hey, that rhymes

by nat raum

someone once said i was clearly meant for more than a life lost in the war and i say i’ve lost mine thrice already, don’t you see? a cigarette tastes like tobacco and trauma when i really buckle down and find the tartness in a marlboro light, the kind i’d only bum when i was down enough to smoke and couldn’t foot the cost of a pack for myself. i survived girlhood with mother at my side in the same kind of way some people believe there’s a spirit in the sky, the same tether that keeps you corporeal through the nights where you are your smallest, tearstruck and deliriously depressed. i resurrected myself from scraps of lace to rise not like a phoenix but a wraith from soft soil and proclaim myself child, not daughter. it wasn’t the only answer i was looking for as i stumbled out of the wreckage of myself, but i’ve stopped looking solace in the mouth on the rare occasion it arrives. someone once said i was too young to be so sad and i say sometimes it is too much to ask to thrive; sometimes it’s enough just to stay alive.

nat raum (b. 1996) is a disabled artist, writer, and genderless disaster from Baltimore, MD. They’re the editor-in-chief of fifth wheel press, as well as the author of you stupid slut, the abyss is staring back, random access memory, and several chapbooks. Find them online: natraum.com/links.