Four Poems by Alexandra Wuest

 

communion
 

a glimmering scale casts a prism
of allegiance

like a clock, ticking,

punctuating the silences with rotten tendrils
of boredom

that artificial piety looks good on you
it’s all just glitter spilled in an infinite inkwell anyways

the sticky fingers of the anonymous pulling sensation
teething at the soles of your feet–

do these shoes make me look enlightened?

callused compasses, needles awry
all flutter to the pulse of those ghosts
not given time to properly spruce up their graves

today a monk took a photo of me
on his ipad
i do not feel enlightened

 

 

 

 

the world doesn’t revolve around me but it feels like it does
 

if I die today,
will my roommates
eat my groceries in the fridge

or will they sit there
rotting
like some sort of grave site

you like to say
that you are six feet tall but
you are really
5’9

with ricotta cheese ambivalence
pulsing through your veins

i wanted to plant queen anne’s lace
in the garden 

when you said
it grows better wild

what I heard was
these poptarts expired in
2008.

 

 

 

 

certitude
 

i want to lay on you like a blanket
and smother all your sadness out
with my fibers

all beautiful things are silent
like trees and flowers and photographs

it doesn't matter if you tip toe
the land mines under the flower beds will still explode

i wish I could be silent
and beautiful

 

 

 

 

chalk outline
 

don’t forget to memorialize
every piece of gum that you chew
and spit onto the sidewalk

falsehoods can be starling
when they are just lustrous enough
to believe in

and if you choose to believe
if you believe you have a choice

a microscopic flickering–
a candle snuffed out by the very
hand that you once trusted

the contusion is yours and
the hollow feeling that 

replaced the bleed is nothing

but a pyre to your incompetence

 

 

 

 

Alexandra Wuest is a writer and poet based in Brooklyn. Her work has appeared in Reality Hands, Fanzine, htmlgiant, Mr. Beller's Neighborhood, and Hobart, among others. Find her on Twitter and tumblr.