Mollie Cohen Poetry 3rd Prize

Triptych of Consumption

Julia King

01. language is something i love i live and breathe it overwhelms me sends tremors through my body words can no words can’t what do they even do they capture the wounds inside of you and display them in dazzling technicolor but when unused, they sit and fester and there they go, rotting ceasing to serve any sort of purpose so then the complete fragility of language is revealed but oh how i love to hold it in my hands to roll it across my tongue and relish in its aftertaste can you smell it on my breath? i hope you can.

02. i hear your voice and i want you to sing to me sing, rich and full and fall down my throat soothing my ache with your sweetness i take my life and i place it before you carry it where it needs to go lift me on high winds and lead me home

03. some days i wonder if you gently opened me would you find care instructions inside? would you read them, put them aside for future reference or discard them completely so that you can place your rules for care upon me so that we heal in the same way does that mean we are one and the same? does your ambition to swallow me whole only persist if you can only taste yourself on your tongue?