Goodnight Kiss

By Kylie Ayn Yockey

My dying breath is spent
saying that I love death.

Look
at the crying faces, look
at the tears—

I am the center
of this purgatory,
and I control who lives
and dies here

Rough

By Kylie Ayn Yockey

Pinned between your heated legs, I think you think this is a battle. You squeeze thunder from my

hips and bite lightning down my spine, a storm of licks and nips instead a whirlwind of fists and

kicks. I was not trained or coached or any type of prepared for this onslaught—I barely get my

hits in, as you hold my wrists above my head. I got to undo your black belt but that’s all the

agency you gave me, everything else is refereed by you. I’m not even breaking a sweat while

you pummel into my weakest spots like you are trying to break me.

The Tip of my cigarette is the Great Fire of London

By Kylie Ayn Yockey

With these little tobacco firefighters

I will drown my burning,

the siren in me screaming:

I am weak

The smoke from my tiny firestorm

reeks my hair like open graves.

I see the headstones clearly through the haze:

here lies dignity hope love strength

My lungs beg for air

but I just keep filling them

with more charring houses—

I have no control

I think my attack is finally extinguished

at the butt of this tragedy,

only to feel my heart pick up wind:

london bridge is falling down falling down falling falling down down down

Addicted to arson,

I light another

to kill my corpses.

Kylie Ayn Yockey is a queer southern creative with a BA in Creative Writing & Literature. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Glyph, Meow Meow Pow Pow, Night Music Journal, Gravitas, Ordinary Madness, The Stray Branch, Not Very Quiet, Prismatica, Gingebread House, Butter Press, honey & lime, and Capulet Mag. She has edited for Glyph Magazine, The Louisville Review, Ink & Voices, and is poetry editor for Blood Tree Literature. You can keep up up to date with Kylie by visitng her website http://www.kylieaynyockey.com and following Kylie on social media. https://www.instagram.com/kylieaynyockey http://kylieaynyockey.tumblr.com

KylieAynYockey poetry