Christian Ward

Christian Ward (he/him) is a UK-based poet with recent work in Dust, Free the Verse, Loch Raven Review, Cider Press Review and elsewhere. 

Easy read of the poem in the image above:

Accelerant

(CW: Themes of death, suicidal ideation)

Everything decays in an unhappy orbit

around me. The garden is littered

with commas of rotting snails 

when I step outside. A dead wasp 

is staining a corner of the studio 

apartment with warning stripes.

The bathroom is filled with spiders 

curled into their grief. The elder trees’ 

rotting finger bones kiss the earth

for mercy daily. I look into the mirror 

and am never thankful for surviving 

spinal cord compression. Every prayer

asking for a swift end has come back 

with notes. My body is an uncertain 

hypothesis, true. What of the methodology? 

What of the person who dreamt the wound 

but never asked how to undo it?