Blood Lemons

Show me how
to make a sandwich
in a dream in the dark
of a kitchen, I’m shoving
a bong down my throat
where I keep the good meat
the body / the blood
the lemon juice I grip
in the tender insides
of my cheeks, like holding
a mouthful of tacks
without swallowing.
I’m bent on the tile
bracing my curvature
rearward hands & feet
praying in retrograde
forgive me forgive
this sandwich I eat
I’m not meant to be
carry me back-crawling
in the acid churn
of this magenta dream
forgive me forgive me
forgive me—I crank
my neck sidewind
forgive me for not
being full.

Courtney Frankenstein

I wake to a burning
dawn in my chest
I’m here to live
this another-day
they told me today
would be an old sack
& I the cheese
I the mustiness /
mold spores settling
atop the sheets,
my life-bed where
the part of me dying
is night-body
indica breath
& heavy agony
forming in the creases
sparking sadistic metals
a cation of aliving—
reanimation is total
annihilation of the person
I am before
in the linen currents
in the depressive room
where light flashes
& faces flicker
like tv specters
back & forth.

Courtney Leigh lives in Phoenix, AZ where she runs Crimson Sage (crimsonsageaz.com) & White Stag Publishing with her husband. She is the author of the chapbook “the unrequited <3<3 of red riding hood & her lycan lover” from Dancing Girl Press.