Two Poems by BEE LB

/

5/10

i suppose i am safe / i could explain where the doubt
comes in but what would be the point? / i am safe here

i am cradled by a bed holding no memory / i am curled
against the neck of a bottle, the cold feeling better than a body
 
that’s a lie / but am i not allowed a lie to slip through?
i am waiting for an answer / the truth / some sort of satisfaction
 
none come, but i don’t expect it / i expected the emptiness
to spread itself into a blanket for me to lay on, and it did
 
it covered the grass, or the wet, or anything else i didn’t want
to touch / it did what i asked it to / the emptiness
 
i’m going somewhere here / but i can’t decide where
the last three bodies i asked to see did not come
 
it was not a punishment / not anything but fear, a lack
of luck / still, i spread out in the emptiness / waiting
 
for something to find me there and pull me out / ask the right questions
that pull the right answers / from their place beneath my tongue
 
all of this is real, except none of it really / i misjudge
where i’m going, and i can’t walk for days / when i tell you
 
i secretly enjoyed it / i don’t mean it / i mean it was not a secret.

lamentation

i reach for you in my sleep,
find you there within me
i wake to your body bathed in
the blue of pre-dawn
 
i find the comfort of the womb
in the waking world—
i crawl inside
 
grow smaller, smaller,
until there’s nothing left of
who i used to be
 
i find darkness and shrivel into it
i find nothingness in myself
and pull it all out
 
i wish to be whole and full and
straight-backed, for my heart
to weep only in a way
i can bear

Author’s Note: "lamentation" came about in the hazy hours just before dawn, when the difference between dreams and reality can be hard to place. It lives in the interior as an exploration of longing, desire, and lack of its fulfillment. "5/10" examines desire as well, but it exists more as a wry set of excuses, deflections, masking a sincere desire for connection.

BEE LB is an array of letters, bound to impulse; they are a writer creating delicate connections. they have called any number of places home: currently, a single yellow wall in Michigan. they have been published in Crooked Arrow Press, Badlung Press, and Revolute Lit, among others. their portfolio can be found at twinbrights.carrd.co.