Image © Madge Maril 2017
| by Chelsea Tadeyeske | December 12, 2017 |
i remember being fascinated by the fact
that sharks are older than trees
and made up entirely of cartilage
half as dense as bone
when i push down on your skin
i can see the muscles underneath shift
and it makes it seem like
i could re-arrange you
sometimes we’ll fuck and fuck and fuck
because we know what pain is
and i won’t clean myself after
so i can smell it on me later
someone asked me once
the first time i felt
my age
why i wasn’t
crying
told me i rated my pain
way lower
than any man
it made me feel
half as dense as bone
older than a tree
__________
Chelsea Tadeyeske is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin where she publishes books and journals under the moniker pitymilk press. Her chapbooks if you bend it backwards nothing really happens and we’re all born with the right to be angry were recently published by Rabbit Catastrophe Press and bathmatics, respectively. She is a Virgo sun/Aquarius moon/Libra rising born in the year of the snake.
Madge Maril is a robot, illustrator, poet, and noisemaker based in Ohio.