Say Goodbye

I bite my tongue discreetly

am I dreaming

or is it the world that sleeps?

Melting, miming I exorcise

the eidolon from its tattered nest.

–

I crawl to the surface

is this how we are intended to live

crossing and recrossing

our vestigial limbs?

–

I throw my ego

to the mad women

lining my kitchen drawer,

to the silent corrosion of my blood

as it splatters over skeins of flesh.

–

A moan slips past our shackled lips.

This is how we say goodbye,

 all we ever do is say goodbye.

*

In addition to The New Yorker I have submitted to 4 other poetry magazines Neon, Word Riot, FIELDS, and The Baltimore Review. I imagine it will be many months before I receive my verdicts.