what i’m saying
is a lie: you brought a guillotine
to my bedroom
& told me
a long story about a girl
murdered
by a cistern, inhuman. i asked
if it was the cistern
or the girl that
was not human & you
looked quiet.
this lie feeds
me spoonfuls of
latent images
each slowing a grove
of stumps,
bare headed & blank palmed.
i looked up
& through the
dead trees
i saw violet
light chipped like
toenails. what i’m saying
is still
a lie: the evidence
of absence does not
equate to the voice
i so desperately need
right now;
it only implies the existence
of a loneliness
so charred
it foils
golden.
Kailey Tedesco is the author of These Ghosts of Mine, Siamese (Dancing Girl Press) and the forthcoming collection, She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publishing). She is the editor-in-chief of Rag Queen Periodical and a staff writer for Luna Luna Magazine. She also performs with the Poetry Brothel. You can find her work featured or forthcoming in Bellevue Literary Review, fields, Prelude, Faerie Magazine, and more. For more, please visit kaileytedesco.com or @kaileytedesco.