Branches Book

BRANCHES

Dani Leshgold

ELLIPSIS

LIGHTER FLUID

my left hand is lighter fluid and my right, an open fire why is the whole world paper? see, i’ve been ditching vodka at parties and doing shots of loneliness i can’t seem to sit still and can you blame me? for even the air around me is trembling. if i’m an open wound, i want to be my own bandaid why must it be love that stitches my scars? I’m thinking that i can rip up paper from my shitty poems and stop the blood with that can you blame me? i’m a punctured hot air balloon.

SAFETY PIN i sometimes wish i could be held together with a safety pin

like my poorly made dresses

what if a rusted piece of metal

from my dry cleaners or from the bottom of my drawer

could keep my insecurity from spilling on the floor

like milk

but things snap sometimes safety pins snap like when there’s too much material from my dresses being held together when there is too much being held together, things snap

and then a safety pin isn’t safe at all

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