I Wear My Grandmother’s Necklace Two Days After I Call the Suicide Crisis Line

I’ve never liked my neck much in it, but it doesn’t matter.
I’d rather feel you beating against my throat when I walk
than my hands against the soundproof glass,
miming an SOS to the praying mantis on the other side.
The night I called from an empty classroom,
I dreamt my throat was stuffed with long yellow feathers.
I split my arms till they became wings,
did a danse macabre off the tallest building I could find.
Anything, anything to stop my headless shadow.
The next day the sun shone as if I wasn’t
a crater with a body, hollowed out
by foreign palms searching my wounds.
They left the pulp on a conference room table
for me to scoop into a mason jar.
It’s sat on my nightstand ever since,
muted buzzes coming from under the lid.
Today I revel in our shared names,
try to handle myself the way you held
the fledgling in the front yard,
make myself believe I deserve cupped hands, soft edges.
Above all, that even betrayed by my own scent,
you would have loved me anyway.

Auden Eagerton is a non-binary poet located in Kennesaw, Georgia. They received a Bachelor of Arts in English, as well as a minor in Film Studies, at Kennesaw State University. Their interests lie heavily in studying American literature and poetry. In addition to publishing their own poetry, Eagerton aims to one day become an editor for a literary magazine and be involved in both sides of the publishing process. Their work has been featured in Exhume Literary Journal, Cathexis Northwest Press, LandLocked Magazine, Across the Margin, DASH Literary Journal, The Bookends Review, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Digging Through the Fat/Digging Press, and is upcoming in peculiar, The Meadow, and Kudzu.

 

 

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