"// hold //" & "him" by Michael Russell

// hold //

home / as duelist kingdom / where yu-gi-oh cards revive / a zombie dragon / with red eyes / it doesn’t matter / the hurdles / when atlanteans & amazons roam / the field / attack / defend / their tribes / or how machine / angels coexist / the ancient gears click / a chaos giant / shimmering / beneath the off-white animal / of lunalight / whenever i draw a harpie queen / i send her to the grave / paint the landscape / into hunting ground / i promise / i’ll rip the throat / off anything / that tries to take this away / from us /

him

do not speak of

(all the ways / i etched the same river / into my skin / split canyon / my forearm with razors / like splitting / the red sea / you know / he’d f*** me up / if i called myself moses / called myself manic / with god / shoot / after he left me / the seventh time / my ears filled like speakers / & adele kept singing / go on & take it all / until frazey ford shuffled in / i was taking every hit / from him / drive by shooting / son of a bitch / i’m done / woah / i’m done / with everything / he is everything i am / everything he said i am / i must be oh gosh / we don’t toss language on that / when we listened / to ariana grande’s dangerous woman / he blasted the volume / blasted his foot / on the gas / my highway rocket / man & shook / his palm against my thigh / squeezed or tried / to porcupine a fist / no / we don’t toss language on him / no / not him / not)

him

*The first set of italics is lifted from the song “Take it All” by Adele while the second set is lifted from the song “Done” by Frazey Ford