Purple

Purple

by Kristin Garth

for Harold (from the abused muses/crayons everywhere)

Hold me so gentle while we play pretend.

Outline a sky with my viscera shaped

into a friend. Unpeel me. Careful. Skin

my skeleton — paper, wound around grape

wax gelatin. Discard my defenses. Pick

me, slick, up between two fingers, a thumb,

my paraffin softening. Candlestick

creating you a sun of innards, plum

pigmented, familiar, despised — released

with ease to tile while closing your eyes. Sleep

on lavender stars — my blood drew each piece

with purpled flesh from fresh thuds while I keep

waiting awakening to your mistake.

Hold me as gentle as if I could break.

_________________________________________________

Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net & Rhysling nominated sonnet stalker. Her poetry has stalked magazines like Glass, Yes, Five:2: One, Former Cactus, Occulum & many more. She has six chapbooks including Shakespeare for Sociopaths (Hedgehog Poetry Press), Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), Puritan U (Rhythm & Bones Press March 2019) and The Legend of the Were Mer (Thirty West Publishing House March 2019). Her full length, Candy Cigarette Womanchild Noir is forthcoming April 2019 (The Hedgehog Poetry Press), and she has a fantasy collaborative full length A Victorian Dollhousing Ceremony forthcoming in June (Rhythm & Bones) and Flutter (TwistiT Press) in January 2020. Follow her on Twitter: (@lolaandjolie), and her website kristingarth.com.