Insection
Art by Bill Wolak
by Carrie Penrod
The dawn hasn’t yet started to break,
the light not yet illuminating
the insects beneath my skin
I wish to keep
Hidden.
The man lying next to me,
arm over my shifting lungs,
sleeps as the dead lay
quiet in their coffins
forgotten.
I want to gnaw off my torso,
to escape his sleeping form––
and yet I want to remain
pinned, kept blissfully
away.
But the insects
the insects.
Carrie Elizabeth Penrod received her MFA from Mississippi University for Women. She currently resides in Indiana with her cats. Her work can be read at Anti-Heroin Chic, Prometheus Dreaming, Peregrine, Button Poetry's Instagram, and corn stalks.
