my myth

I ate the four seeds that kept me tethered - a bridge, a gold watch

I shed the battle cry landscape

I reckoned with my doom agent

My automatic clock, my heart on the grid

Layers of skin just shred for the compost

Layers of skin on the meat slicer

In the doom tunnels I channel my latent id

My shadow warrior

My pain

I lash a dungeon wall

I lash a dungeon wall & eat cheese

I’m such a good girl

I am a good girl dreamscape

In the doom tunnel

Queen of Cups / Ammonoid

Predaceous wisp

Thetamorph of thunder

& catastrophe

Innocuous sweet clawing

A flesh of needs

Why interrupture

Sinks / a dream

Capture abrupt

Like jaws

Between its eyes

Why & why again

The compulsion

To drown with one’s love

Thirteen chambers where I can sometimes hide

A sea of indexes

When the clouded

Wash of your heart

Tamps my fire chalice

I secrete in chasms

Protect a

“soft interior from damage”

The mud of your ancient

Shell a longing

I can no longer endure

Melissa Eleftherion (she/they) is a writer, a librarian, and a visual artist. Born & raised in Brooklyn, they are the author of four poetry collections: field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), gutter rainbows (Querencia Press, 2024), Suture (Cooper Dillon, 2026) & Malocchia (White Stag, 2026) as well as twelve chapbooks including abject sutures (above/ground press, 2024). Her work has been widely published in venues like Quarter after Eight, Sixth Finch, & Verse Daily, & received numerous nominations for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Melissa now lives in Northern California where she manages the Ukiah Branch Library, curates the LOBA Reading Series, and serves as Poet Laureate Emeritus of the City of Ukiah. Recent work is available at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.