prayer to a boy ~ poetry by Megan Archibeque

prayer to a boy

my worn out band-aid collector of a heart
has tricked my mind into believing you
are a wasteland god

my lover of unresolved and unforgiven
screaming matches without oxygen
i’ll lay my rotting sentences before your altar
a shower head unhurriedly dripping my blood
and pray pray pray pray pray
in chewing fingernails
looking away quietly
falling to my knees
screaming

oh god! in a thrifted sweater
oh god! in a honey-soaked memory
of a hotel room

bees are crawling from the furnace
from the drain
from your pretty mouth too

i’ll scrape the honey out if you like?
so sticky and so stuck
stuck
stickers only half scraped off car windows

wasteland god your world is rank
pills scattered like toenails
a stitch-mouthed monster in every cave waiting
those razor flames licked my ankles again
i put them out by delicately dripping sugar
off my tongue

see how sweet these words can be
if you would only listen

oh god
your world is full of dead messenger birds
their feathers float in the hot winds
that stir up all this stale air of ours

my lover of bee stings and paper tongues
i am a silver teaspoon
in an ashtray
preserved by expired honey

Megan Archibeque is a writer of fantasy, science fiction and poetry. She graduated from Boise State University with a BFA in creative writing. This is her first publication.