"This One Isn't Pretty" by Aly Acevedo
I want you to wrap
my name around your
throat until I am all you breathe.
I want to paint you
hard and then soft then
back to rough to mess with your head.
It just isn’t love
without chaos, right?
I want there to be
fire in your bed. All
that will be left is ash and smoke.
The scent of madness
making you dizzy.
Spin around me so we can go unsteady.
It just isn’t true
without despair, right?
I want you to crack
your spine to feel me
shiver up your soul with relief.
I want to keep you
bent like a page
or a prayer, say you love me.
Say you want me, please.
Let me eat you whole.
"7 Layers of Hell" by Aly Acevedo
after sierra demulder
In this room,
God is real.
In this room,
A thousand unfamiliar hands
Clawing over my lifeless body.
In this room,
The entire world is uneducated.
In this room,
My mother doesn’t say anything,
Only looks at me in disgrace.
In this room,
All of this generation’s advocate's tongues cut out
To leave them in deafening silence.
In this room,
All of the men I have loved
Leave me over and over again.
In this room,
I actually died at the moment
I wanted it most.