NEW-AGE VAMPIRE

Allegheny College

There once was a girl whose blood was magic. So, she gave

and gave and gave until her lips trembled, pale, and still it wasn’t enough

to save everyone. Sometimes the plants on the windowsill die, even

when you water them like it’s your religion, pressing banana peel into the soil, and still they stretch,

aching, towards the sun. We are all pieced together, threads in the world’s patchwork quilt,

and sometimes I take and take, suck the oxygen from the air before my rosemary, my thyme, my violet

can breathe. I know this: breathing is not easy to do when there is a snake on your breast, poised to strike.

Open the blinds. Let me swallow the sunlight, let me brush the taste of dying from my tongue.