L.M. Cole
When I Try to Tell You About Pain
When I try to tell you about pain
I consider the ricochet
the swarm of bees
the sting of splinters
the slice of broken glass
When I try to tell you about anxiety pain
I mold my mouth around hot coals
I will my pulse against its tidal push
I fold myself to smaller shapes
I stay locked in the echo of the word “excuse”
When I try to tell you about trauma pain
I think about rivers changing course
cutting through mountains to avoid
the inevitable downward tumble to the sea
fighting finality in a froth of fear
When I try to tell you about fatigue pain
I consider drying concrete
or running in the pulling waves
eyes weighted stone cool
tongue honey-trapped in the comb of my mouth
When I try to tell you about depression
fear
longing
memory
pain
I’m trying to tell you about me.
My Bed and I Act Out A Scene
Bones like marble, I quarry in the pit
of my bed as it cups me closer.
The click of the ceiling fan - unbalanced
knocks a rhythm, chimes the crip clock, timing.
The bed, here, is the pyre where I tarry/thether
myself as the fan measures pendulum precision.
Too heavy to move, I must be still/sliced.
Relaxing
in the afternoon I staged a play
face down at a massage parlor
the princess and the pea
in which I played the princess
and the massage table pretended
to be 99 mattresses when it was
only really one uncomfortable slab
the hands on my back played
a bulldozer and then a butterfly
leveraging my arm over the edge
to burrow deep for the cause of pain
when the hurt can be traced back
not to a muscle but a memory
of another august day when peace
became another bone broken
and now no amount of kneading
will knit back what was lost
but in this play I’m the princess
and my only problem is the pea
performed by my nipple
creased against the table
L.M. Cole is a queer, disabled poet and artist residing in North Carolina. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming with The Bitchin' Kitsch, The Pinch Journal, The McNeese Review and others. Her most recent chapbook, Eat Me(at) Your Earliest Convenience was published with Kith Books in mid-2023. For more information visit https://linktr.ee/lmcole