Lizzy Ke Polishan

here is the end of everything

you wanted                  to leave
       you alone.

hold the ache in the empty
space in your body, where everything

that scared             you used to live.
      once, you

tried to swallow your shadow,
you were so afraid
    of being
all alone.

the shadow kept sliding off the spoon.

the loneliness      grew wings

inside your body
that beat against your body’s inside.

you grew accustomed to the beating
of the wings:                something trapped

     that thought it needed to break
you to break free.             all you had
             to do was open
           your mouth.

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Lizzy Ke Polishan’s recent poems appear in or are forthcoming from: Waxwing, Gulf Coast, Epoch, Passages North, Dialogist, Poet Lore, Rhino, petrichor and Black Warrior Review, among many others. She is the Managing Editor of River & South Review. She reads for Psaltery & Lyre, is a Guest Editor at Palette Poetry and is the author of the collection A Little Book of Blooms (2020). She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband.