What good is a poet to a cratermaker?

By Viviane Fae-Moss

Interpretive dance is easy 
When you’re in a minefield. 
They’ve never invented a better word for new moon. 
They haven’t even tried, 
When every month I watch her die 
And resurrect 
And live 
And die again. 
Please, come back to bed, 
Sweetheart, 
Come pray away our youth with me. 
She asked me that with a slice of meat in her mouth 
That looked suspiciously like my mother. 
It’s okay, though. My mother’s happier this way. 
Death is the only cure for queerness. 
	
Secrets are only hard to keep when you’ve never been poisoned before. 
When you’ve never woken up at 3 AM on a Monday, 
Sick and sweaty with exhaustion, 
Trembling with the weight of holding up your own body. 
She told me, once, when she was drunk on violence and sex, 
When I was stone-cold by her side, 
That she was thinking of finding a new home in the woods. 
She wanted me to join her. 
As if every tear I’d ever shed over her absence was a castle for us to run to 
And I, sober fool that I was, said yes.
There was no mistaking the flavor of deathcaps in the stew she served me that night. 
They’re the sweetest mushrooms in the world. 

Every night, I’d beg to be her canary, 
When she left to reach for heaven. 
She’d turn me down, with all the softness she could muster. 
Even if she couldn't bring herself to care if I lived or died. 
I’d stay up ’til the day 
Because it was easier than falling asleep. 
It was easier than dreaming. 
It was easier than hoping 
She’d come home soon, 
Tell me she’d changed her heart, 
She’d changed her mind. 
Some mornings, she’d come home with holes in her heart, 
Ask me to pour whiskey over her bare chest and legs and organs 
And kiss her until she forgot the pain. 
I’d whisper to her until I couldn’t stay awake 
And wake up long after she’d gone. 
	
All told, a pen has never lopped off a head, 
And words can't fill a void.
Still, someone’s gotta clean up the shrapnel.
If I’m the only one left, well, so it goes, right?