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Poetry

Ryan Downum

By September 26th, 2020No Comments

Dear being PAINFEEL:

“There’s blood on that blade / Fuck me I’m falling apart.”

There is a room & it is dark.
There is a room & it is a stone.
There is a room & it is a ghost.

I abandon cold this arrival pain.
I am moaning hard lush spots,
how I am curled just by closing my eyes.

Yes my BONESTALKS are broken.
Yes my BLOODSTALKS are open.

I want to stand outside in the dark
with my mouth open.
I want to look up at the sky
& dear turn myself past this lightbend.

It’s not as if I’m all for cutting myself open,
but I’m certain of being blush spooked,
befriending owls, shouting YES I AM WARM INSIDE.
This bloodshadow grabs hold
of me & asks DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON?!?!
YES I reply I’M HALF-DEAD & FEELING.

I’m trying to reach from blood inside ghosts.

BLOOMBURST from my passion stroke.
BLOOMBURST from my too safe sides.
BLOOMBURST from my fear.

HERE THOUGHTS OF SUICIDEFEEL:

  1. Don’t overlap palm currents.
  2. Don’t loosen hollow.
  3. Don’t talk stroke & bright.
  4. Don’t tomorrow over side streets.
  5. Don’t collapse herds then end.
  6. Listen tired from graves peeling sure.

and now / perhaps not / my swaddled pulse / blood soaked / & slick / in my wearying creeping / spook mouth / not my crawl towards / like screeching aches / my wept bones / dissolved / up the corner / peeling / love skin / & dread / & now it’s my muscles / my church throat / aching / the feeling / towards bursting stars—

alive & human. Alive & pulsing. Bleeding flower plucked from a cheststone. I no longer recognize myself or my ghost. I no longer recognize this light. Hello creature being. Hello bloodlush.

Here now I flood myself from one touch to another.
How now I flood myself to light hush &

dig where I’ll eventually braid through pleasure streaks,
open my chest still, motion around these screaming slits.

Almost past the crows opening some sky sideways.

Almost past this mouth’s cawing pulse.

 

 

 

 

Ryan Downum currently resides in Moscow, ID where he is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Idaho. Poems of his appear or are forthcoming in BOAAT, H_NGM_N, Pretty Owl Poetry, Witch Craft Magazine, IDK Magazine, Bear Review, Reality Beach, (b)OINK, and jubilat.