extinguish me with unleaded

artifice child plays

barber knifes my scalp

dripping wound floods

my inner ward                         abandoned

nerve endings light

flares on the side of the road

that is              closed              on        both     sides

seamless humanity plates shift

            overlapping

                        over

                                    me:      the weeds in the cracks

landlocked, I confess, but still I am shackled aflame

Savannah Slone is a queer writer who is completing her M.F.A. in the Pacific Northwest. Her poetry and short fiction has appeared in or will soon appear in Heavy Feather Review, Boston Accent Lit, The Airgonaut, Ghost City Press, decomP magazinE, Maudlin House, FIVE:2:ONE, Pidgeonholes, TERSE Journal, Glass, and elsewhere. She enjoys reading, knitting, hiking, and discussing intersectional feminism. You can read more of her work at www.savannahslonewriter.com.