inter-dimensional lullaby / sleep regression III
Kailey Tedesco
Artwork by indigo c.
Kailey Tedesco is the author of She Used to be on a Milk Carton (April Gloaming Publishing), Lizzie, Speak (winner of White Stag’s 2018 MS Contest), and FOREVERHAUS (White Stag Publishing). She is a senior editor for Luna Luna Magazine and an active member of the Horror Writers Association. You can find her work featured in Electric Literature, Fairy Tale Review, Gigantic Sequins, The Journal, and more. For further information, please visit kaileytedesco.com.
donning a nightie at bedtime, i die
once again—cherubs,
dyed golden, come ribboning, tear
from my face. the lace of my merrywidow
cuts me to shards. some things are not meant
for shadows, yet still
they asphyxiate, ophelia my eyelids
blossoms stye-ing.
in the marsupial future i grow
you within me, then you grow
old & deliver me back from the land
of the dead: a hor de oeuvres
on a platter, the time of me
murdered & egg-whipped. we share between us
a secret song, reverse-labor,
collapsing taps upon a hospital table. it was my insides
that
made a psychic out of eyeballs—mythmaking,
all the bedrooms of my life
into scabs along my chest. i can taste the wallpaper,
your nursery muslin,
the inside of my own cheek
the night before your birth.