, teary-eyed, decapitated heads lined up as a stand-in funeral crowd underneath the first obituary of the week. i miss papercuts. unpaid and armed medical bills chasing children into cul-de-sacs i am haunted by aunts telling nieces to give grandpa a kiss i imagine their little mouths getting sucked into a wrinkle flying all the way into the future where they have to pick up every single thing at the baggage claim and then just live wherever they can get to with all that weight. i followed you here after i found the worm hole in the last bloody knee of my childhood. i liked the way your robe was moving in the breeze i followed its sway through the years never asked about your job or age or first memory only to find now, as the wind is picking up that there is nothing to hold on to underneath.
Attachment Issues The cocoon attaches itself to the left ventricle. I attach myself to the idea of change. The evening attaches itself to a warm kind of rain in which my sticky, molten thoughts attach themselves to someone’s silken sleeve. We, too, must become liquid memory for all hell to break loose transmute violently from one tender to another to firmly shake the days off our crinkled wings eyespots and feelers. I attach myself to the idea of community or communion? I forget which one slows the startled shaking the waves of rapid palpitations ba-dum ba-dum not far from rupture dirtying the night with fear. Dawn attaches itself to an unmade bed slithers right under the sheets burrows and nuzzles. I sleep until the clacking of the radiator wakes me. It echoes as eddies and ripples multiply the midnight blue air bleeding through the edges of the ceiling expand until I am all reverb all wet practically soaked drenched arms salty and akimbo flutter floating off on delay. Come sit with me and all I have to offer a handful of sugar water a cup of overripe plums a slice of orange a spiral for a mouth an average lifespan a small dry berth neighboring a rainstorm until the next door cracks open in the swaying chamber pop that is the heart.
Death Star I’d appreciate if I could wake up Wednesdays wanting less out of existence you know, just do less pesky wanting. I have almost no outlines left to color inside of since I have been all push a blur of shove all battering ram and overflowing tenderness. Now, when I do my daily tearletting for health the water just goes everywhere. Every single small sore cell reaching out to break through the skin head first to leap over the finger-steps hastily taking two at a time flailing about stumbling along the ridges of these thighs' moon craters to gain speed and hurl themselves towards the atmosphere of somebody else's death star immediately burning up on entry. I’d also be fine with Thursdays or Fridays.
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Anna Kohlweis is a bilingual (English/German) writer and interdisciplinary artist based in Vienna, Austria.