These three poems by Maia Brown-Jackson — tender, fierce, and carnal — sing the staccato beats of longing, of love, and of love lost…
by: Maia Brown-Jackson
I’ll feed you the world raw
Let me feed you the world raw,
I told you, and you followed,
because they always seem to follow me,
the difference is that with you
I fell, too.
And for just a little while,
I gave into my selfishness.
Touch me like I’m spun sugar, melting,
and destroy me with your mouth,
I begged.
Watch me surrender like the old testament god
set an unrelenting gaze upon me
and allow me to combust,
I pleaded.
Then I remembered what always happened.
I tried to warn you.
I didn’t think you deserved
the catastrophe I would inevitably become.
Don’t call me beautiful, I told you,
call me wretched.
Point out the silver that’s
long bloomed in my hair
and the scars that dapple already freckled skin.
And still you were there,
with those blue eyes that never judged
and something in your voice like burning when you sang
and calloused, butterfly touches always hesitant
and not wavering when I fell apart—
Well.
Falling in love with you was inevitable.
And you told me that you were in love with me, too:
casually,
easily,
in the living room of that third-story walkup
and it was so bright in that moment
but the off-white paint of the walls tinted it all just a bit sepia
and you had to leave for work but not just yet—
and you were just so blasé when you said it back,
like it was obvious,
that I couldn’t believe you.
I never really thought that could happen, not for me.
Not with you.
I tried (tried so so
so so so hard) to trust.
I did,
(I did)
but I couldn’t—
It’s just that someone else made it chronic, crowded and whispering to all the other cells in my veins and arteries,
that I was too much an
ugly-provocative-loathsome-naive-frightening-frightened-stubborn-impulsive-wounded thing
to ever deserve something good
and it could never last
and the longer I let myself fall the more it would hurt
and I still didn’t want to ruin you
that I fucking—
I’m just glad I held you as close as I did
while I had you
and we lasted
because I couldn’t do it
I couldn’t handle gentle
couldn’t trust it
and I got scared
so I
fucking
ran
Anemic
Chassis is now nothing more than
metaphor; not personal, not pleasurable,
just mere tool for use.
Just paper thin skin over
blue trails
that always bruised too easily,
and I wish for more of the
iron born in dying stars
(because something must always end,
mustn’t it,
for something new to begin?
If the star is already going out,
why can’t it at least help me hide my wounds?
Or is that how people think of me:
already mortal, might as well save the day?)
That is my purpose, isn’t it?
I am here, I was born, I live
so that I might hurt and hurt
and hurt
and die.
And others will survive.
(I suppose then that
the bruises don’t matter much.)
Enough
Please, just kiss me like I’m drowning.
Lick your way inside my mouth
until my lungs can’t function any longer.
Now.
Because I think you know
I consider my own life cheap
and you know you can’t
save me from myself
and we both know there’s
an expiration date.
But right now.
Right now I’ll let myself pretend so hard
(I almost believe)
as I breathe in the blue of your eyes
eager and intent and focused
as they ask permission
and I’m not at all accustomed to this want
but I think all our tattoos should have been revealed yesterday
that I’m not really sure which words are coming out now
because I just know they’re not a “no.”
Silk straps slip off my shoulders
as my trembling fingers struggle with
too many buttons but
I’m distracted by the emerging curve
of your shoulders
(god you always wear so many layers)
and my flesh is turning a sonnet of purple and red
from each unexpected bite in your determined path
and I can’t stop laughing because I’m horrifically ticklish
and you pause and grin, all mischief and hunger,
and your face between my thighs sighs that you want to say
your final prayers while I grant you last rites
(before you face the scaffold)
because we never have enough time.
And you kiss me.
(And you kiss me.)
(And you kiss me.)
This might just be what holy feels like
and I can’t care that we’re doomed.
In this moment I have enough.
A practical literature degree from UChicago; a sensible decision to live and volunteer in Iraq; a highly caffeinated trek through a Master’s in human rights and terrorism; a job investigating waste and fraud in humanitarian aid for Afghanistan: the esoteric award-winning and pushcart-nominated Maia Brown-Jackson somehow found the time to be published in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Prime Number Magazine, Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Quarter(ly) Journal, La Piccioletta Barca, Thirty West Publishing, Return Home and Kaidankai podcasts, and more, as well as publish the poetry collection And My Blood Sang with Tim Saunders Publications.
Header art by Adriana Varejão.
