SELF-PORTRAIT AS DAMAGED GOODS

                    by Logan February 

You know, I was a muse once,
but let’s not begin with history.

Or anatomy, in fact.

These organs have been bartered
endlessly, going from hand to hand

to mouth and lingering between teeth--
this body, broken more times than the bone

that resides within, each time
a different person’s communion.

I am the shriveled hallelujah
that never leaves the mouth.

Something blessed, a kiss goodbye
with lips the color of a fresh bruising.

No, let’s not start here. Not with anatomy.

The true beginning is with language.
I am common noun, boy, obsessed

with accumulating adjectives
that translate to sad.

I am lost somewhere in the translation.
My heart is a place with no native tongue.

Look at that, we’re back again at anatomy.

My body begs to be known. Charted.
Let’s try geography because I need

to escape. I am badlands, red dust, war-torn.
I am torn. I am torn. It comes back to the body,

cerebral shrine with no goddess. An emptiness.
I am obsessed with not existing in flesh

because two shades of smoke collided
and gave birth to me, this nameless thing.

All body and no soul— a seething brilliance.
No, let’s not begin here.

No, let’s not begin with the body.

No, let’s not begin at all.

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photo by Akintomiwa Akin-Onigbinde

Logan February is a happy-ish Nigerian owl who likes pizza & typewriters. He is Co-Editor-In-Chief of The Ellis Review. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tinderbox, Wildness, Glass, Bateau, and more. He is author of How to Cook a Ghost (Glass Poetry Press 2017) & Painted Blue with Saltwater (Indolent Books 2018). Say hello on Instagram & Twitter @loganfebruary.