seafoam sours beneath my tongue
spills over in the speaking of a name
a tide in my throat, a surge of syllables
the gravity of the words i swallow
turns my body inside out
tears my teeth from my mouth.
secrets dissolve in my mouth
drops of nectar spear my tongue
to my jaw, i speak without
saying anything and if you call my name
i won’t look. i swallow
all your bitter nectar syllables
your sharpened syllables
spear my words in my mouth
my throat is full of the sand i swallowed
from the shore where i dipped my raw tongue
into the sea and burned my name
out
of my body, washed out
the broken syllables
of that name
from my bitter mouth
rake the flesh from my tongue—
i cough up a swallow
made of seafoam, unswallow
all these feathery platitudes, i’m out
of bright attitudes, my tongue
is a mess of syllables
it crawls from mouth
alive and seething, nameless
in its monstrous brilliance. what name
would i not tear apart and swallow?
i’ll wrench the words from your mouth
and throw them out
with the rest of these syllables
rotting beneath my tongue.
why name me at all? let me be without
shame to swallow, syllables
to weigh my mouth and my tongue.
…
Lee Thomas (they/them) is an emerging queer non-binary poet and amateur bookbinder currently located in Calgary, Alberta. They enjoy exploring form and the use of physical space in poetry and hold a bachelor of arts in English from the University of Calgary.
