Featured Poet: J L Farmer with "the american scream"

the american scream

you always were my favourite
little shoegazer
even when you were
standing there
with the tears in your eyes
and your irises
pooling at your feet
telling me that we'd been all we were meant to be
and your thin voice disappeared
behind your thin hands
i still loved you
through the cracks between your fingers
but everything we did
was so small town
and there has been nothing
american dream about this place since
you landed on my tongue

like doomsday beach and we started
waging these tiny cold wars behind our teeth
it's no wonder the secrets our throats harbour
sleep in winter clothes and we have warheads
for hearts that only know how to wield love
like a nuclear deterrent
so we became an arms race
to someone else whose embrace
might be able to hold one of us together

remember
when we swore
wild horses couldn't tear us apart
when did you decide to let go
of not letting go
remember
when you swore
you would tear down the theocracy
of folded hands and bloody knuckles
that baptised me in sorrow
when did you decide you wanted to hold me
under too

you know
i used to love the way you made everything look
so effortless
until you did it with walking away as well
and although i'd never say
you turned my chest into a ghost town
i know why they're called that
now
it's like something detonated
in my chest
and you couldn't bear to live there anymore
and i swear
the streetlights in this place
never hung their heads
until you left

j.l.f