Velvet Engine
jonathan gregory
@jonathangregorypoet

she says
don't look under the sink
so I look

blue velvet tied around a jawbone
not mine
but familiar

the wallpaper peels like dead skin
reveals
a mouth behind the plaster
saying mommy
in a voice that's not my own

I keep a gas mask
in the glovebox
just in case
I need to feel
something
holy

Frank visits at night
he wears my father's cologne
and my guilt
he makes me watch
the ants crawl up her leg
while he sings

there's lipstick on the oxygen tank
there's silence
in my scream

a robin lands
on the windowsill
stitched together
with wire and wishbones
its eyes are glass
and it doesn't blink

this town
was built on a whisper
that never stopped

E. Roz
@e.roz.writes

Blue velvet

suffocated my purity

I’m all ears;

yet eyes wide shut.

E. Roz is a Finnish poet who writes short poems about spirituality, sehnsucht, and sensuality.