Emma Bleker

This Is How To Grow When No One Thinks You Can Bloom

“Do you imagine when you are alone that soft things have empty voices?”

There was just
a dead girl crawling into
their bed, calling their name.

I met you in pieces;
you did not save me,
and I did not ask
you to.

If it comes for you with
open mouth,
with sharpened teeth,
with tongue reaching-
it is coming to devour.
Do not make it into something
beautiful.

Their name will slide its way into your mouth as you are falling over the edge of some lonely pleasure.

I do not need saving or fixing,
I own sewing kits and was
raised by a woman with
fingertips rough like thimbles

I wonder if we are
taught to become more
like the silences between
sentences as we get
older.

Trials like these never stopped,
only became more quietly
executed,
killed their witches
differently.

My love has
sometimes looked
like a broken-open jaw.
It has the swing of something
that wishes to tell you
where your feet stand

Tell me, with your eyes open
and lips undone of her name,
that breathing is not
missing her