Mary from The Underground downtown, you are red
and chunky. When you turn
around I watch the bounce of
your curls, feel them catch
in my throat as you slide down.
I chuckle with you that you are
red, and so is my drink
red, and so is your heart
red, and so are the marks on
my arm from the time I tried to
red, it never healed.
Acidic tomato, puree pustules bursting caustic
against my tongue and salt,
sizzling like hot coals against wet
lips, humming tastebuds dancing
on their tips while heat
plumes up the vent of
my nose. I’m concentrated to-
ward the coldness, numb bitterness but there’s
a lingering sweetness from the
natural tomato, natural to-you-too—
is your blood as sweet?
You are gritty and erratic and
that’s what I like about you;
your thick red drips down your temples
and it’s not because you had a
good dye job, its because you had a
bad one—
your knuckles like gnarled
roots were digging into
your curls, red.
Later, you will lie between my
knees and I will dig my fingers like
knives into your scalp and
make follicled leather ooze
red, making
a ganache of it, making
a lamp of you, making
your skull glow like frosted
bone pane, scraping every bit of flesh up under
my nail and flicking it away.
See me in mirror through a maze
of liquor, see me slasher
in every cold, metallic surface you luster
know that tonight I will appear
before it, mumbling your name
and scratching at my
skin, bursting blood vessels
like the ones that should
be afloat in my drink.
Not bloody enough.
3/5 stars.
Writer | Katelyn Parrott ‘27E | kparrott27@amherst.edu
Editor | Ava Nair ‘28 | anair28@amherst.edu