daughter, decayed

 

daughter, decayed

 

i wish i had hugged my mother

            yesterday.

then my bile would taste less like hot metal

            and instead the gentle memories of

her warmth.

            maybe the thoughts that hang in my throat

would have gone home with her

instead of embedding under my skin

and crawling

            between my rotting teeth.

           

            my tongue is swollen with promise and

i’m filling with rust again.

 

  

 

Samantha Paige Maskell

  

Samantha Paige Maskell is a student of several years and a poet of many more. Their work fiercely examines their experiences with sexuality and mental illness, considering the details of sapphism and depression with words of gentle discomfort and warm repose. They published their first collection, laden with rust, in 2017 with Createspace Independent Publishing. They are forever grateful to their mother, their father, the friends that shaped them and the lovers that broke them so they could put themselves back together through words.