"abstractions" by Kay Mi

dawn: 
a honeyed sweetness pouring against shadows 
             whittled by the carved bone-knife of wanting, 
pale bruised horizon spilling like a river over the windowsill 
             (red as a knife, 
             red as the mouth of an unkempt martyr) 
and our orphic tragedies singing into the sand. 
the painting is an impression of itself; 
we were never here, our hands 
             never twisted in the sheets, fingers never wrapped
             around the ornate grille of the broken window 
             as the angle of the sunlight split 
             ​us into pieces. 

​now, watch: 
watch the field of aster flowers smeared across the
             canvas and say, god has given us enough love 
             that we are choking on it; 
so heaven is a room filled with enough smoke to
             remind us that our 
             blood cannot be salvaged, 
that when the tides of earth recede we will be left lying
at the gates, which is just to say that 
we are drunk 
             on a deluge of elegies, 
which is just to say that 
blood only leaves the body 
             an echo of itself.

say watercolor. say cerulean hymns. 
tip my head forward and press your fingers 
             ​against my neck as i shiver 
             ​like a saint erased of its mouth: 
here, your angel wings against the drying acrylic.
here, the plaster on the wall, searing into the layers beneath--
             touch me
             (i am sorry.)

Kay Mi is a 16-year-old high school junior from Pennsylvania. Previously, her writing has been recognized on the media platform Synthesis Publications as well as in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. She currently participates in her city’s youth orchestra and her school’s speech and debate club, and some of her other hobbies include listening to classical music and doing art late at night (most likely to procrastinate school work). Kay can be found at @izarie on Tumblr.