Save Our Soulsickened

by Adriana Tosun


If we must pick sins, then, let
gluttony be mine: I know the hot 
shame of it well, the pour of wine
and honey from the nostrils, the grit
left between teeth after the apple skin 
has rotted away. The dirt under my 
toenails is filigreed in gold, and I've
dreamt for years of verdant cowardice; but
for all my excesses, I would rather
gorge myself on bony particulars, 
the fresh slice of knife-edged disgust.

And as my belly swells with proof
of a vast and ancient hatred,
I'll swallow yet more, fold the seeds
of the universe into the crease of a
thigh, the delicate interior curl of an ear.
I can bear no longer the empty marrow-pockets;
forsake me, take a rib and bind it with the dusty
carcass of a pomegranate. Damned, I'd
expect. Desiccated.



Adriana Tosun is currently living on a boat. She has most recently been published in Defenestration Magazine, Corvus Magazine, and Parody Poetry Journal, and has work pending in Strange Horizons. Once, in the streets of Paris, she ate a handful of red currants; they have been her favorite fruit ever since.

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