by Isabella Ayers

i love a man who takes what he wants,
i leave my body so you can use it.
have your fun. I’m listening to the cicadas
and trying not to taste you.
i’m making constellations
in the popcorn ceiling
and waiting for my cigarette.
i’ll be okay. if not now, soon.
i just have to wait until winter,
wait for snow.

maybe that night you will taste like magic
and my doubt will drain
like blood from a stone. make me clean
as the white sheets that do not
yet hold our footprints.

for tonight, the air is too humid for you to hold me.
the power is out, the fireflies waltz
in the absence of street lamps.
we do not watch.

Isabella Ayers is a biochemistry major at Charleston Southern University seeking to pursue a poetry MFA upon graduation. She is highly involved in creative writing communities on campus as an editor for Olive & Ash magazine and a board member of Writer’s Guild. She has been published multiple times in Olive & Ash and received the annual Gilmore Creative Writing award for her work. In her spare time, she sings in an Orthodox church choir, wanders aimlessly in dense forests at night, and collects the bones of dead animals.