Serita McKenzie
- Summer Nights Till Fall
We lived for those moments on our concrete stoop, where our days became ashes in a filter and our nights fell in the middle of the street where we stood, palms out to allow our usually clenched fists to slacken. How does my entire world manage to wrap itself around him? I wasn't looking when I found this infatuation, and I didn't expect to find his eyes right in front of mine when I lifted my gaze...
Serita McKenzie
- Lukewarm Regret
Numb for the foreseeable future. No fantasies left fulfillable. Daydreams and night terrors weave themselves in and out of reality. The fears that once lived dwelling deep in darkness have found the sunbathed surface. They're everywhere; melting on the sidewalks in the smothering heat. Draped over the backs of chairs. A longing for something unidentifiable compacted under layers of uncertainty and denial.
Serita Mckenzie
- Wax
Beneath me I feel anger lurking, this recognizable pang that sets fire to me, so I write a poem. My words ball up inside of me, a fist that is constantly opening and closing, and I'm concerned that if I release them with the intensity they strike me with, will the language burn the reader, too? I can't go on with these words and thoughts scorching my mind, a tiny tealight candle melting through the very thoughts that lit it. Other than the inferno, my mind is plain, infested with usual thoughts.
Serita McKenzie
- Erupt
Control is something I no longer have; I am all blaze, and my heart is the source of this heat, charred on the surface but churning beneath with molten lava, pumping ashes through my veins. My chest explodes into flames just beneath the skin, and the fire climbs down to my gut, cooling into a glassy block of obsidian. I can't control the course of the heat nor the weight of this stone, the numbness I feel as it sits compared to this churning fire. A glass of cold water helps the burning subside.
