My thoughts are slipping between my teeth,
I never got braces, so I have this irregular bite-
When I drag my mouth across yours you tell me you can feel it.
One summer I bit down too hard,
You were spitting up blood for days.
I put my bare fingers in your mouth and licked the broken capillaries.
And like some old birth chart, that blood trickled down,
Thin and brassy.
It stained my white shirt
But my bra was already burgundy.
So why should I feel guilty
If I lay on the floor without changing it?
The wood in our house is unpolished, but I don’t care,
Because It’s where we live.
The foundation is so fragile that any storm,
And there will inevitably be some storm,
Will wreck the entire place.
So, I sit by the window and listen
To that gross fucking bubbling,
And know that when this glass shatters and I breathe it all in,
The view from outside won’t have changed.
I cannot wait to feel those rafter beams crushing me, enveloping me,
And I have hidden gasoline in the corners you don’t check,
Holding onto the small hopes.
When you ask, I say I don’t notice any weird smell,
And pray you do not take my hands into yours;
I am so much more comfortable here than where I am safe.
Maya Elena Jackson is a female author and musician hailing from the Sonoran Desert. Her writing has most recently appeared in the third issue of OUT/CAST, in the Pen 2 Paper Creative Writing Contest, and was selected as one of the winners of the Hotel Congress 100 Year Anniversary Celebration.You can hear her spoken word pieces on her local Tucson, Arizona radio station KXCI, and catch her resting in the hot desert sun, most likely with her pets.