patchwork from the seminole tribe

I wrote an article profiling the art of patchwork and it's effect on seminole culture for rubina magazine

concerned about insomnia

dreams fume between inches of thickness to bear nothing

but fragmented eyelids, only patches to separate

desire from this ache in my mouth and fingernails

this delta of carcinogens from heart to capillaries

//

days float apart between nondescript evenings

running into each other like sharpied letters on canvas

carving initials of belongings; you belong to me

but beyond the bleeding I am unsure.

//

I am unsure

I am sick

and I am tired

//

I am desperate to feel some sort of comfort to reaffirm

that this could be something more than transient, shallow

that there’s an image of me inside you on a loop

but maybe je t’aime can’t exist off of winter’s lined paper

//

and I’ll admit, my floor admits, my hands admit

I can’t look at my body without thinking of you

in its solus its naked, dissociated, dark

sporting scars from fingers only I can see

//

only a leaving I can feel, like the night, you are gone

when I decide to resign to a reflex that hasn’t quite ripened

it casts a shadow twice my size, haunting me and saying

I’ll take care of you, but I am forgotten.