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Rachel Van Blankenship

Her Hamster Devoured Its Young

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There were no fragments to bury
under the apricot tree
No mourning her disembodied family.
She grew into her eyelashes
She shed her father's eyes
pawning the lapis
as passage to her mother's side.

Suicide too dark
Maybe hit by a car, she'd survive?
The father never noticed
the billboard in his bed
selling her chest in desperation.

Her first lovers were stuffed
humping animals
a beak, a paw, a wing
Hips, pocket knives
whittling.


The Doctor Says I'm Fine

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Exposed
a forest razed.
A woman's bush in the mirror
Exposed
like cut skin.
There's exposed and bleeding
and exposed and bleeding like my legs
wide open
a fruit pit's center
inflamed eye
seeds without orbit inside.
He and I have names for them.
We have names for children that don't exist.
Della, Jack.
Quick.
pull them out.
Hunchbacked
her head, his hands,
her voice unformed
the likeness of me
of you.
Quick.
pull them out
watch them scatter in the light.


Combustion

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No matter what I do
fuck, lie, put my mouth on dirty toys
my mother will always love me.
What would I have to do
to make her not?

My hand runs over your arm like a piston.
Gears lock
teeth tangle and release
a confused connection
deep, unspoken like trees.

I wish I wasn't high
I wish
you were high from me.

It's a slingshot
our bodies thrust in the air,
a drunk weightlessness.
We are nerves, ten tons
we are gasoline
Bones and steel
spewing flint sparks and steam.


Dying Star

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What happened to us? The wonder? The fruit?
Our decay seeps past the bruise.
Muscle. Ivory bone no more
but darkening.

Press the buttons. Press them down.
Yellow seeps in too around the rim.
A dying star of skin.
Are we dying?

Hope sloughs off. Cells I'll never get back.
Just dust, it's all dust in corner cracks.
The house moved and empty. Corner cracks
are always forgotten.

I love you.
I love more
than I can. I love
foundations and falling off. I love
exposed nerves like bright red anemones. I love
and it makes me sick.
I'm sorry I feel more than I control.
My eyes blue with wild, the turning I am
under a moon.
The stinging bee's kiss. It's such a beautiful bee
and for one moment we're a vibrant vein on a wing


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