Teeth 

Blood in your mouth
Tastes different
Than blood from anywhere else
More metallic
Like all the iron in your teeth
Is escaping
Onto your tongue
Maybe
Your teeth will be next
Escaping
Onto your tongue and out of your mouth
Spit
Onto shiny porcelain counters   

I stand in front of the mirror
Bleeding.
Dripping.
Drip, drip, dripping
I wonder
If my teeth will fall out
And what will grow in their place

Corpse’s Lament (or The Modern Prometheus’ Love)

Cold hands and cold bones

Disgusted by my death
Dissatisfied with my life
Is it really my state of being
You find that you dislike?

Sunken eyes and sunken soul 

A shovel gives or takes
Your wants from the ground
You dug up my coffin,
Now take what you found

Empty earth and empty smiles

You love me like it’s vengeance
You kiss me with your hate
All your brutal, tender touches,
Will not my death erase

Am I not what you expected?
Am I not what you quited wanted?

You called it a mercy
To re-propagate life
Now you wince as if tortured
When you look in my eyes

Risen from the Earth,
To the Earth we will return
You wanted to challenge God
Now face what you thought earned 

You ripped me from my slumber
As if I were your right
Bonded torture, never leaving,
Now darling you are mine

Remember I am with you
When you lie awake at night

Insecticide

There are bugs inside my body
My lungs are full of moths
They flutter out sometimes
When I forget to talk

There are bugs inside my body
There are spiders in my eyes
They poke their little arms out
When I forget to cry

There are bugs inside my body
Fireflies within my mind
Their light leaks out into my hair
When I forget to hide

There are bugs inside my body
Beetles in my hands
They bite me to remind me
That I am like no other man

There are bugs inside my body
My guts are filled with flies
You can hear them if you listen closely,
They buzz against my sides

My silent little demons,
Only mine to know
I feel them crawl beneath my skin
And mate within my bones 

Me and my insects,
We call this body home.
There are bugs inside my body
And I am never alone

Apothecary 

apothecary
[əˈpäTHəˌkerē]
Noun
1. all those little bottles filled up with you

a dark musty room
and curtained windows
I find light in your eyes
no matter the shadows

the herbs are drying
strung on their rack
breathe warmth into me
heat pressed on my back 

the wax fore’er dripping
the candles are low
I cannot leave you
you are my home 

the sunlight illuminates
dust currents in air
I think only of your hands
and the lightness they bear 

sage, lavender, lupin
soft scents of the day
today I may miss you
but in my heart you will stay

Nic Kawecki is an English major attending Chaffey College. They adore writing, especially in the genre of poetry. As they continue on their educational journey, they hope to one day become a high school English teacher and share their love of writing and literature. If they’re not writing or binging TV, you can usually find them trying to adopt every stray animal they see.

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